The application of OPEN learning in my work returned to some purposeful play in the physical classroom this past week. The students are digging into the beginning pre-production phase of their digital storytelling project. This stage includes concept mapping their ideas into a 'story map' using Mindomo. As part of this work we had a period of time of purposeful play in class. The purpose was to create a concept map of their understanding of digital storytelling after reading and discussing this topic. First step - signing up as a 'teacher' so their use of this digital tool can continue into their next placement and beyond. Then code-breaking within the space while completing the task. They immediately shared their findings and how to accomplish elements in the creation of their maps. Some went further to partner in the digital space with another person in the class. Others used the presentation option to extend their learning. Some returned to their readings and discussion notes to make sense of the topic.
The second OPENLY shared purposeful play came from creating radio bumpers for VoiceEd Radio. This was to support the first anniversary radio-thon planned for the following Saturday. The script for the bumpers were pre-written so knowing what to say was eliminated as a barrier. The 10 second message was randomly distributed to pairs of students so they didn't have to 'go it alone'. They could record the message together, take turns, or one individual could be the 'voice' while the other managed the technology. The intention was to add a music intro, as a hook, and multitrack audio production using either Audacity, GarageBand or other audio recording tools. Since this activity was device agnostic and non-tool specific, students could select and apply the tech they had available to them. Knowing that their audience would reach beyond our classroom spaces added an additional purpose to this learning task.
The third purposeful play event was the collection of images to create a video to accompany a song. The song was played in class without seeing the accompanying music video. This was done in order to assist in the visualization of images to support the voice/music. The song lyrics had been collected and imported into a Google spreadsheet, shared openly to the students. They selected a portion of the song to collect and curate images. Then the students went to any of the open, creative commons licensed locations for images (Pixabay, Unsplash, Morguefiles, Flickr CC) to find images for their section of the song. The purpose of this task was to get students into these image warehouses to code break the site mechanisms for image curation. These may or may not become locations for them to apply image collections for their digital story production. The play had purpose - experiences with image selection, script development, directions for film production and sequencing of image URLs.
Purposeful play has a space in any classroom as a way to dip into a topic, learning experience or assignment skill development. It removes barriers and supports students as they learn, build skills and demonstrate their learning in culminating tasks.
