So my husband sent me this link today from work. He thought I would be particularly interested in the portion that discusses one teacher who works his classroom on an XP (eXperience Points) system and how the students respond so well to that system.
My response: "But... that's just how grading works." And it's true. For those of us who use a numerical system to do our grading, we're - in essence - giving our students XP. Class is a game.
Here's the gist:
- the student earns XP for every assignment, class, comment, etc.
- the student "levels-up" throughout the semester from zero (F) to whatever grade they earn at the end of the course
- as they pass each "level," they can choose to stop earning XP, or to keep going (the only possible downside to this is that many classes cannot be passed until the final assignment, so a teacher may need to start with level "Z" and work up to show progress)
- the class is designed to outfit the student for the next game chapter: a 300-level course instead of a 100-level, the second semester in a sequence, or even that most terrifying of boss battles, "real life"
- students with the most XP are the best equipped to handle future game chapters - they have the weapons of knowledge, grammar, communication skills, organization, practical skills, etc.
- when students are being chosen for teams (jobs, grad schools, law schools), they are evaluated as desirable if they have more XP - and therefore better weapons and skill-sets - than other players
And the game doesn't end with the first job. Every aspect of our lives revolves around XP - you get hired based on your experience with a particular type of problem; you have training missions designed to give you a tiny bit of XP so that you can handle the next level; once you've done the lower-level jobs, you have enough XP to move up in the job-levels of a business. You can even choose to do something games don't let you (yet, though XBOX's gamer-points are coming close), and take that XP to another game!
The key thing is - we don't think about our "lives" that way.
In the twenty-first century, the world is no longer a stage - it's a console, and all the men and women are merely players.
"Words fly up, my thoughts remain below."
black and white, Angels and demons.
We aren't two sides of the same coin.
We're the gold into which those sides are imprinted."
Monday, February 22, 2010
Friday, February 19, 2010
Spines and Bindings
So this week's theme - aside from grading - has been books. Not a surprising thing, given my choice of profession, really. But I've been reading The Book on the Bookshelf by Henry Petroski, and we recently began a lengthy process of replacing all of our mismatched shelves with matching ones.
As a bibliophile, I like owning books. I like owning pretty books, old books, and books that I enjoyed reading. To this day, my favorite Christmas present was given to me at the age of 12, and is my facsimile copy of Shakespeare's first Folio. I adore that book (and it's damn useful in my line of study).
But I'm not the kind of book person who can't stand the thought of marring my books. I take care of my old books, yes, but my paperbacks... I use my books. I write in them. I dogear the pages. I highlight, underline, scribble, and circle. I break their spines. I use tape to hold together the covers when they start to tear and fall off. As far as I'm concerned, a pristine book is like a new stuffed animal - pretty, but clearly unloved.
Hypocritically, of course, I hate reading books other people have marked. Not because I'm appalled at the fact that they "defaced" a book, but because the underlining and words are not mine. I'm a selfish book-scribbler. I want the only words in the book (besides the author's, of course) to be mine.
In the heady days of Kindle and Nook and the iPad - to say nothing of the yet-to-be-released Overbook - some people say that books will become passe. That paper and ink will be replaced - as papyrus and vellum were - with a screen. I think that for most pleasure reading, devices like this will become common.
But for those of us in the business of books - for students, teachers, professors - the paper copies will continue to be needed. We need texts that cannot be accidentally deleted or erased due to a bug. We need our notes to survive. We need to remember the layout of the page, to be able to flip to a passage marked with a dogear or flag, to know what we thought when we read it the first or third or tenth time over.
And some of us will always crave the feel of a book in our hands. There is something comforting, something visceral about a book that no Kindle or Nook will ever match. Not to say that I won't buy one someday myself, but somehow a small ereader just isn't the same as a paperback. The thickness that tells us how much we have left to explore. The rough softness of paper pulp in our fingers. Even the black dust of ink-stain on our fingertips. Tangible words that don't disappear into black or white when we hit a button, but stay, quietly waiting, for our eyes to release them again.
As a bibliophile, I like owning books. I like owning pretty books, old books, and books that I enjoyed reading. To this day, my favorite Christmas present was given to me at the age of 12, and is my facsimile copy of Shakespeare's first Folio. I adore that book (and it's damn useful in my line of study).
But I'm not the kind of book person who can't stand the thought of marring my books. I take care of my old books, yes, but my paperbacks... I use my books. I write in them. I dogear the pages. I highlight, underline, scribble, and circle. I break their spines. I use tape to hold together the covers when they start to tear and fall off. As far as I'm concerned, a pristine book is like a new stuffed animal - pretty, but clearly unloved.
Hypocritically, of course, I hate reading books other people have marked. Not because I'm appalled at the fact that they "defaced" a book, but because the underlining and words are not mine. I'm a selfish book-scribbler. I want the only words in the book (besides the author's, of course) to be mine.
In the heady days of Kindle and Nook and the iPad - to say nothing of the yet-to-be-released Overbook - some people say that books will become passe. That paper and ink will be replaced - as papyrus and vellum were - with a screen. I think that for most pleasure reading, devices like this will become common.
But for those of us in the business of books - for students, teachers, professors - the paper copies will continue to be needed. We need texts that cannot be accidentally deleted or erased due to a bug. We need our notes to survive. We need to remember the layout of the page, to be able to flip to a passage marked with a dogear or flag, to know what we thought when we read it the first or third or tenth time over.
And some of us will always crave the feel of a book in our hands. There is something comforting, something visceral about a book that no Kindle or Nook will ever match. Not to say that I won't buy one someday myself, but somehow a small ereader just isn't the same as a paperback. The thickness that tells us how much we have left to explore. The rough softness of paper pulp in our fingers. Even the black dust of ink-stain on our fingertips. Tangible words that don't disappear into black or white when we hit a button, but stay, quietly waiting, for our eyes to release them again.
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