Simulations in Education

After a long and crazy holiday weekend I am sitting down preparing for my work week ahead. As I was thinking about my math class I had a wonderful assessment idea to wrap up the unit we are currently working on. Money! I thought to myself how can I simulate the expereince of going shopping for my students. Ultimately, I am going to doing some simulation of my own in class this week because I plan on setting up a class store with items for the students to purchase from me. The student will be given fake money, pick out items to purchase, present me (teacher/cashier) with their money, and if change is needed orally state the amount of change needed. This is a great example of simulations used in my very own classroom!

Simulations

Just wanted to reflect on a thought I had this week while in school. At the beginning of the school year, while the weather is still nice, we always get in our fire drills. There are a certain number we must do each year; however, we also practice 'lock-down' drills and bomb threat drills as well. I was thinking about all of these different evacuation procedures, etc. that we talk about and practice and simulations came to mind. These drills provide us all with a glimpse of the concept that help to make the situation more efficient, effective, and in this case less dangerous.

Digital Games and Simulations in Classrooms

http://www.edweek.org/login.html?source=http://www.edweek.org/ew/articles/2009/04/08/28games_ep.h28.html&destination=http://www.edweek.org/ew/articles/2009/04/08/28games_ep.h28.html&levelId=2100


This is a link from Education Week; however, it only allows you to view the first few paragraphs unless you are logged in under a personal or school account. I wanted to share this with you because it discusses the use of digital games and simulations in classrooms. I think we will see this advanced version of simulations that put technology to use in a variety of ways and forms more and more as time goes on. Classrooms have changed significantly even since I was in high school so I can only imagine how they will change throughout my career as a teacher. I also was trying to get away from my K-12 mindset and think about higher education and different educational fields such as science, medicine, business, etc. I believe the more technologically advanced a school or program is within a college the more opportunities you will see for simulation of real life events.

Examples of Simulation

When I was first contemplating what examples of simulation in education would be I thought of standardized tests. I think of something that happens in education that teachers try to imitate for their students. Testing and particularly standardized tests are a good example because teachers often talk to their students about this and try to create a test and environment beforehand that prepares their students and gives them an experience as similar to the real event as possible.

Simulation in Education

My new blod topic for the second half of the semester is going to focus on simulation in education. Some of you may wonder; what is simulation?
Simulation is the imitation of something real. It can imitate a process, event that will take place, or many other state of affairs. Simulation is used for a variety of different reasons and in a number of different professions. Some examples include, technology, training, testing, video games, etc.

Do you have any experience with simulation?

Educational Scams?

I've been sick this week and took time this weekend to catch up on some rest. I wasn't able to sleep last night and all that was on TV were terrible infomercials. I started listening to one and it was called "My Baby Can Read". The entire infomercial was about a program designed for baby's giving them the skills required to read and there were examples of baby's ranging from a few months old to 3 years and so on reading words, books, and answering questions. I immediately was interested and became wondering about what the program is consisted of. Is this program good for children at such a young age? Does it effect their ability to learn phonetics and the way we teach children to read later in life? Are they learning all of these words as sight words? Will they be able to decode and read other words just as easily? These are all questions that came to my head and ultimately; is this a scam? This seemed to be an interesting experience I thought I would share and ask if you have seen this or another educational program or game that may be a scam or not do what it is advertised to do.

Early Childhood Educational Games

I was babysitting my niece last night and was talking to my brother about things they need to start buying her to make sure she is getting as much exposure to educational games and practicing skills needed for her to develop before going to school. My niece is only 2 months old however, this is something that is important to me not only as an aunt but as an educator as well. I began thinking of things I would be doing if it were my child; sign language was something that came to mind. When I taught summer school we used Baby Einstein programs for many different skills and techniques. I also have a nephew who is 5 years old and last year I made sure that he had Leap Frog programs and tools to use in order to get him ready for school and exposed to the skills and information needed. There are a variety of different educational games available for children at very young ages and I fully support implementing them into a child's life.