brock dubbels's Page

Location (Country, State, District):

Minneapolis, MN USA

I am a:

student, teacher, library-media specialist, college or university professor, for profit employee

Title:

Mediatool

Grade Level or Age of Students You Work With

k-8

Web Site:

http://videogamesaslearningtools.com

Blog:

http://5th-teacher.blogspot.com

Languages Spoken:

English
Spanish
German

Favorite Education Resources:

kids

About Me/Reason for Joining the GEC:

My background in cognitive psychology and curriculum and instruction has led me to examine possibilities for exploring ways that reading comprehension and critical reasoning skills can be embedded within a digital curriculum.

The intention is to embed what are often considered rote style tasks into highly motivating activities. In a project using video games in the classroom, the games were used as a model for designing instruction and assessment, as well as using the technology to facilitate instruction and data collection. I am currently in my third year of teaching a course at the University of Minnesota called Video Games as Tools for Educators.

Along with this, I am an editorial member of the new journal for the Center for Cognitive Sciences, Cognitive Critique, and I have recently joined the editorial review board of the International Journal of Gaming and Computer-Mediated Simulations.
I have worked in the past on a variety of topics related to reading and cognition. Specifically issues related to prosody, formatting, and comprehension. This has led into investigations of readability, text complexity, and ways this can be measured.

Currently I am learning about the processes of comprehension as a foundation for many of the new literacies.

* A key feature is the consideration of literacy as pattern recognition;
* that all of us do this naturally;
* that comprehension is not exclusive to text;
* many of us can develop decoding skills to support our intention to gather information from texts;
* that our beliefs about our learning are the best predictors of our future success;
* that reading instruction can and should be embedded in activities that are interesting and relevant to learners;
* and that new media like video games, media production, and interaction with technology can be used to develop comprehension.
* Play, especially imaginative and fantasy play, are precursors to comprehension.


I have found that given purposeful activities, most if not all young people can recruit the skills to become successful readers with the support of understanding the reading process, awareness of formatting, relating to the oral language experience, slowing down with confidence, and the ability to create situation models.

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