Finding Our Way...

After much frustration on the part of my students, I am happy to say we made some adjustments, and things are better. I initially tried to do the tutorials in a straightforward way by having the students work them independently. This generally caused much frustration, lots of question-asking, and led to lots of cries for help. Last week, I only had the students four days due to an ISE Day on Friday, so I started over with the "Imagining Your Game" tutorial on Monday and had students do two things differently. They pulled up Flash (which we had just gotten the Friday before) and put it beside the tutorial. They also worked with a partner. This allowed them to read a step and then try it out. It also meant that if they were unclear about something, they could discuss it. This made a huge difference. We spent the rest of the week completing the tutorial, creating images, and writing ideas for game concepts. We took a very negative atmosphere the week before and turned it around this past week. What a relief!

Frustration

Today my students began to look at the initial Flash tutorials. While a couple of them seemed to take everything in stride, even those things they weren't familiar with, the majority expressed some frustration. They reported feeling uneasy because they didn't really understand what it was trying to show them. I am becoming somewhat concerned about the structure of the class and its appropriateness (in current structure) for middle school. This program is set up for students to be self-paced and self-learners. It is very appropriate for older students such as high school and college-aged students. Middle School students, however, at ages 12-13 years, are not developmentally in the same place. That doesn't mean they aren't capable; it simply means that the average middle school student will need more support and guidance than a student in high school and college. They are not developmentally in the same place, nor are they in the same place in regard to maturity. I feel this is a valid concern, and it warrants some consideration.
Overall today, I had several very frustrated individuals in class. I understand their frustration and will try to continue to think about ways to decrease those negative feelings as we begin to delve into Flash. We will pick up where we left off with this first tutorial on Monday. Maybe by the end of the week, students will feel more knowledgeable and more positive.

Holding Pattern

This week has been such a crazy week with regard to our schedule that we really feel as if we are in a holding pattern. Our students have been involved in field testing the Westest 2 for the State Department of Education. This field test has required schedule adjustments, and the school has focused on squeezing in the required academic classes, and even those have had to be shortened. Tomorrow will be the first day in several days that I have been able to see my students with no interruptions and have a normal class period. We are ready to start looking at some of the Flash tutorials, and I am interested in seeing how my students react. I hope to have them look at the first one, and then I want them to blog about what they think. We will be having Flash installed tomorrow, and we hope to be able to put it on the computers actually in my classroom which would eliminate the necessity of moving into the Computer Lab each day.