Jake

We hope you'll enjoy this episode of Teachers Teaching Teachers where we bring together gardeners from the alternate reality game, Evoke with photography students on Youth Voices. Take a look at this recent photo discussion, and join a few Youth Voices students:

• Gamer, photograher, and musician, Jake, from Chris Sloan's classes at  Judge Memorial H.S. in Salt Lake City
   
• Matt, Brianna, and Annie, from Susan Ettenheim's digital photography class at Eleanor Roosevelt High School, NYC
   
• We are also joined by Evoke gardener, Michele Barron.

Click Read more to see a copy of the chat that was happening during the webcast.

We've been learning about gaming from students this spring, and on this episode of Teachers Teaching Teachers we were joined by two ninth graders from Susan Ettenheim's class in NYC, a tenth grader from Paul Allison's class in Queens, an eleventh grader from Austin, Texas, and a senior from Chris Sloan's class in Salt Lake City.

We learned so much about gaming from Jake a few weeks ago (TTT #190) and Robin more recently (TTT #192) that we invited both of them back to talk more specifically about Alternate Reality Games and Evoke! On this episode, you'll hear Jake and Robin, and a few other students talk about their experience of playing Evoke!

Is Evoke a game? Or is it just a trick to get people to use a social network? Why do serious gamers seem to know what Jane McGonigal is up to (See recent TED talk.), and get engaged with this game, while other students are less engaged? We invite you to join us as we listen to our students and our colleagues respond to these questions.

• Jake is a senior in Chris Sloan's New Media class at Judge Memorial High School in Salt Lake City, Utah.
• Robin is a sophomore in Paul Allison's English class at the East-West School of International Studies in Flushing, NYC.
• Perez and Phil are freshman in Susan Ettenheim's class at Eleanor Roosevelt High School, in New York City.
• Nathan is a junior and he's a game-runner for Evoke from Austin, Texas.
• Suzie Boss is the co-writer with Jane Krauss of Reinventing Project-Based Learning, and she has recently interviewed Jane McGonigal for WorldChanging.
• Rachel Smith is the Vice President, NMC Services the New Media Consortium, and has taken on the role as a community organizer for teachers on Evoke. 

Please enjoy. And find out more about all of us and our work on Evoke at Teachers Teaching Teachers #192.

Click Read more to see a copy of the chat that was happening during the webcast.

Recently the group of teachers whose students are using Youth Voices have been paying more attention to both the gamers in our classrooms and to the educational leaders who are suggesting that we consider bringing gaming into the curriculum. We are looking for ideas, answer to our questions and inspiration from students like Jake and critical friends like Suzie Boss, both of whom join us on this episode of Teachers Teaching Teachers.

• Jake is a senior in Chris Sloan's New Media class at Judge Memorial High School in Salt Lake City, Utah.
• Suzie Boss is the co-writer with Jane Krauss of Reinventing Project-Based Learning, and she has recently interviewed Jane McGonigal for WorldChanging.

The invitation that we sent for this episode remains an open one. We would love to hear how you and your students are bringing the world of gaming into your teaching and learning!

If you’re a student who plays games or a game designer or a teacher who resents that he doesn’t have more time to play games... If you use games in your classroom or would like to... If you want to learn more about gaming in education—like we do.... then please join us for more talk about what we’re learning about gaming! Join us at http://EdTechTalk.com/live at 9:00pm Eastern / 6:00pm Pacific USA Wednesdays / 01:00 UTC Thursdays World Times. We’re looking for more students and teachers to join us in this quest to include games in our classrooms.

Also, we would like to take a moment to say how important it has been for us to learn about the work of others at conferences this year. This episode of Teachers Teaching Teachers, which was produced and edited by Chris Sloan, and much of the innovative curriculum work that we are doing in our classrooms this spring probably would not have happened without the important work of Christina Cantrill, Paul Oh, and Elyse Eidman-Aadahl and others at the National Writing Project.

They introduced us to the work of Barry Joseph and Rafi Santo from Global Kids at the Digital Is conference, a one-day conference supported by the John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation's Digital Media and Learning Initiative in November 2009. And they've been nurturing our connections ever since.

Also, we owe thanks to Chris Lehmann and the teachers and students of the Science Leadership Academy for bringing us together with Suzie Boss and Jane Krauss at Educon 2.2 in January 2010. Suzie's suggestion that we take a look at Evoke helped up us find a rich gaming path to follow this spring! It's worth remembering that a lot of exciting teaching and learning can come from following up on those business cards that we exchange at conferences.

Other related Teachers Teaching Teachers episodes:

• Teachers Teaching Teachers #188 - A snow day in NYC gives us a chance to do some collaborative planning - 02.26.10
• Teachers Teaching Teachers #182 - A student-centered follow up: More on games, YouTube, Twitter, and Research - 01.13.10
• Teachers Teaching Teachers #181 - Getting Schooled on Gaming: A conversation with Global Kids and Quest to Learn - 01.06.10

Click here to see a copy of the chat that was happening during the webcast.