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So, in case I haven’t told you, or you haven’t noticed on Facebook or Twitter, I’m now a student.  Again.  I’m a doctoral student in Educational Psychology at the University of Illinois at Chicago’s College of Education.  I’m going part-time, while working full-time at the CTC.  If I finish, it would be in 7 years; I will be 40.  It won’t be easy, and I’m still not positive I can do it.  But luckily, my family, friends and coworkers are incredibly supportive, so I’m going to give it my best shot.

I started with a class in Essentials of Quantitative Inquiry in Education (otherwise known as basic stats) this past summer, which was a rough introduction, but I was able to get through with a good instructor and patience from everyone around me.  I am now in Cognition and Instruction with Dr. Gavelek, a class I adore, even though I’m not entirely sure I know what we’re talking about half of the time; and Proseminar in Educational Psychology with Dr. Thorkildsen, which is proving to be super helpful figuring out why I am doing what I am doing and how I should go about doing it.

Anyhow, I’m very excited and scared and happy and everything … it’s going to be quite a trip.

All of my grandparents were pretty amazing people.  My Abuelita Chela (my dad’s mom) was amazing at crochet and cooking (she would make me the best dulce de leche, even though it would burn her hands every time she made it).  She was also a violinist and a schoolteacher (education is very much in my blood).  Little did I know that she was also a poet.  Here is one poem my aunt found, abut her beloved Cuba.  It’s so sad that after she left in 1961, she would never see it again.

Anoranza
Maria del Carmen Ramirez Garcia Aza

On Saturday, I drove up to Madison with my colleague, Wendy Thomas, and had the good fortune to attend the 2nd annual Games + Learning + Society Conference Educator Symposium. Although GLS has been around for 6 years, the Educator Symposium is still pretty new. And for only doing this once before, I had to say I was impressed. In one day, they packed in a great panel of educators using innovative technologies, a roundtable with researchers, and a hands-on workshop.

The panel was the first time I experienced Google Moderator, and I have to say, I really like it as a backchannel for conferences … mostly because it doesn’t stay in the back. By having audience members submit questions and like or dislike questions, we were able to shape the direction of the conversation without saying a word.

But the best part was the workshop on ARIS. ARIS is a platform for building mobile games built by a group of researchers at the University of Wisconsin’s Games, Learning and Society research group. It’s still in alpha, but an awesome kind of alpha it is. You can build your very own ARG in minutes, and it’s insanely fun to play. Because I was in the workshop, I’m part of the testing group, which is great: I can’t wait to start working with this.

Merlin John followed up his article for Futurelab with another piece on the Games Design Workshop on his own site, MerlinJohnOnline. In this article, you learn a little more about what I really found exciting about the course … that game design and teaching in an online format were really just vehicles for getting the students to be introspective about their educational path.

You also see a picture of me when I was 25.  I should demand that everyone use this photo from now on.

Woo! Merlin John has posted a great article about our games course in today’s Futurelab!   He did a great job of capturing the atmosphere of the class and boy, does he make me sound good!

There was lots of buzz about ITP this weekend.

First, NPR’s On the Media showed up at the Spring Show and had a great interview with some students and Clay Shirky.  Then, the BBC put on their front page a really nice slideshow of the Spring Show.

Both of these stories make any ITP alum super proud!  I wish I could do it over again!

Today, Noah Swinney Stein and I went to Curie Metro High School to show them what was possible with the digital visualizers (document cameras) that CTC loaned the school.  Noah brought a bunch of compost and I brought the camera, and together, we zoomed in on what looked like a pile of dirt and exposed a world teeming with maggots, worms and mites.  The students were horrified and excited, and wanted to learn more about how composting works, and about the lives of the little squishy guys they were seeing big and live.

Photo by Ian Usher

I can’t believe it, but another year came and went, and before I knew it, it was July and time again for the Adobe Education Leader Summer Institute.   This year was extra special, as a new group of Higher Education Adobe Education Leaders joined us K-12ers in San Jose.  The joining of the two groups was a brilliant move, with both groups learning from one another how we can all prepare students for the ever-evolving demands of the new workforce.  In addition, as everyone there noted, the Higher Eds were raising the bar on the presentations and the discussions we were having throughout the Institute.

Ian Usher and I, along with Greg Hodgson via video clips, presented on our Game Design Workshop.  Ian did an excellent job of formatting the presentation using different Connect layouts and our guest speakers (Colin Maxwell and two GDW students, Owyn and Rob) were wonderful at speaking a bit about their experience with the project.  We received excellent feedback from Adobe staff and fellow AELs.  We got great ideas for the future and made excellent connections with others interested in our concept.

Greg Hodgson and I are presenting the Game Design Workshop at the Creative Partnerships Conference today in the UK.  Well, I’m presenting by videoconference and Greg is there in person, but we’re hoping to spread the word about the wonderful experiences the students and we had during the the course.