Learning2gether episode #411

Hanaa Khamis, the Learning Technologies Special Interest Group (LTSIG) Coordinator and Professional Development (PD) Committee Chair in NileTESOL, invited me to present a one-hour webinar (interview style) to an audience of 16-18 who attended in Zoom on Wednesday, May 15, 2019. Hanaa produced a poster for the event:

The topic was: Gamification: Big ‘G’ vs. small ‘g’

The slides I used for this presentation are here:
https://docs.google.com/presentation/d/1hBbR2XfYu8e9slhEG1qkdABeT9h1sfOFn25Q7z3T4Fg/edit?usp=sharing

The Zoom chat logs are here. In this version I am writing in answers to questions that participants left in the chat during the event:
https://docs.google.com/document/d/1R1WVlLzpYfaTv_9Kn9IchudW35EHpx5Qpgp1N1eteCY/edit?usp=sharing
Check here if you asked a question 🙂

Although it was to be an interview, I prepared for the event by preparing the following show notes:

James Paul Gee has written for decades about game-based learning. To be clear, he rarely, if ever, mentions “gamification”. A search on his papers at his web site, https://jamespaulgee.com/ reveals no publications with the word “gamification” in the title. Nor, in the papers I have seen for which full text was available, could I find that word used in any of those publications. There is one slide where the use of the term is attributed to Gee (slide #3 here, where Gee is quoted as saying, without reference, that gamification “has been taken over, at least in America by business,” though I can’t get any hits on these exact words, apart from to this slide, by Googling that quote). Apart from that I’ve come up with nothing from Gee on the record that I have seen so far specifically mentioning gamification. This does not mean that the topic has not been touched on by such a prolific writer on games in learning, but only that it has been hard for me to find where he has addressed the issue.

Gee is known, among other things, for cogently articulating 32 principles of game-based learning, given in Gee (2008b), distilled into the 16 principles listed on the Legends of Learning blog, here:
https://www.legendsoflearning.com/blog/james-paul-gee-game-based-learning/

1) Players build a sense of identity 2) Interaction between the player and the game 3) Production: Gamers help produce the story 4) Risk Taking 5) Customization to competency level 6) Agency: Players control gaming environment 7) Well-Ordered Problems promote mastery/growth 8) Challenge students’ assumed expertise

9) Just in Time information 10) Situated Meanings through experience within game 11) Pleasantly Frustrating 12) System Thinking: players see how the pieces fit 13) Explore, Think Laterally, Rethink Goals 14) Smart Tools & Distributed Knowledge to share 15) Cross-Functional Teams: players have different skills 16) Performance before Competence, not vise versa

On the other hand, people who write about gamification often mention J.P. Gee; e.g.

Mascle, D. (2017). James Paul Gee & Gamification in My Classroom. [Blog post, Jan 2, 2017]. Metawriting. Retrieved from https://metawriting.deannamascle.com/james-paul-gee-gamification-classroom/

“Gamification, the use of game-design elements for a non-game purpose, interests me because I do not want my classes to be about the grade. I want my students to stop obsessing over what will please me enough to give them an A and instead focus on exploring and experimenting. Every semester and every class I find myself adding more elements of gamification to my classes because I believe gamification supports learning by motivating and engaging students and it supports writing development. And there is something about gamification that encourages community and collaboration that a traditional grading structure does not.” I wrote those words about “Why Gamification” in May 2014 and I continue to be struck by how true they continue to be for me. Gamification has revolutionized the way I teach and I strongly urge other teachers to consider the ways they can gamify their classes. James Paul Gee is an expert on the connections between gaming and learning. He notes: “A [game] genre teaches players what to expect and how to play when confronted with a similar game.”

Also, “youngTeacher” (2016), an anonymous blogster who posts copyrighted materials on the Internet (but not me; this is screenshot from his/her blog) …

has this to say about gamification, the word that Gee rarely actually uses …

In the article, “Good Video Games and Good Learning,” James Paul Gee discusses the advantages of video games in learning certain cognitive skills and interpersonal, socialization skills. I found it interesting in the ways this article relates to the rise of gamification in education.

“Challenge and learning are a large part of what makes good video games motivating and entertaining. Humans actually enjoy learning, though sometimes in school you would not know it.” –Gee, 34

Both these writers are typical of what you come up with if you Google the words Gee and gamification. You get hits on articles about gamification whose authors support their points with remarks made by Gee about GBL. These writers don’t mischaracterise Gee’s work. They simply apply what he says about GBL, with validity, to what they say about gamification. I chose them from among many many others because their contributions were colorful.

So what does Gee, actually write about?

One of Gee’s concepts is his distinction between Big G and little g games when played in what he calls “affinity spaces” (and years before he turned his attention to games, Gee was known for distinguishing little d discourse, what people actually say, from Big D discourse, or how what they say fits into the larger social and cultural context shared by others in their discourse community).

Kuhn and Stevens (2017, and also writing about understanding gamification of learning through meaningful play in Minecraft)) used this concept to discuss the language benefits of students using Minecraft to learn languages, suggesting that they were benefiting mainly from the Big G affinity space found on p.4 in the version of the document linked below. They say: “Gee (2008a) distinguishes a little ‘g’ game, the software comprising a game such as Minecraft, from the big ‘G’ Game or social setting where players communicate, collaborate, and share with one another about the game.”
https://vancestevens.com/papers/tesol/r1_TESJ_359_review2017oct25_1_archivecopy.pdf

Gee (2011) speaks about the impact of this concept on research into game-based learning. On p.5, he says

Finally, we come to, perhaps, the most important point and yet one that has played little role in the empirical research on games and learning. Some people who have made the claim that games are good for learning are not making a claim just about a piece of digital software (Gee 2004, 2007; Gee & Hayes, to appear). For me and other games-and-learning scholars (e.g., Barab, Zuiker, Warren, Hickey, Ingram-Goble, Kwon, Kouper, & Herring 2007,; Shaffer, 2007) it is important to distinguish between the game as software (let’s call this the “little ‘g’ game”) and the whole social system of interactions that players engage in inside (for multiplayer games) and around the game (this is sometimes called the “meta-game”). We can call the combination of the game (software) and the meta-game (social interactional system) the “big ‘G’ Game”.

and on p. 6: “researchers are not, in fact, claiming that games (little ‘g’) are good for learning. They are claiming that Games (big ‘G’: game + meta-game) are good for learning. Thus, researchers seeking to test games empirically for learning need to specify clearly what was in the game (or games) they tested and what sort of meta-game (if any) was in and around this game or these games.”

Gee is a prolific presence on YouTube and in other recordings easily found on the Internet. It’s not difficult to find him talking about GBL in his own words in any number of online venues. At https://home.edweb.net/big-g-game-based-learning/ (2015) one of Gee’s webinars is introduced in this way: “Game-based learning should involve more than a game as a piece of software. It should involve designing what Arizona State University Professor James Paul Gee calls “Big G Games.” In the 50th webinar for the edWeb.net Game-Based Learning community, Gee discussed how Big G Games integrate a game as software with good interactional practices, good participatory structures, smart tools, and an emphasis on production and not just consumption.”

The webinar recording is available:
https://media.edweb.net/edWebinar/?view=20150218edweb3
(just provide an email address and country to watch the recording)

Miller (2013) also interviewed Gee and quoted him as explaining the little g / Big G concept in these words:

“Good game designers produce a well-mentored, well-designed problem space (the software) and help produce and enable interest-driven groups on the Internet that discuss, research, reflect on, mod, and theorycraft the game. This software, and the socially-driven discussion, learning, and productions sites together, are what I call the “Big G game” (software plus learning community). The Sims has, for example, enabled a massive amount of online interest-driven discussion, design, production, writing, and research. Players design things for the game (clothes, houses, environments) and give each other challenges to see if they can play the game in certain ways that are particularly challenging or illuminate a particular theme (poverty). Civilization and many other games have done the same.”

Frías (2012) reports on attending a keynote by Gee and deconstructs the little g / Big G distinction as follows (from the blog post pictured above):

Gee highlights the importance of social interaction as part of the game experience. As Gee indicates «people play together as they share passion to solve a challenge». He distinguishes between the little g game «game» and the big G game «Game». He (2008a: 24) defines both concepts as follows:

• «The “game” is the software in the box and all the elements of in-game design.»
• «The “Game” is the social setting into which the game is placed, all the interactions that go on around the game.»

A big G Game is the result of the creation of an Affinity Space plus a set of principles.

• Gee (2004: 67) defines an Affinity Space as «a place or set of places where people affiliate with others based primarily on shared activities, interests, and goals, not shared race, class culture, ethnicity, or gender» (quotation taken from Wikipedia).
• Somehow it constitutes a space for informal learning.

Sasha Barab is a well-known researcher on games. At his personal website, where his posts are not dated, he usefully lays out common genres and infrastructures of little g and Big G games, respectively, to help others better understand the concept.

Key genres of small “g” games:

• Adventure (optimized for enabling students to take on identities and solving problem in an engaging, narrative context)
• Simulation (optimized for students to experience real-world scenarios that contextualize learning vs. optimized for pure fidelity itself)
• Strategy (optimized for students to solve complex problems balancing multiple variables to accomplish desired outcomes).
• Toolbox (Optimized for students to create content with powerful tools to realize diverse goals and develop new media literacies).

Big “G” game infrastructures are open-ended and seamlessly integrate the small “g” games into a larger, flexible ‘meta-game’ structure and affinity space that fosters user-driven extensions and adaptations in support of real-world goals and outcomes. It is with the Big “G” components that we transform individual experiences within a game into a dynamic interaction to enable learning to be applied and extended beyond the classroom walls.

Key components are:

• Data and Analytics Dashboard (Allow teachers, students and other key stakeholders to not only see data, but also interact with the game and optimize the learning experience based on this data).
• Social Communities and Affinity Spaces (a framework for engaging in discussion, co-mentoring, tutoring, critique, reflection, “theory crafting”, and designing)
• Achievement-based framework and gamification layers (carefully designed extrinsic reward systems and intrinsic motivators to focus attention, motivate action and provide a trajectory of advancement)
• Meta-game identity (framework for personalized avatars, meta storylines, and open APIs that unite small “g” and real-world experiences.
• Smart tools (tool systems which can be used as templates for real-world applications and move learning beyond the classroom walls)
• Modding tools (powerful tools, opportunities, and support structures so students and teachers can extend, shape, and augment the core platform)

He further says (to put in machine readable text what is says in the screenshot above, “To be clear, while individual small ‘g’ game experiences can and do achieve learning success, we believe the deeper learning outcomes come through the seamless integration of the small ‘g’ games with a Big ‘G’ infrastructure that both connects and extends each of the individual learning modules.”

What’s the difference between Game-based learning (GBL) and Gamification

Having explored multiple perspectives on little g / Big G distinction, we turn now to gamification, and how it differs from use of the “serious games” referred to in game-based learning.

So what do we mean by gamification?

David Squires (2018) characterises gamification as “motivating people to complete everyday or mundane tasks, helping them to sustain interest and keep up with activities or goals that they find difficult to complete or lack the motivation to keep on track. If you think of fitness, health and wellbeing apps, badges, stickers, rewards and virtual ‘whoops’ (not dissing this – growth mind-set theories demonstrate the impact of positive strokes), you’ll get the gamification picture. The best approach is where a game and the game mechanics have learning value of themselves, where learning is intrinsic to the gameplay. So, in L&D or training terms, gamification is a great way to reward, motivate and sustain interest in repeat tasks, daily procedures or long-term goals – from following a standard operating procedure to learning a language. It can be applied to anything that might need a boost or extra motivator for people to complete and/or compete. It surrounds a learning intervention (a programme, course, campaign), but – here’s the important bit – it’s not a learning intervention itself. That’s where game-based learning (GBL) comes in.”

Khidar Bin Abdullah is pictured here giving a talk on differences between games and gamification at the PELLTA conference in Penang, April 2019. I took this picture at a main juncture in his presenation and posted it at
https://drive.google.com/drive/folders/15gki57Jv-xMSTtRM42cbb3LzI7Csm2nD

Regarding comparison number 1, where gamification uses game elements to engage, I think that Bin Abdulla means that gamification uses game elements to engage people by motivating them to carry out a series of steps that the game designer wishes them to accomplish. These could be getting them to fly farther by offering them award points and status that will get them into airport lounges, or it could be in getting them to work more at associating a set of vocabulary items with pictures and definitions (as with Memrise, https://www.memrise.com/) by offering similar incentives: awarding points for success at time on task posted to a game board where high scores are compared across the past week or for all time.

In the case of Memrise there is a learning objective, though it is clearly gamified, and content is placed there by the user, but in GBL, where Bin Abdullah points out that game-based uses games to meet learning objectives, the learning objective is baked explicitly into the game.

Andre Thomas gave a talk on the Effective Use of Game-Based Learning in Education for TEDxTAMU and at this point in this video he gives an excellent example of an immersive game designed for use in a calculus classroom: https://youtu.be/-X1m7tf9cRQ?start=525

Called Variant Limits, it lets the user become an avatar who must apply calculus concepts in puzzle simulations. Game play is controlled to force the player to solve each puzzle designed to help him/her visualize concepts set out in progressively increasing difficulty. Each puzzle requires mastery before moving on to the next step. Here is a video walkthrough of the game.

You can see that the game uses many of the 16 game elements noted above to engage the learner, but it’s not gamified because content is fixed and agency is narrowly controlled. The player does not explore so much as come to a juncture where passage is prevented until an elaborate in-game tool can be adjusted to cause a light beam to shine just so, and only then does a path forward become available.

Trace Effects is another such game for English language learners. Players become the character Trace and essentially resolve puzzles in order to help the learner return to the future, https://americanenglish.state.gov/trace-effects.

As to Bin Abullah’s second point (gamification entails points, levels, badges, and achievement; whereas in game-based, learning is achieved by playing the game) Memrise and Variant Limits each do both, though to a different extent. Learning is achieved by playing both games, but I believe Bin Abdullah means that this is the case with Variant Limits because the content to be learned is encountered by each player of the game, built into its design; where as with Memrise, or Duolingo for that matter, learning is achieved by playing the game, but in these cases the rewards lead the user through the content in a more addictive, insidious way than with Variant Limits, where the user might not be so incentivized to race through the game just to accumulate points, a behavior I’ve noted in my students who use Memrise. Another difference is that the content in Memrise can be learned quickly, and even reinforced, but the players often continue playing beyond the point of saturation, and even return to that point to continue playing just for the extrinsic rewards. I imagine students working through Variant Limits do so in a one-off manner. Once a problem is solved, there is no real incentive to return again to the same problem.

By the same token, Bin Abdullah’s point number 3 does not so neatly categorize games (in gamification, learners are motivated by extrinsic awards; whereas game-based is associated with cooperative, digital, competitive, serious educational games, and non-digital). Games falling under GBL are often called “serious games” but ‘serious’ is more an understanding than a definition. Cooperation is possibly stronger in GBL but not unknown to a gamified space, if you consider Minecraft to be gamified. Minecraft cannot be GBL because it contains no content in and of itself, yet it is highly cooperative, and that would stand for any multiplayer ‘serious’ game; e.g. a flight simulator that allows players at a distance to land simultaneously at the same airport working virtually on a server somewhere. Such a game is clearly designed to train a certain content which players will learn while playing the game, but it also inculcates cooperation and competition for air space between pilots and virtual tower operators.

But on the gamified side, point number 3, that players are motivated through extrinsic rewards, seems mainly in the province of gamification, though I recall Nicholas Carr’s brief chapter/interlude in The Glass Cage (2014) on how he struggled and failed over and over again to deliver a load of bodies in a horse-drawn cart from a graveyard into the hands of a grave robber so that he could move on in the ‘serious’ game of Red Dead Redemption. He spoke of how the game had him in the flow, and he simply could not stop until he had mastered the task, and worked intently until he finally, with great satisfaction, achieved it. I don’t think he was intrinsically motivated to operate the horse cart per se.

He would have been intrinsically motivated to reach the point where, by accomplishing this task, the grave robber would put him in touch with the people he needed to contact to proceed in the game. But a teacher observing a student might miss identifying that kind of motivation (and maybe people are intrinsically motivated to earn enough award points so they can finally use the airport lounge). In any event, the short chapter in its 3-page entirety is available for reading online, here (just click on Interlude with a Grave Robber). I recommend it; Carr is an accomplished writer.

Hanaa Khamis gets at the distinction between Gamification and GBL in a series of polls she posted on Facebook

As we see, classifying games is tricky business, since the categories are not really hard and fast, and games that appear to be in one category  often have elements overlapping another.  I myself in writing this out am trying to better understand the classification system, as was Hanaa when she posted a series of polls like this one:
https://www.facebook.com/niletesol/posts/2331818063612182

Hanaa’s source for her assessment is Patten (2015), who makes the distinctions shown below:

“Serious game or GBL refers to simulation or unique game that is created specifically to cater to the evident need for a group. They are designed with distinct game paths that are strategically geared toward learning objectives. They comprise immersive experience that enables learners to think and plan logically. A key characteristic feature that distinguishes GBL from gamification is the fact that it balances game playing and subject matter with the aim of retaining and applying the subject matter in the real working environment.

On the other hand, gamification can be referred as a process of applying mechanism of existing game-based elements to learning platform just to increase learners’ motivation. The key characteristic of gamification is that it is a process that takes something that is not a game and makes it a game.”

Patten’s distinctions are useful; for example, where he notes that GBL “balances game playing and subject matter with the aim of retaining and applying the subject matter in the real working environment;”  and I like also the idea that gamification takes something that is not a game and makes it a game. So if we consider language learning to be not a game and embed it in a game matrix such as Minecraft, Memrise, or Duolingo, then we can see where these might be examples of gamification though the first one is a serious game, and the other two contain user content that helps people meet learning objectives by playing the game and competing with one another.

In order to accommodate these notions, further classification would be helpful. Many are now breaking gamification into two separate categories to be able to differentiate structural gamification games like Memrise and Duolingo from ones like Minecraft, where users are able to alter the content.

What is gamification? Karl Kapp’s video suggests there are two distinct types

 Link: https://youtu.be/BqyvUvxOx0M

Kapp (2013) elaborates further on this:

Structural Gamification

This is the application of game-elements to propel a learner through content with no alteration or changes to the content itself. The content does not become game-like, only the structure around the content. The primary focus behind this type of gamification is to motivate the learner to go through the content and to engage them in the process of learning through rewards.

Content Gamification

This is the application of game elements and game thinking to alter content to make it more game-like. For example, adding story elements to a compliance course or starting a course with a challenge instead of a list of objectives are both methods of content gamification.

According to the bloggers at Designing Digitally, Inc. (2019), there are five advantages that both structural and content gamification makes the learning process interactive and engaging by

• Recognizing and rewarding goals
• Shortening feedback cycles
• Providing clear learning pathways
• Encouraging collaboration
• Identifying talent

But similarly to Kapp, the Designing Digitally website makes the following distinctions

In structural gamification, game elements are added to the structure of the content, but the content itself remains unaltered. The ultimate aim of structural gamification is to push the learner through the learning process; for example, to make them complete one more task. Through the use of rewards, it motivates the learner to finish the course content.

In content gamification the content is altered to be more game-like by using elements such as challenges, feedback loops, and storytelling without actually turning the training into a game. This technique enhances the learner’s engagement with the material without designing an elaborate game and keeps the content at the forefront of the training.

This leads me to suggest that we might properly classify these games as follows:

Examples of Structural Gamification	Examples of Content Gamification
Kahoot, https://kahoot.com/  Memrise, https://www.memrise.com/ Duolingo, https://www.duolingo.com/	Minecraft for language learning, CLIL, STEM, STEAM, etc., https://mojang.com/ For an example of a gamified STEM classroom, start here: https://youtu.be/mOssYTimQwM?start=747

According to this, Minecraft would be an example of  content gamification:

Suppose you are training your students in language learning and you have them play Minecraft without explicitly covering the learning objectives. This would:

• challenge them to apply their learning and create their own content in the game
• get them communicating with each other in ways that force them to use the target language in communicative ways to solve problems and challenges as they arise in the game.

To further understand why I have included Minecraft here, see the four example Minecraft Challenges meant for EFL language learners here, http://vancesclass.pbworks.com/w/page/117588981/49_Sections_5-6_EESP#Gameschallengeprojects.

These challenges give students opportunities to read about Minecraft while acting out the tutorials, explore the tools available in the game in greater depth, and create new content in both benign (creative) and dangerous (survival) modes, and then write and speak about it afterwards, and read more in order to probe more what you can do in this almost limitless little g game space. And then there’s the Big G participatory cultures surrounding the game for those who want to branch out, learn from others, and share their knowledge, all in a common target lingua franca.

Here comes the test: Which kinds of gamification are included here? (my example)

Tournaments in medieval times are an example of a gamified learning environment. Consider a knight in shining armor with a lance and a deck of playing cards. He is employed to engage in war, and he spends summers on field campaigns sitting around campfires, talking technique with his fellow knights, comparing equipment, and learning a few tips from squires and other camp hangers-on (an affinity space). Sometimes he plays in Tournaments, a big G Game event, and uses his lance in jousting, a game with a small g.  He also enjoys playing cards. There are pictures of knights, knaves, kings, and queens on some of the cards, but apart from the talk around the card table (card games take place in the affinity space), this game is irrelevant to the big G Games of War or Tournaments.

Is the knight engaging in Structural or Content gamification?

I would appreciate your comments on my examples, even (and especially) if you disagree with my logic. I am not sure who the definitive authorities are on this topic at this point … until J.P. Gee weights in.

References

Barab, S. (n.d.). Small “g”, Big “G” Games [Blog post]. Sasha Barab. Retrieved from https://sashabarab.org/projects/small-g-big-g-games/ and in pdf, https://gamesandimpact.org/wp-content/uploads/2014/04/Game-Infused-Theory.pdf

Carr, N. (2014). The glass cage: Automation and us. New York, NY.: W.W.Norton.

Designing Digitally, Inc. (2019). Structural gamification and content gamification [Blog post, Jan. 30, 2019]. Designing Digitally. Retrieved from
https://www.designingdigitally.com/blog/2019/01/structural-gamification-and-content-gamification 

Frías, E.R. (2012). Gee’s vision on game-based learning, affinity spaces and education. uweaving the web. [Blog post from Aug 27, 2012]. Retrieved from http://estebanromero.com/2012/08/gees-vision-on-game-based-learning-affinity-spaces-and-education/

Gee, J. P. (2008a). Learning and games. In K. Salen (Ed.) The ecology of games: Connecting youth, games, and learning. Cambridge, MA.: MIT Press, pp 21–40. doi: 10.1162/dmal.9780262693646.021. Retrieved from
http://cvonline.uaeh.edu.mx/Cursos/Maestria/MTE/Gen02/diseno_creacion_mat_mult/unidad_1/LearningGames.pdf

Gee, J. P. (2008b). What video games have to teach us about learning and literacy, revised and updated. Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan.

Gee, J.P. (2011). Reflection on empirical evidence on games and learning. In Toblas, S. & Fletcher, J.D. (Eds.). Computer Games and Instruction. Information Age Publishing.
http://jamespaulgee.com/pdfs/Evidence%20for%20Games%20and%20Learning.pdf

Kapp, K. (2013). Two types of #gamification [Blog post March 25, 2013]. Karl M. Kapp: Intelligently Fusing Learning, Technology & Business. Retrieved from: http://karlkapp.com/two-types-of-gamification/

Kuhn, J. and Stevens, V. (2017). Participatory culture as professional development: Preparing teachers to use Minecraft in the classroom. TESOL Journal 8, 4:753–767. https://doi.org/10.1002/tesj.359 and http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1002/tesj.359/full. Pre-publication proof available:
https://vancestevens.com/papers/tesol/r1_TESJ_359_review2017oct25_1_archivecopy.pdf

Miller, P. (2013). What’s Next? Learning researcher James Gee on games in school. Gamasutra. Retrieved from
https://www.gamasutra.com/view/news/199510/Whats_Next_Learning_researcher_James_Gee_on_games_in_school.php

Patten, B. (2015). Game based learning and gamification are not the same thing: here’s why [Blog post, Dec 8, 2015]. Memeburn. Retrieved from
https://memeburn.com/2015/12/game-based-learning-and-gamification-are-not-the-same-thing-heres-why/?fbclid=IwAR1C49ptlgpxtMWO671F9H7Dl3K7rfmbXVn5OZ6SiMLCnj1DX2JVF26y_Ps

Squires, D. (2018). Gamification is… what, exactly? [Blog post, Jan 4, 2018]. TJ Training Journal. Retrieved from https://www.trainingjournal.com/blog/gamification-is%E2%80%A6-what-exactly

youngTeacher. (2016). Gamification in education & distant reading skills [Blog post, February 24, 2016]. Notes from a young teacher. Retrieved from https://notesfromayoungteacher.wordpress.com/2016/02/24/gamification-in-education-distant-reading-skills/comment-page-1/

---

More resources:

Deborah Healey’s presentation materials on gamification from the PELLTA conference in Penang, April 2019: https://sites.google.com/site/gamificationforelteachers

Notice 

https://twitter.com/niletesol_ltsig/status/1126955385070419968 has active links

Announcements

From: https://www.facebook.com/niletesol/posts/2314397608687561

More announcements on Facebook Groups

• Learning2gether – https://www.facebook.com/groups/learning2gether/
• Webheads in Action – https://www.facebook.com/groups/webheadsinaction/
• TESOL Arabia Ed Tech SIG – https://www.facebook.com/groups/TAEdTech/
• EVO Multiliteracies MOOC – https://www.facebook.com/groups/evomlit/
• Learning with Computers – https://www.facebook.com/groups/6577061586/

Certificate of appreciation

 

For a recording of the previous webinar in this series, Learning2gether episode #410, from …

 

Earlier events

Wed May 8 1900 UTC NileTESOL LTSIG interviews Deborah Healey on Teachers as Researchers

https://learning2gether.net/2019/05/08/hanaa-khamis-interviews-deborah-healey-about-ordinary-teachers-as-researchers-for-niletesol-ltsig/

 

Wed May 8 1030 ET – Last of 3 TESOL Webinars free to TESOL members – Multilingualism in the Classroom

 

Supporting Multilingualism in the Classroom: Teachers Generating Knowledge through Innovative Practice

Presenter: Jim Cummins

Date: Wednesday, 8 May 2019 Time: 10:30 am–12:00 pm ET Registration Deadline: 6 May 2019 Register to attend or be notified of link to recording: https://sites.tesol.org/MemberPortal/Events/2019/PL19_VSM8/TESOL-Event-Detail?EventKey=PL19_VSM8 Register for FREE! (free for TESOL members; $50 for non-members)

 

Fri May 10 1500 ET TESOL SLWIS Webinar on A More Just Campus for Multilingual Students

TESOL’s Second Language Writing Interest Section in collaboration with the Conference on College Composition’s Second Language Writing Interest Group presents a webinar: A More Just Campus for Multilingual Students

Date: May 10 2019 

In GoToMeeting; recording will be posted to TESOL’s YouTube channel later

Recording

This workshop offers ideas for teachers, tutors, and administrators on how best to support multilingual students. The presenters will discuss how to identify multilingual student populations on your campus; give examples of readings, classroom activities, and assignments that engage with multilingualism and push back on narrow language standards; provide models of learning outcomes and assessment criteria that support multilingual students; and discuss effective plagiarism policies and ways to talk to students and administrators about academic honesty.

Presenters:

• Norah Fahim is a Lecturer at the Program in Writing and Rhetoric as well as Associate Director at the Hume Center for Writing and Speaking at Stanford University. Her research focuses on the experiences of non-TESOL trained TAs working with an increasingly multilingual student population, as well as the experiences and needs of multilingual students.
• Jeroen Gevers is a PhD student in Second Language Acquisition and Teaching at the University of Arizona. His research interests are multilingualism, language and identity, and English as an academic lingua franca.
• Jennifer Johnson is a lecturer in the Program in Writing and Rhetoric at Stanford. Her research areas include: SLA, applied linguistics second language writing and multimodal communication.
• Greer Murphy is Director of Academic Honesty and Assistant Director of Faculty Development at the University of Rochester. Her current research examines how multilingual writing specialists at diverse institutions conceptualize and represent their labor.
• Rachael Shapiro is Assistant Professor of Writing Arts at Rowan University, where she teaches courses in writing and literacy studies. Her research focuses on the politics of language and literacy.
• Jenny Slinkard is a PhD candidate in Second Language Acquisition and Teaching at the University of Arizona. Her primary research interests are language policy, language ideologies, and World Englishes.
• Missy Watson is Assistant Professor at City College of New York, CUNY. Her research lies at the intersection of translingualism and second language writing.

Organizers:

• Betsy Gilliland, Chair TESOL SLWIS 2019-2020
• Brooke Ricker Schreiber, Chair CCCC SLW standing group 2019-2020

Brooke Schreiber is an Assistant Professor in the English Department of Baruch College, CUNY, where she teaches courses in writing and linguistics.  Her research focuses on second language writing, pedagogy, and teacher training in ESL and EFL settings, as well as global Englishes and translingualism.

Started May 6 and lasts 5 weeks – Heike Philp hosts free Guinevere course on building game activities in virtual worlds

https://t.co/4bukYwSkpU