Yesterday, I spent the day at Carrollton-Farmers Branch school district in suburban Dallas, Texas. I haven’t seen such a forward thinking and forward reaching school district within the boundaries of the United States, in … I don’t remember when. Not only are the embracing Web 2.0, but their CTO took representatives, including teachers, to the Web 2.0 Expo in California.
I was there to talk about video games, and start some conversations about how they might integrate games, or at least some of the elements of gaming into their school culture. One of the schools I visited focuses on multimedia. In a sense, it reminded me of a music school with single practice rooms, where individual students could check in for personal practice. This school, however, had Edit Suites, small rooms with video and audio editing stations. I loved it.
The best part was a chance to talk with some of the students. Some of my take-aways included the student who talked about how he expored the gaming sites that had instructions for moding the video games that he played. I accused him of cheating, and he said —
That’s not cheating! that’s programming!
Now technically, it’s not programming. But somehow, in a broader sense, it seems like a wholy appropriate term. Another student, when askied why he was interested in a carreer in video games, said, It’s about entertainment, and entertainment is universal.
The best was a young man who, when asked what he liked about this school, talked about how there were so many other students here who understood him. Then he said,
There isn’t a problem that I can’t find someone at this school to help me solve.
I can’t think of a better compliment to pay to any school.
Finally, walking into my Courtyard Hotel room yesterday evening, I saw this (picture above). Does this look like an aging, ex boxer, rabbit waiting for me to arrive? — or have I been on the road too long?
I think the critter in the photo looks like a towel cat. Instructions for how to fold a towel cat (and several other animals) can be found at WikiHow (http://www.wikihow.com/Fold-a-Towel-Cat). Jo Schiffbauer
David, I’m curious — was that student pursuing game modding as a purely extracurricular activity, or was it tied to classwork as part of the school’s multimedia focus?
To my knowledge, it was an extracurricular activity. We were trying to get a picture of what students spent their time doing, with information and communication technologies, outside of class.
— dave —
David,
I, too, have been very impressed by what I’ve learned of what is happening with technology at CFB. I attended a session on a summer tech camp the district does that makes extensive use of GPS devices. I had previously been skeptical as to their usefulness in the curriculum, but CFB’s program immersed the kids in real-world problem solving using the devices, and involved community members who utilized the devices on a daily basis in their work. This week, I was presenting a session on uStream and Yahoo!Live, and a teacher from CFB shared with me his school’s weekly broadcasts using uStream. The district is truly setting a tremendous standard for the rest of us to follow. After reading your post, I’ll be talking to my director about scheduling a field trip to the district to pick up a few more pointers. Thanks for sharing this!