Tuesday, February 3, 2009
AWNM 2 Play
Lucy Gray: Lucy Gray is the Lead Technology Coach at the Center for Urban School Improvement at the University of Chicago. In her current role, she is responsible for the development of a technology professional development program on three University of Chicago Charter School campuses. Lucy also supports technology integration efforts at the North Kenwood/Oakland Charter School. She is also an Apple Distinguished Educator.
Jeff Whipple: Moving from his role as a lead teacher in Nashwaaksis Middle's 1:1 lapop program, Jeff is now a Technology Learning Mentor at Nashwaaksis Middle School, where he works with teachers and students to help them leverage the power of connectivity into their learning. He also is a part-time instructor at the University of New Brunswick, where he facilitates two undergraduate courses for pre-service teachers in using web-based learning tools.
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3 comments:
I believe that one reason that people like to play is that it gives them a heightened sense of themselves. An example of this is role playing (many games are this way). Children love to play games like cops and robbers where they are playing role of another. They feel much important when they are trying to save the world because what they are doing gives them a feeling of doing something more important. Just like how Sammie said that there is not much point to playing games if they don’t relate to reality.
Whose job is it to bring play into work? I think that it should be a communal effort. Just like school it is everyone that is involved, job or responsibility to make the system in which they live best suited for themselves and others. I also agree with both Ashley and Smith that the boss should let it be okay to play but the employees need to contribute.
Earlier in the Design fishbowl we talked about how good design can help to inspire the people in that environment and also make them feel just all around better. So, I think that adding play into an environment would help productivity. Just like the Pixar picture, probably the feeling that a person receives is a reflection of the environment that they are in.
I agree with Bayley about how friendship is based more on work then play. Many people befriend another because they believe that it will give them a “step-up” to have that connection. But, I also think that people are working so much that most of their friends are actually from their work and the only time that they get to see them is during those stressful work times.
I do think that play can be bad but most of the harmless play that is discouraged on a normal basis is not. It is a way to translate our feelings in a different way by use of another outlet.
Yeah, I guess I was absent. Here are my thoughts on Play, and what it means to me... :D.
Play to me is like stress relief, it’s the ability to just renew yourself. I know that my ideas on play would be entirely to help myself calm down after a stressful week, month, year, whatever. My friends and I are masters at play, however unusual that may seem. I mean, we are able to laugh our faces off without even having to try. We have so many inside jokes, which form unintentionally. We are always dancing and raving with one another. My friends especially taught me how to live without having to worry about, well, anything. It was something that I had to learn. With the friends that I had had in the past, the idea of having play was very abstract, if not completely lost. Drama seemed to plague what used to be fun. Without the ability to laugh things off, laugh at each other, it was like everything was taken so seriously.
I’m not again seriousness of course, it’s needed all of the time, but when it’s consistent, you lose something about your life. It’s like the seriousness of all situations seems to settle over you. It lays thick upon your mind, and stays. Frankly, it doesn’t go away. Things that should have been funny initially were suddenly becoming “offensive” and “bothersome”. They stuck around like an annoying fly, just waiting to be used as retaliation and an attack months and months later when yet another fight would arise. Play was completely lost. Why do you need play? It was not “cool”. I am now attributing the stress that I was in last year to my severe health problems that had such a huge impact on everything in my life, not only my social life.
Play has healed me – in many ways. When I hit the summer, ditched all thoughts of my supposed friends that had helped me screw up my own life, and started laughing actually laughing again, I found myself feeling unbelievably healthier. Whenever I feel sick, or I feel down, I just have to talk to my friends, and it’s like those problems are washed away. I’m always in a bad mood when I am kept from my friends for too long, and I never have to search why. I guess my form of play is my friends , and like I said, play to me is the ability to be relieved of stress. It’s a wonderful feeling, honestly.
So I was absent the day of this fishbowl, and I just went through, and responded to the main ideas discussed.
Alex(on having a whole regular school day of play)- I think that depends on what you consider play. Let’s say in Spanish you play vocabulary bingo and battleship. Review jeopardy in math. In bio lab you create a plant out of junk. Watch a cartoon in history. Spend English playing games on your laptop while listening to the lecture. Wow, a whole day of play! Some people might say that this is not actually play, but it’s sure not work! No doubt you would not choose to do these things in your spare time, but nonetheless, I say it’s a form of play. You are still learning about the parts of a plant, stem changing verbs, propaganda etc., but in an entertaining and playful way.
On the poll results of time spent gaming per week-I thought the question about gaming times had very interesting results. Most of the class played a lot or none. If it’s not interesting to you, then you won’t tend to do it. As lame as this comparison is, gaming is like playing an instrument. If you don’t do it very often, it’s hard to get good at it. So basically the results say the people who like videogames, the people who don’t, and the people who don’t take it very seriously. Don’t get me wrong, videogaming is a form of play to me, and I’ve never played WOW, Rune Scape, or even Halo. I only play a few video games, but I am great at all of them. I can totally p0wn collage boys at super smash brothers, and I a pretty good at guitar hero, if I do say so myself. Other than that, I play one computer game, and drink it dry of Easter eggs and race through the levels with my ergonomic keyboard. But they are just games, and although greatly entertaining, I could live without playing. So I think it’s something you either love, or hate, whether you take things seriously or not.
On “is play important in school”-Play is important mostly because our performance is less if we don’t occasionally kick back and play. Incorporating play into learning also makes it more fun, and participation goes up. However, play does not have to be incorporated into classes, because that’s what weekends are for. Weekends have a tendency to get sucked up by sleeping in, sports, and homework. I have heard from many a teacher that “around this time of year, students start living from break to break.” All students can guess that this time is toward the end of the year, right before the final push. I think long weekends and other time off is necessary for long term, essentially sanity. Life comes at us teenagers frighteningly fast, and although an afternoon of veging out might dissolve the week’s tensions, we need longer breaks from school to amass some energy and motivation for the upcoming weeks, and have some fun. So basically I think that play has more of an effect when used outside of school than in.
On “we do better when we are having fun”- I think that really depends what you are trying to be good at. If you are having fun doing something, then obviously you want to do it, so you have the motivation to do it well. But also, when you are having fun doing something, you aren’t completely stressed about it. At dive meets, instead of sitting there fretting, we completely goof off, check out the spectators, and generally make total nuisances of ourselves. This way you are totally stress free, and ready to go kick butt. So in this sense play does help us do better, but I really can’t think another one that isn’t almost exactly the same.
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