The PedaGOgy of Pokémon GO

Part I

     I had never played an online game in my life when I opened Pokémon GO while walking with a friend who was playing.  This first experience was compelling enough for me to write a blog post, 10 Days of Pokémon GO.

My friends Stephanie, Tim and my husband John

     In the year and a half since that time, I picked it up again as a social activity and play with a small group of friends, and it has become a regular activity in my weekend life.  As an educator, with a special interest in online education, this game has reinforced my ideas about student engagement and opened my eyes in surprise and delight to some new ones.  It is an artful, amazing game that allows players to interact in their own ways, continue learning, and stay engaged long-term with constant challenges and rewards.  And yes - it makes me walk more and meet new people in the process.  Here are some of the great pedaGOgy strategies I have enjoyed: 

Personalized Learning 

     Each day, you are given the opportunity to complete research tasks that you receive by spinning stops. These are tasks you can either fulfill, or - if you don't like them - delete. There are a total of three you can work on at one time. If you delete one, you simply find another to replace it. This allows you to help to structure your own experience, and directly ties into adult learning styles, because we like to help control our learning experiences.  It also allows for different learning styles; some people love the raids, and tend to focus on research tasks that ask you to battle in a raid; others love the journey of capturing different types of Pokémon, and will work on those tasks.  Any one person will be moving forward in the game by picking and choosing their pathway. And the tasks for any given stop change daily, making each day a new adventure. 

Competency-based Learning 

     At the core, you are capturing Pokémon  of various sizes, forms, and skills with balls. You are given multiple chances to catch them; if you miss the first time, try again. You can use different berries to help entice them to hold still for you; you gather those berries by spinning stops as you move around.  If you absolutely can't get one, you can choose to escape and try another one.  There are always more Pokémon to capture, so no matter how few or many you end up catching, you can always try again. Each time you catch one, it is tallied; if you miss one, you move on. You receive metals for catching them, and you can work at your own pace. 

Scaffolded Learning Opportunities

     Pokémon GO helps you to become a better player by reinforcing information as you play with low-stakes activities such as powering up Pokémon and offering medals for capturing certain numbers and types with badge-like rewards that suddenly appear on your screen. It is like suddenly learning you got extra points on an assignment, boosting your confidence.  Pokémon reminds you of how to play the game in this way, and helps you advance in subtle ways.  With this support you can move forward gracefully. My research tasks remind me that I need to use my berries.  Slowly, by advancing from level to level, I gain an understanding of the various components of the game.  Pokémon GO starts with lower levels that are short and easy to move through, while the higher levels take much longer (ie more points) to complete. In that way, beginning players are rewarded easily as they learn the basics, while more advanced players are given bigger challenges to move forward, but no one is given something they can't handle at their level. Excellence in teaching!

Group Work and Building Community

My box becomes full and I have to decide which Pokémon to power up, send off to Professor Willow to clear space in my box, or trade with someone.  These decisions are part of the everyday tasks in the game, and there are as many approaches to them as there are players.  Learning from others on how they approach the game is part of the game itself.  And as you reach higher levels and start to raid, you naturally meet other players, as some raids take at least 10 people in order to win. Even those quieter among us share information and help each other; I have been in more than one raid where we all backed right before it started to allow someone time to reconnect their phone, or arrive late. There is as much a culture of respect as there is one of competition that is cultivated by the game. It allows for both introverts and extroverts in the learning community. 

Next: Professor Willow, Shinies, and Luck

The Secret to Increased Student Retention

There is a big push in our local community and technical college system to both increase retention and move more students towards degree completion.  This is an ongoing struggle, as we are working with students whose lives are split between work, family and school. Sometimes it feels like the harder we - the institutions -  try, the harder it gets. My own institution, Renton Technical College, has an open entry system that  allows for anyone in the community to register for the program of their choice with relative ease and get started on learning job skills.  The problem is keeping them until program completion.  Why would someone invest the time, money and effort  in starting a program only to leave after one or two quarters? The pat "look on the positive side" answer is usually that they found a job; the less flattering one is that their language skills or study skills weren't up to par.  But amazingly,  it is never that they weren't being taught well.

This is the elephant in the room. We need to train our teachers to reach our learners where they are at.  At community and technical colleges we have so many teachers who are subject matter experts from the field who have very little or absolutely no training in how to teach.  This is a glaring problem that we need to face.  We have older teachers who have been teaching in a "sage on the stage; read a chapter and take a test" form for years who are now seeing internet-savvy students walk away because they can get so much of what they need on their own, and who want to learn from someone who engages them on multiple levels. And immigrant students  - who used to be a classroom minority - are now the majority, and need to be recognized and have their needs identified and their abilities acknowledged.

This could all be solved with some expectations and guidelines for teachers to be updated with current teaching practices and ongoing chances to experiment, share and collaborate.  Just like students, they need a clear pathway to success, not a foggy "go and do it" approach to their jobs. Unlike K-12 educators, higher education does not require teachers to be certified in any way on teaching itself, but perhaps this is the moment where that should shift.  No amount of expertise in any given field will help you when you are working with students from all ages, backgrounds, and goals. If a system and a school want to increase retention and completion rates, they should look first and foremost at improving the very thing that education is all about: Teaching and Learning.

English 101 students at RTC 

10 Days of Pokemon Go: One Educator's Perspective

There's something about summer that makes us feel whimsical.  As we don our sunglasses, feel the sun, and open car windows, our inner self starts to relax.  I was in a summer mood when my friend Tim- a working IT professional in his mid 40s - told me that he was playing Pokemon Go, and found it to be fun.  My usual dubious, anti-gaming, mom self was inexplicably set aside, and, in the name of education and  exploration,  I decided to try it. Together, we downloaded it, and took our first Pokemon Go walk.

Day 1: Go!

This is amazing!  It actually knows where I am; I can see the streets appear around me as I walk, and blue "PokeStops" appear in the distance as I walk. I create my avatar with purple hair and a matching outfit and we set forth into our shared space. My world is now filled with PokeStops and Pokemon (Pocket Monsters)  buzzing my phone, challenging me to catch them.  The fact that when you click on the stops they fill in with an actual photo of the area made me wonder about the blurring of lines between virtual and real for young kids. The Pokemon move with a liveliness and animation that teases me to just try to catch them; my PokeBalls were jumped over and dodged time and time again with ease. Each Pokemon has a name and type, and points are given by the type of catch you make. Once you catch one, it is added to your Pokedex.  Points. points, points for everything. Spin the Pokestop medallion, and the balls and other useful tools fly out to you....not unlike a roulette wheel, except you win every single time. Gambling addiction, anyone?

Day 2: Scaffolded Learning

Breaking learning into chunks and then providing a way to approach each chunk is scaffolded learning. Pokemon has this concept down pat.  You start with easy-to-catch Pokemon at first.  "Gotcha!"  There is music and sound effects as well, but I never had my sound turned up.) There are PokeGyms that appear on the screen, but when you click on it as a beginner, it says, "You will be able to go to the gym after you reach Level Five." You get good at what you are doing in steps.  Every time something new appears or is caught, there is a one-sentence explanation of what it is and what that means. There are lots of chances to succeed - PokeStops everywhere! Pokemon appearing again and again!  - and no one knows how many times it takes you to catch one; if you keep trying, you can keep winning. Pokemon-Go is constructed like a  "safe assignment," something I have been promoting  in my courses; giving students lots of chances to self-assess without worrying about being graded; lots of smaller assessments for students to check and see how they are doing as they learn, rather than one or two large tests.

It is a very upbeat and positive distraction. Emphasis on distraction; since it is so immediate and intertwined with your own life (when I went to the beach, Pokemon-Go went with me; when you play in the evening, the screen turns to night-time colors.)  It is almost like your own life has expanded. The Google orange man has been around for a while, what was missing was the engagement. There have to be ways we can incorporate these concepts into learning.  I imagined a Quizlet-Go; a program that has vocabulary words that you have to "catch" with their definition of things around you and related concepts. 

Day 3: Growth Mindset

Perseverance is worth a lot when it comes to learning; seeing yourself as being able to succeed and failure as a chance to learn are keys to a growth mindset.  Pokemon Go helps to hone this mindset, as you have numerous chances to fail and then try again and again to win.  You can move ahead, as I did, with no experience in gaming culture, but simply the determination to make it to the next level. I did not feel frustration at having to keep finding PokeStops to gather more balls, but enjoyed the process. By deciding to move to another level, I then did so simply by persevering; no matter that some were caught easily and some not.  Along the way I collected some badges that also worked to nudge me forward; 10 Water Pokemon! 10 Insect Pokemon!  These things encouraged me to keep going, in spite of the fact that it often took me numerous attempts to catch those silly things.

Day 4: Walk to incubate!

There is a lot of research that points to the benefits of exercise and the brain; learning is increased when the body moves. Many educators such as myself make sure students have a chance to shift gears every once in a while to increase learning, and moving to another table in the room, shifting from listening to a lecture to group work,  is enough of a change in the environment to refresh the brain. Pokemon Go not only refreshes the brain with new Pokemon, they slowly bring in various types of winnings at PokeStops besides the beginner's PokeBall. Occasional eggs started appearing at PokeStops, and I learned how to put them in incubators. I have 2 km and 5 km incubators; those eggs will hatch with even more powerful Pokemon after, and only after, I have walked those distances. This means, walk with your phone. This means, keep playing.  Constant engagement: brilliant. "Gamification" in education is huge, but we are nowhere near this level of engagement. Yet.

Day 5: Level Up!

I became a Level 5 and was eligible for the PokeGym.  This could be my nature, it could be because I don't know enough about it, but the thought of battling other Pokemon did not interest me.  I kept walking, catching, and incubating. By this time, my husband John was way ahead of me.  The points pulled him in, and I noticed that he was reading the information more carefully than I was,  (when you capture one and it says "Great!" you get more points than when  you capture one and it says "Nice!" (Or maybe visa-versa; you can see how important this is to me.) I have to say this struck me as a male/female thing. He was going for the gold. I was enjoying the process.

Day 6: Trampled

Soon after, my husband John  confessed that he had gone to a PokeGym. He had used his strongest Pokemon, a crab type creature called Paras.  He had expected that a trainer would be there, and he would be able to learn what to do, in a step-by-step style, as we had been doing all along.  Instead, his crab had been instantly beaten. In his words, Trampled.  We ain't in Kansas no more... This is a PokeGym.  It was like walking into a final thinking you are fully prepared, and flunking because none of the material was covered in class.  Whoops. Pokemon Go dropped the ball here - so to speak -  at least from a beginner's perspective.

Day 7: A Community...of Sorts

When you play Pokemon Go, you talk to others who are playing too. That means the UPS driver, the guy next to you in the parking lot, the people sitting on the bench near you.  People exchange tips and ask what level you are. Most of the people I talked to were in their 30's and younger. Other players seemed happy to see someone of my generation (= old) playing.  Non-playing friends thought I was joking; they shook their heads in disbelief; my esteem visibly falling before my eyes.  They all but said it: "What a waste of time."  For the first time in my life, I was at the other end of the disappointed glare that I have given my sons in the past.

You notice duos, and trios of kids playing as they walk down the street, completely engrossed. "Watch where you are going" and "Do not Trespass" the game warns in intervals. The game has brought them outside, and has brought them together.  This is impressive and important. It is a community builder; if you consider they are all in a classroom, it is the kind of classroom community where people are sharing and helping each other.  Both the educator and mom parts of me appreciate that, but both the educator and mom parts of me also know that real community needs more interaction than just playing a game next to each other. We have to be careful when we talk about community, as (in my mind)  it involves interactions. There is also some level where race plays into this, as I (white) am not worried about walking around randomly with this game in hand, but someone else may be perceived as a threat.   On some level, it is a game of privilege, as you play it on a smartphone, with a lifestyle that allows you to choose this diversion.

Day 8: Free Catches!

We visited our 24-year old son Brian  in Bellingham, WA, and my husband discovered with excitement a Lure Module; someone had switched on a feature that lures Pokemon to the area and anyone there can benefit by being able to capture Pokemon easily.  We went near the area and stood on a street corner and there were Pokemon everywhere to catch, sprinkled into the air were cherry blossoms-like petals of celebration. We busily caught Pokemon.  Our son stood next to us and watched, incredulous.

Day 9: Perspective Shift

On Day 9,  I started to notice the "distracted listening" syndrome in myself and others. We are pretending to listen - and even feeling like we are participating - in conversations around us, but one eye is on the game. We casually attempt to catch a Pokemon as we wait for an order to arrive, or while walking to the car, for example.  I knew I was doing it, but it didn't start to bother me until I was driving, and my husband John, riding shotgun, was trying to catch Pokemon and get balls from Pokemon stops at 50 mph.  I felt like I was chauffeuring a young teen around, even though he tried valiantly to cover.  I began to feel myself turn from experimenting educator to exasperated mom mode.   I could see that this could potentially affect our relationship if we continued along these lines.  (Playing "a little" is probably not an option that will work very well. How much is a little?)

Day 10: Pokemon Stop

The next day I  reached Level 8, and  I decided it was time to stop.  At this point John is a Level 15.   This is probably a typical female/male sample of difference in gaming. I could see how it could be fun to keep playing, of course, but I also felt like actively playing was interfering with too many thoughts and ideas that I am compelled to use in my work and life, and at this incredible moment in education, there are too many other things to explore.

I am happy I experienced Pokemon Go, and actually had more fun than I expected.  It has been truly educational, and I know it could easily be used for subjects such as local geography (PokeStops are usually small places of distinction that we often don't notice)  math (distances walked, points, percentages) and even writing (who is your Avatar?)  You could even get creative with surveys of Pokemon Go users for communication studies, and there must be ways this can be tied to coding.  It reinforced my ideas about scaffolding and engagement, and as an online teacher, I am convinced we need to find ways to utilize more of that. Pokemon Go was exactly what is it supposed to be: Fun. But I don't want it to take over my life, so I am stopping.

At least for now.

Google Micro-lessons

I just opened google and saw an adorable scene of birds in trees and a birdwatcher looking at them. When I scrolled over the scene, it said "Phobe Snetsinger's 85th Birthday" with this link to further information. There, I could see at a glance that she  was an American bird-watcher famous for having seen and documented birds of over 8,000 different species of birds. She lived from 1931 to 1999. Fron there, another link to me to her intriguing-sounding book,  Birding on Borrowed Time and saw that "Phoebe's quest to see as many birds as possible only began at the age of 34, when she first laid eyes on a resplendent Blackburnian Warble."

So - let's do the math; She lived to be 68.  She started watching birds when she was 34 - halway through her life.  That means that in about 34 years, she documented more than anyone else had at that point: Birds of more than 8,000 different species. Even to a non-bird-watcher, I know: That's a lot of bird-watching! 

That's a lot of determination. People find this kind of thing striking, and inspiring.  And google knows it.  They give us a bit of inspiration, along with some historical facts on people or events every day. They use a visual for engagment, to draw us in. And let us do the rest; relate to our own experiences, think about determination, look at something with new eyes.

Google gives us micro-lessons every day. We take them for granted, but there are so many ways they could be used. A daily writing prompt, or art prompt. Math questions; if she viewed 8,000 species in 34 years, on average how many did she view a year? Each month? Geography questions, science questions....limitless. Next time you need something quick and engaging, remember google. A micro-lesson a day, for any learner. 

Inspired, not Driven

Data is BIG nowadays.  With so much information coming to us so much more easily than ever, we can make a million more connections than before. Daily. Educational institutions are dating big data with all the hope of a first date; we are scrutinizing data concerning how our students learn, how our teachers teach, who are learners are, how our messaging works, and oh so much more.  We have shifted our reflections and reporting to be focused on data, which in turn has led us to more data. Along the way we have incrementally become much more inclusive and embracing of those Number People, who used to seem so quiet and esoteric, turned to only at the last minute when a grant was being written. (Still the case. But no longer just then.)

The IR department of many an institution is being suddenly recognized as the most exciting and important department on any given campus, giving them in turn an increase in self-confidence and motivation.  Our own IR team has started Data Summits for faculty and staff, built data glossaries and directories, and started fantastic newsletter in the past year.  So much information to analyze and learn from. Slowly, it has spread across campus to even people like myself, as I cautiously attend data summits - Please don't ask me a numbers question! - and get to know our IR staff, who, it turns out do not bite. The past couple of years has been like a giant ah-hah moment for people like myself, who tend to form ideas, opinions, and construct whole programs, courses, and departmental initiatives based on gut feelings formed from experience, lots of reading and thinking, and a willingness to take risks.  Like rouge detectives, we follow our hunches. 

It is exciting when those hunches coincide with the data. But nowadays we are seeing how data can also lead the way, not just verify and document what we are doing. "Data-driven" (or "data-informed") decisions are thought of as the best approach to making any decision now, large or small.  Data-driven, evidence-based decision-making is how every decision is made. While I see the reasoning there, I feel that "data-driven" somehow take the human side out of our decisions.  These decisions are still about people, and people are complex and sometimes unpredictably idiosyncratic, not to mention dynamic. I want to preserve and honor that. 

Inspired by Data

Words are important, and help define our perspectives. (I wrote a related post on terminology:  The Problem with Problem-Based Learning, where I asked that PBL, Problem-Based Learning, be viewed as SBL, Solutions-Based Learning.) What I need data for is to inspire me.  As an educator, I want to find new directions for teaching and learning, find new ways to connect with students, and new ways to engage faculty. I want to be data-inspired, not data driven. I want a phrase that compels me to imagine.   I want to create and be inspired by data, not be driven by it. Driven feels tireless and exhausting.  Inspired feels motivating and fascinating, full of possibilities. Let's move forward with data-inspired mindsets that embrace a little messiness and allow us to take risks. Sometimes -  even data shows -  those are the best kinds of decisions. 


Images:
https://pixabay.com/static/uploads/photo/2013/12/16/02/57/data-229113_960_720.jpg
https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/0/08/LOD_Cloud_2014.svg/3888px-LOD_Cloud_2014.svg.png

Sparrow Goes to Conference, Gets Crumbs

I have attended and presented at many conferences over the years, and have always felt conflicted about attending. It is not just my introverted self; it is a problem of life interruption. First there is the paperwork required; I know I am lucky that I can usually have my institution cover most of the costs, but that demands that a somewhat esoteric and 1970s- style paperwork process be carried out.

Signing up with excitement months in advance, I tell myself that surely my life will have more breathing space than it does at that moment. (Scheduling Denial is the go-to attitude of every Over-extender.)  I have matured somewhat out of my penchant to Attend Everything over the years, but the impulse is still there. My work schedule has gotten nothing but busier and responsibilities have increased immensely. (Over-Extenders thrive on self inflicting responsibilities.)  Time away requires carving out some space that pushes work to be somehow fitted in with a mad rush to wrap up before I leave, or piled up in a stack of papers covered with sticky notes  - even more than usual - after I get back.  My email inbox looks like a rush-hour traffic jam if left unattended for a day or two, complete with horns honking. So I usually just don't "leave" as far as my email colleagues are concerned.  

The development of a very engaging Personal Learning Network has also given me a great avenue for connecting with new ideas and brilliant people without the cost and time required of conferences. I have followed blogs for years, and had my ESL students blogging when I was a teacher in that sphere.  Facebook groups and Pinterest have been another great source of ideas. I  learned to use twitter in a MOOC course in 2012, and - after an incredibly slow and painful struggle to "get" it - have found it to be  the single most meaningful action I have taken as an educator in the past five years; I connect with educators all the time, and whenever I want a short burst of inspiration, it is there with articles, visuals, and ideas.

With my PLN nourishment I feel less need to attend every conference, and can use my budget for other things. When I do attend conferences, I sit up front so I can see  (and hear!) the slides and presenter clearly, I turn on my phone, take a picture to help myself remember it, and listen for a "golden line" to tweet.  With some practice, it has gotten easier to juggle listening, tweeting, and thinking. And not feeling self-conscious about doing all of the above.  It focuses me on the presentation and gives me something to remember it with afterwards. And the act of doing that invariably connects me to even more people interested in what I'm interested in.  Tweets are re-tweeted and commented on, and the conversation grows beyond the room I am in. They are like crumbs from the conference table; maybe not as fancy as the main meal, but tidbits that many sparrows can enjoy.

sparrow | Flickr - Photo Sharing! : taken from - https://secure.flickr.com/photos/37334609@N05/3756753201Author: Abhilash Kumar https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-sa/2.0/ 

You can't see what they're wearing...

The first time I taught a Hybrid course (2009) I fell in love with the format. (I'm the kind of person who falls in love with things like formats.) It was an advanced writing course for ESL students, and I took full advantage of blogging. We met once a week for 4 hours on Friday mornings; went over some grammar points, often doing small group activities to reinforce them, did some sharing of our writing, and started discussing our next topic/writing style. Everyone left with a writing project for their blog; I went over these on Wednesdays and made comments and suggestions. They could easily re-publish their posts, and I encouraged the use of visuals to enhance their writings. I watched in fascination as the combination of blog ownership, the ease of corrections and the joy of sharing their writings (we sometimes went "Blog Hopping") empowered them to become much more confident and effective writers. From there I developed a hybrid reading course. That joy I felt with those classes was the main reasons I felt hesitation when I had a chance to shift to a new position related to faculty development. 

Little did I realize at that point that my new position would take me even further into the realm of online teaching. I was introduced to the Quality Matters rubric for online teacahing in my first month on the job and - you guessed it! - fell in love with the format. Coming quickly on the heels of my training was a deep need at our institution to develop excellent online teachers. I worked with one of our Deans to put together a month-long online in-service for online teachers that highlighted their best practices. The more I worked with community college teachers the more I felt the need for information on utilizing technology and creating inclusive online and hybrid courses. With the need was so obvious and the teachers so interested in learning, I put together a month-long course for educators called "Technology for Teaching and Learning". It immediately filled up; I just finished the second round. And I find that online teaching can indeed be effective and inspiring as classroom teaching. 

Online teaching has a quieter personality from hybrid teaching, but like a lot of people with quiet personalities that take a while to get to know, they end up being your best friend. With online teaching, you can't see what the student is wearing. But you can see what the student is wondering. The excellent online teacher pays attention to discussions, makers herself available to questions, and sets up a course that is easy to navigate with an atmosphere that welcomes (not threatens) students. There are so many ways to connect with students personally online; you can respond to their needs with explanations, links to websites, and images. I always hated trying to draw things on the whiteboard, and frankly my handwriting is atrocious; my online courses have wonderfully engaging images (I use my camera often) and a great selection of readable fonts. 

The more I work with course development the more ways I find to communicate and develop relationships with my students, and for them to learn from each other as well. I am finding that discoveries and sharing from my online courses - which I can revisit whenever I want - reverberate in my mind longer than a ground class. Teaching online means teaching with the world at your fingertips. This means state-of-the-art possibilities with tools and technology. It literally means the best minds in the world can be part of your class materials. It means your students can study anytime, anywhere, and can ask you any question they want without disrupting class. As I prepare to teach the second iteration of the Canvas course "Hybrid Courses: Best of Both Worlds" - a massive online course about hybrid teaching - I reflect daily on these two teaching formats, comparing them as well as reflecting on and building my own approach and philosophy. The thing I look forward to the most in facilitating the course again is the communication and idea exchange that will go on between the participants, as they learn from and inspire each other. We'll be using a variety of technology I'm incorporating into the course - and developing Hybrid Course Planners along the way. I am also excited because we will have a fantastic guest speaker; Jesse Stommel will join us in a google hangout! I can't wait for this next adventure. (Interested educators from any field are welcome! Enroll here.) I created this week's infographic, thinking about online teaching: