Ayah and I chose module three to make some changes in it and we created an amazing Website that includes many interesting things.
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Nas-ages
Before I begun module three I knew that we are going to design a game as a group project. I had many thoughts about how the game could look like, but when doctor Maha introduced to us how we can design a game, I changed all my thoughts because all of them were not practical to implement. When I started brainstorming with my group about the idea and the purpose of this game, we came up with many ideas, but my idea of designing a game to develop language skills wasn’t that interesting to my group. We came up with many ideas using divergent thinking, but then we narrowed our options into only two. Some of us were convinced that we can make our game as an awareness of smoking and another part of the group chose that we can make a game to develop life skills. After voting we opt for “Nas ages” to develop life skills and communication skills between different ages because those skills have started to be eliminated from our society. And we designed that game to fit the whole community. However, everyone from the group has his reasons that lead him to opt for this idea. For me, I read an article about designing games (I didn’t complete it) which helped me with many information for instance, we have to design a game for purpose and to write everything on a piece of paper before we start designing. In addition, playing Baladna was very useful in this project because we explored amazing games that some of them learn geography in an interesting and funny way. I want to exploit this blog post to thank doctor Maha for her choice to Fata Azmy it was one of the most interesting classes in the whole course. I was really impressed by her games.
We faced some challenges in designing our game; for we took a long time till we thought about the design which leads to delaying in creating the content of the game. Honestly, I felt that the content of the game was not that good because we didn’t have adequate time. But we came up with different situations, challenges, and riddles were most of them are interesting then we created our instructions sheet. Moreover, we took some time in order to think about a design that is recycled and we successfully got the idea of making the box from bake rolls carton. We used some pictures from the internet to represent the different ages (adults, strangers, babies, and elderly people). The class when we presented our game prototype was very helpful because we gained feedback from doctor Maha and we improved the mechanics of the game for example, we tried to make the game more sort of competition in order to be more interesting, so we came up with idea of rewarding the winner. The winner in our game is going to have the highest amount of dollars. Moreover, we made the idea of difficult and easy questions to help in the rewarding.
We worked hard till we reached to our final product. We know that there are some mistakes in the mechanics of the game, but today we felt some positive responses from people and their feedback were encouraging. I ‘m satisfied with the game design because we had the feedback from many people and we have the ability to improve it. It was a great experience by all means.
Twitter…. Great Experience
This is my first time to use Twitter; I just created my account last week to be prepared for the next class. When doctor Maha said that we will use Twitter and we will play games on it, I felt that this part from the module will be difficult for me because I never use it before. In addition, I’m not advanced in using technology; I still didn’t have an account on Instagram because social media is not my favorite way to spend my time on it. After we started playing on Twitter, I found it extremely easily to follow people and to write tweets, but I think that Facebook is much easier. I enjoyed how I communicated with different people all over the globe and what I liked the most is that, I have the freedom to ask any question about educational games. And this is what I did in the last class; I twitted any question that came to mind. However, I found it a little bit challenging to ask strangers about my questions, but I’m very happy when I see them replying on my tweets. The whole activity was very interesting, but I face difficulty when I asked to find articles by Egyptians/Arabs about educational games because the criteria were a little bit difficult. Finally, I found amazing articles that I read them while I was on my way to home, so they gave me a profound look about educational games.
This is my photo , when we played a mystery picture game it was a very interesting part in the activity.
The power of Educational games
In fact, I never thought that games could help in learning process even the educational ones because I’m not the kind of person who likes to play games. I thought that it would be much better if a person do something valuable rather than just wasting his time in playing games. To be honest I used to think in a very traditional way like many people in our society. In addition, I thought that playing games is something so childish and it will be boring. However, these thoughts are completely changed after the first class of module 3 and after reading some articles. I liked the game we did in class because it was very interesting and I liked how we interacted all together with the Doctor. Furthermore, I really enjoyed the first class of module 3 because it is one of the few times that I did not check my cell phone to see the time remaining for the class to finish.
After I read some articles about playing games and education, I realized that there are many benefits of playing educational games. http://www.teachthought.com/video-games-2/6-basic-benefits-of-game-based-learning/ For me, I think that the most important benefit is that educational games help people who suffer attention disorders to focus more on their lessons. And this is actually what happened with me in the first class of module 3; I found something that grabbed my attention, so I did not lose my attention. I believe that this point is extremely important because most of us have attention problem in classrooms, so educational games will very useful to us.
According to http://www.personal.kent.edu/~tnettles/Portfolio%20Review/Standard%205/Educational%20Gaming%20Design%20Document.pdf I realized that in order to design a successful education game we need to design for purpose. I remember Dr Maha when she said “everything I do is for reason”, so I think that we need educational games to accomplish both learning and enjoyment. We need to identify exactly what we want students to learn from our games. Finally, I’m so excited to start creating our educational game.
Capturing Creativity
It has been a long time since I started this course, I still remember how I was confused and worried at the beginning of it because I didn’t know what the course will be about, since I never took such course before. I honestly thought to drop the course because I felt that it will be difficult and completely different from anything I took before. However, now I really enjoy the classes because it is exceedingly different from the” rote learning “that I used to learn at school. I think that creative thinking and problem solving course should not be offered to AUCians only, but I think this course should be obligatory in our national education system. Hopefully, one day our Egyptian educational system could offer such course because we really need this change to improve our society. Moreover, reading the syllabus was very helpful because it gave me a profound look on what the course will be about. I enjoyed when we started working on the challenges, but I enjoyed challenge two the most because the idea of redesigning things was very interesting to me.
Some of my thoughts are completely changed during this module. I used to believe that am not an idea killer, but after I started challenge one I was convinced that I am from those who sometimes do not allow people to express their ideas freely. In addition, I did not believe that creativity is a process that we should work on; however, reading the article of Mozart helped me to change my thoughts.
What I enjoyed the most is learning about design thinking process, especially Empathy because of course we should immerse ourselves into people’s life in order to do what they really need. It’s great to come up with amazing idea that it could solve a problem or create a new invention; however, it will be greater if this idea is feasible, desirable and meets people’s needs. I learned a lot during this module and I am still curious to learn more, but I think if an improvement is to be applied to this module, it will be elongation of the class duration.
Johan Pemberton – Coca Cola
Coca cola story of success… Coca cola originally intended as a patent medicine when it was invented in the late 19th century by John Pemberton, a local pharmacist. It was initially sold as a patent medicine for five cent a glass; it was popular at that time that carbonate water was good for health which let many people try it. Pemberton observed that people started to buy coca cola for its taste and from here he substituted this medicine to a tasteful beverage to bring him a commercial success. I think that his success came from that he never gave up before failure. Despite all the negativity towards his work, Pemberton did not stop his experiments and continued doing what he believed in. He added different designs in order to find the best shape of the bottle. This was not enough, after his death the company started to make the product more develop by creating the first” coke diet “. This let many people who care about their weight start to buy coca cola for its sugar free soft drink, which brought the company more profit. Pemberton invention still achieves success till now as he created the greatest product that has given the world its best known taste.
What drawn my attention is the latest coca cola advertising campaign that they offered the consumers to print on their names on the drink can which was a creative idea. I think that this idea is extremely creative and the proof is that it increased the amount of sales. I believe that we are in need for such creative ideas to improve our commercial state.
Letting our mindset grow …
“I think intelligence is something you have to work for … it isn’t just given to you”. This quote inspired me! I totally agree with the author when she differentiates between growth and fixed mindset in a professional way. I think that the most important key to have a growth mindset is to believe that everyone is intelligent in his way and everyone can be anything he/she wants, but it needs work and effort. Intelligence can be developed and it will never be static. For me, I think that the best way to develop intelligence is to stop showing off how smart we are and to start work on our abilities.
The obvious reason that leads some people to believe that intelligence is static and it will never be developed is the fear from failure. For me, I have to deny that I am from those who fear from failure, judgment, criticism and always care about grades but I will never stop trying to tackle this dilemma. Therefore, I believe that one should not give up even he/she fell down. I think that fixed mindset looks at fall as the end while for growth mindset seems as new beginning.
I believe that to develop a growth mindset , I should deal with all my imperfections and accept the fact that they are changeable. In addition, I will try to trust all my creative skills and be confident that I have the ability to change the things I want to change.As I will do my best to learn and accept criticism rather than skipping away. Changing my mindset is a part of my life that I will always work on it , we have to start developing a growth mindset that will build successful characters and relationships of life.
Creativity in a digital world.
In the event “creatopia” by Anastasia Salter, some of my points of view were completely changed after this lecture. I used to think that playing games even educational ones are kind of wasting time and it is better to do something more useful in life. However, now I am totally convinced that games with purpose are powerful but we have to apply this games with the curriculum . As she said that games can change our ideas and will enable us to make connections. I think that involving games in education with certain rules and purpose could be a masterpiece in this era.
Salter mentioned the importance of comics as she referred to the theory of Scott Mccloud’s”infinite canvas”. I also believe that comics are asset in education because of its motivating power. In addition, I think that comics are very interesting , powerful and the combination between words and pictures make comics a delightful thing.
I felt at the beginning of the lecture that she will speak about something complicated and it will be boring. However, after Salter started her speech, I was inspired by her way in presenting her topic points. She is so energetic, enthusiastic and attention drawing .Moreover, she was very clear in expressing her ideas but there were some vague point as well. Her use of Prezi was impressive and she left me willing to learn more about prezi as I am not smooth in using technology
The power of confidence
creative confidence is not being proud of yourself it is about believing in yourself. I believe that the highest creative confidence is in childhood because in this time we did not have this fear of judgement but by time this confidence starts gradually to decrease and in some cases it could be eliminated. There are several reasons that lead to kill creative confidence and personally, I will never forget how my colleagues started laughing at my drawings when i tried to draw something in different way than theirs. I think people repel new ideas and accept only imitated ones. People have a significant impact on our creative confidence and this is what we do not want to happen. We should be confident that we are creative to achieve the goals, we are aiming for and i liked the example of the snake that Kelly said because it amazing how people faced their fear. This article fascinated me with simple tips to build my self-confidence http://au.reachout.com/how-to-build-self-confidence I think there are many things that could boost our creative confidence and the most important thing is to start respecting your own personal journey ,start trusting that you have what it takes inside you to go away beyond your wildest dreams. Moreover, do not focus on what people will say about you and remember that always great people face judgments for instance, Thomas Edison, “The worst enemy to creativity is self -doubt” Sylvia plath.
Everything begins with new idea
Do good ideas come suddenly? of course not creative ideas never come suddenly it needs time to become successful and creative. I totally agree with Steven Johnson that good ideas come from collision between smaller hunches to make something bigger, so certainly it needs time .Other factors are needed to come up with good ideas for instance, knowing other people’s ideas are extremely important because you may have an incomplete idea and when you get exposed to others ideas ,your idea became complete. ”Old ideas can sometimes use new buildings. New ideas must use old buildings” Steven Johnson. In addition, the environment plays an important role because, it could encourage you to catch up good ideas and be creative. For example, if you are not comfortable in your office, you will not be able to think of good ideas.”Creativity dies in an undisciplined environment” Jim Collins. Good ideas come from many factors, but I believe in two important factors. Firstly, is to make an effort and work on your idea to become successful. Secondly, is to try to improve your process of thinking and this will come from exposing yourself to different sources of ideas.Nowadays, we really need good ideas to solve our community problems in creative way.
mira1996 