First Reflection

I’m officially starting to work on my project today. I have an idea of what I want the project to look like and become. Although, as I’m sure I will see as I work on it those things may drastically change. Enough though this project isn’t a true “learning environment”, I feel in many respects it may be one. Please take a look at quote from Michele Dickey’s article Engaging By Design: How Engagement Strategies in Popular Computer and Video Games Can Inform Instructional Design

Proponents of engaged learning argue that learners can become meaningfully engaged in the learning environment by being provided with activities that allow them to play an active role and make judgments about progress toward defined goals (Bell et al., 1996; Schlechty, 1990). The learner plays an active role in the construction of knowledge, while the role of the teacher is to provide materials and an environment that support the learner’s engagement in the learning tasks.

As you read from my project description, I plan to create a flash program which will have the user move the Jeremiah piece around the map to find out more information about places I have traveled to. Now this may not be what I would call a textbook learning situation, but in a way the user of the program is learning about me. By letting the user move the piece around the map they are “being provided with activities that allow then to play an active role and make judgments about progress towards a defined goal.” In this case the goal is to learn more about Jeremiah.

Another point I would like to make is like Dickey mentions, I am “providing materials and an environment that supports the learner’s engagement in the learning task.” When the project is complete the user will be provided an environment by me, which will support their learning. So even though the project isn’t related to a normal K-12 learning situation I still hope to apply these design principles to my project. Below is an update on my technical progress thus far.

I began working on some layout issues on the project. I found a image of the east coast of the US that I am going to use as the background. Then I created little thumbtacks which will mark the different locations I have visited. It took me a while but I have my main game piece image, it's a picture of me in a racecar (I really like it). Preview of the image can be found below. What I ultimately envision happening is the mean little racer zooming across the map as you visit new locations.

The next step in the process will be me "mapping out" how the user will navigate through the program. I think i'm going to have to go low tech on this one and just grab some paper and a pencil and draw out the different scene progressions.

STAY TUNED!!!!

And no i'm not giving the finger....its just how it came out when I resized the image. I can't change it because I would look like I got my hand cut off.

Reference:
Dickey, M. D. (2005). Engaging by design: How engagement strategies in popular computer and video games can inform instructional design. Educational Technology Research & Development, 53(2), 67-83.