After reading james Paul Gee’s “Semiotic Domains: Is playing Video Games a ‘Waste of Time’?” I started to think about the whole idea of how video games can be linked to literacy. Here is a part of the article:
It was quite a sight to watch a six-year-old, as Captain Olimar, lead a multicolored army of little Pikmin to fight, build, grow more Pikmin, and explore a strange landscape, all the while solving multiple problems to discover and get to the locations of the spaceship’s missing parts. The child then ordered his Pikmin to carry the heavy parts back to the ship. When this child’s grandfather made the following remark: “While it may be good for his hand-eye coordination, it’s a waste of time, because there isn’t any content he’s learning.” I call this the problem of content.

Even though it appears that the six-year-old is taking part in a profound literacy pastime, I feel as if the markers have taken video games too far. The article focuses on how children are able (through many different principles) to grasp skills in reading and comprehension, I do feel that video games are not the answer. The article does not go on to discuss how children are spending too much time with games, and should just pick up a book instead. Many video games are extremely violent and allow children to believe what goes on in the video game is ok to do in their own lives. I just feel that the idea of video games is not that great for children to be playing, in terms of expanding their literacy abilities. Children should be reading literature and taking a walk outside, instead of playing games for hours at a time and not experiencing what life it all about.

When people think they can’t get a job anywhere else, many people say, “Oh I’ll just be a teacher.” Some people may think that becoming a teacher is the easiest job to get. Some people may also think that being a teacher is simple. THEY ARE ALL WRONG! The classes that you need to take and all the information that your professors want you to know is off the charts.  I have taken at least 20 courses in the 3 years that I’ve gone to school and it’s hard to remember everything that professors put into your minds. Sometimes it goes through one ear and out the other. I just try to remember the most important things. There is so much that professors teach you about what you need to know when you are the classroom teacher. You need to know classroom management. You need to know the Core Curriculum Standards of what your students need or should know by the end of the school year. You also have to keep orgnaized of what you are going to teach and how you are going to teach the subjects in your class. What’s worse is that if you are going to be an Elementary School Teacher, you need to keep up with teaching 5 subjects and all the lesson plans for those subjects and how you are going to maintain everything. I have been told that being a teacher is more than a 9-5 job. It may even become your life. But, A great accomplishment!!!! You will be an EDUCATOR!

The one thing I’m extremely nervous about is any teaching position interview that comes my way. I’m afraid I’m going to frezze and become mute during the whole interview. The principal and other administrators will be asking many questions and I don’t know what to expect or how to answer. This is a reason why I don’t think I’ll ever get a permanent position. My nerves always take over my mind and body. If and when I get a position I’m terrified of my first day on the job. I just hope that I have good classroom managment. Maybe I should talk to someone to help calm my nerves. This is all overwhelming.

For my education classes I was recently introduced to the EASIEST way to write a lesson plan.  You can subscribe for any amount of time you want; anywhere from a month to a few years.  The cost is substantial and well worth it.  It gives you a complete layout and all you have to do is type in the information.  It also gives you the content standard for each lesson you want to teach.  I find it to take off SO much additional stress that we as education majors don’t need.  It’s quick and easy, and I plan to use it even after college when I’m in the classroom.  I recommend this to EVERYONE, if you don’t already have it!

I found this article very informative and very creepy.  It may be naive, but I never realized just how much I am possibly being tracked.  From credit cards, to websites, even at the grocery store?  You start to wonder where your private life actually becomes private.  However, when you are using applications like Facebook, what do you expect?  Going on sites like that and MySpace, you can’t be ignorant enough to think it won’t get out.  Whenever you put something on the web, from what I understand, even after you delete it, it can still be found something like 6 months later?!  These are things to consider when engaging in these kinds of websites.  Your best bet is to make sure all your settings are private.  Even though there is probably ways around it, at least it will be difficult to look at your site.  Also, it has been becomming a rule of thumb that you shouldn’t put anything on your facebook you wouldnt want future employers to see.  The new trend seems to be the looking at of Facebook sites by future employers and EVEN parents of students for all you teachers out there. It’s crazy.  And I personally don’t want my students parents seeing pictures of me doing keg stands..I somehow don’t believe they would appreciate it…even if it was a record time.

Before reading the article “Semiotic domains: Is playing video games a “waste of time”?”, I already associated video games as being a form of literacy. In order to play a video game you need to use many techniques that are used while reading. For instance, the article mentions that as you read, there are images and pictures that help guide your way through reading a story, which is the case in many children’s books. Although these pictures are telling you a story through words, the pictures themselves represent a story in itself. It’s like the expression, “a picture is worth a thousand words.” While playing video games, a person is given certain pictures and images to decode, which although their may not be any words used, people still comprehend the directions through this process. In addition to that, a lot of the popular video games today usually have a story line to follow. This is a great way to get kids to read without really thinking that they are reading the material.

Last year in my education classes, we were simply introduced to the profession. However, my classes this year, really has made becoming a teacher more “real”. We are now starting to learn the components of creating our very own lesson plan that we will actually be teaching to our class. How exciting is that!?! Although this process requires a lot of work that I wasn’t quite prepared for, I must say its beneficial to finally be doing some real hands on work with the students. Becoming a teacher is slowly becoming closer and closer. In my other education classes we are also learning different forms of teaching literacy. Its interesting the techniques that teachers have created in order to help students with understanding the material better.

When I read the class reading, ” Is Playing Video Games a “waste of time”, I read that video games are a source of literacy. I was really surprised because I never thought of video games as a literacy but, when you think of everything that is grouped together in a video game, I now understand why video games are a source of literacy. When a person plays a video game, the person has to decode meanings of things, for example, images and the gaming language. I believe that if someone can’t decode these things in a video game then the person won’t be able to play a video game. This goes for someone that is reading a book. In order to read the book, the person needs to decode meanings of words and what the book is about. Video gaming is like a domain. People who play video games understand the language and therefore understand each other. I know someone who plays video games all of the time and when I am watching him play, I am clueless about the whole thing. I don’t understand the language and he does understand the language. When playing video games there are also certain codes that a person can use to get around certain parts of the game, sometimes called cheat codes. But, in order to know about these codes, the person needs to know the language of video gaming.