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LTEC Day 15: (Final) Games, Simulations, & Virtual Worlds for Learning


Reflect on your experiences this semester as they relate to the following:
·         Game design and its connection to learning theories and instructional design;
·         The relationship between immersive learning and your professional/academic goals/research interests;
·         Where you think gamified and immersive learning is headed in the future; and
·         Lessons learned to support your academic progress as a learning technologist.
This maymester has been quite a ride.  I felt that this was one of the most exciting topics I have learned at this school.  This class has reinforced my understanding of the learning theories.  While other courses have emphasized the behavioralist, cognitive, and constructivist theories, this class seems to elaborate on the importance of immersion, social aspects, and motivation. Unlike lesson planning for a class, constructing a game gives the designer a lot more time to polish the final product. The nature of programming itself requires more explicit instructions.  Planning more explicitly is something I need to take back to my programming job. As a new programmer, I am glad I now have the tools to bring learning to software development.  It should give me a unique perspective when planning new projects, not just for games, but for any software product.
I mentioned this in my discussion post, but gamified learning will inevitably play a broader role in the classroom. Lower budgets, more schools going one to one, and teacher exhaustion will encourage educators to use things like games to help motivate their classes.  I think there is merit to the idea of the increased usage of virtual and augmented reality for educational purposes. As a former educator, I see games ability to gather large amounts useful of data about student performance, something that would be very popular amongst educators. 
One of the most useful lessons I learned was on the paper prototyping.  I think that would be extremely useful to me as a software developer. Planning as a teacher requires going by the instinct at times, and not necessarily planning in super high detail. Teachers doesn’t give a lot of time to make detailed plans.  Software development does not have that problem.  I am glad that I took this class, and I hope the best for everyone.

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