Pandemic 2 - Game Review

Pandemic II - Video Game Overview

The basic goal/mission of the game is to create a disease, virus, or infection that will become lethal enough to where it can wipe out the whole population of the world. In order to achieve this, the game allows you to make your disease, virus, or infection stronger and more resistant by upgrading the symptoms, resistance, transmission, and traits. In order to unlock new stuff that can help make your disease stronger, you must first attain some evolution points. These are awarded as your disease gets stronger and more resistant as it wipes out more of the world population. The more wipe outs, the more evolution points you attain. You must constantly keep an eye out for the world news for this helps with choosing certain traits you want your disease to have. This also allows you to be aware of certain natural disasters that can be of your benefit to increase population deaths. It is essential you look out for any vaccines or disease prevention activity occurring, because this will only slow down the growth of your disease. You can also sell back stuff that has been purchased that you feel you may no longer need. Be careful what you buy and when you buy it because it can be unnecessary and a waste of a potential resource.  

The way that I would implement this game into my classroom would be by using the California Content Standard for grades 9-12, Standard 3: Accessing Valid Information. By referring to the  standard 3.1P, students will be able to create a disease that is more lethal once they are aware of the health products and services available to the community. They can sue this information to create a more resistant disease. They will be able to also use the standard 3.2P to find other diseases that are related their disease and potentially pair up the two to create a more lethal disease. Something that I noticed while playing the game myself was that government agencies are first to respond when there is an outbreak of a lethal disease that is wiping out a mass population and is infecting natural resources such as, waterways, airborne, and food sources. This is where standard 3.4P comes into play. Students will research these agencies and find out more information about the vaccines that they have for the community. They can  also form a barrier around these locations with their disease or virus to where the agencies can not have any help coming in or out.

While the game’s main goal is to create a disease that will wipe out the population completely, I would use this game as a way to analyze what characteristics a lethal disease has and use the gathered information to find ways to also prevent the disease. This way, the disease can be contained if it were ever to get out of the hands of the creator. There have been lab tested diseases that have somehow found their way out of the lab and became very lethal diseases that wiped out mass populations. I would see how a parent would not like the game Pandemic II because the goal is to wipe out all the population. As a young game player, this would have been one of the games I would not be allowed to play by my parents. Just like any other game however, I would need to find the educational portion of it, in order to be an effective teaching tool.

Technology Review-ST Math

ST Math has been around for quite sometime now, about 20 years, and it has had very prominent success stories from educators that have used it with their students. ST Math can be used for students ages 5-19. I have used this application with Elementary, Middle, and High School students.  This game based learning system features a penguin names Jiji. The objective is for the student to go through a series of mathematical challenges to get Jiji across the screen. Students answer simple math problems using strictly visuals. In this way, the math equation is broken into the simplest, yet complex way for the student to solve the missing puzzle. There is no multiple choice and students are actively learning by doing and critically solving math problems. ST Math contains over 800 games and around 120 games per grade level. This means that as the student is progressing, the math concept gets a little more challenging.

To this day, I have not had any students who have not liked using ST Math. They have all enjoyed the game very much. After doing some research, I found some very useful information that has informative reviews of what have been some of the pros and cons with using ST Math. I am attaching the link on here for you all to take a look at what I thought was a very informative online article ( Is ST Math All It's Cracked Up to Be? ).

I will also provide a link on here for you all to watch a brief 3 minute video of how ST Math has helped students nationwide with their mathematical achievement. Here is the link to find the video with description ( ST Math Brief Introduction  ).

PLN Reflection

My experience to this day using PLN has been a very positive one. The best thing that I have gotten out of it has been the immense networking. Although I feel that it can be very difficult to keep up with all these followers and blogging pages, I think it is definitely worth doing since that is where society is heading now a days. Everyone is going online for resumes, professional references, and professional background. I have experienced a supervisor looking at my LinkedIn for my professional background. I was glad to know I keep it updated as much as possible.

The way that this online community supports teacher's growth is by having a support system that you can take anywhere you go. What stood out to me most was that there are teachers around the world using these online resources to communicate ideas. This is very impactful because it helps teachers gain a different cultural perspective of teaching, something they otherwise could not get if it were not for the possibility of online social interaction. I feel at ease knowing I can use my hand held device to attain all this knowledge.

The ways in which PLN can help with professional learning activities and opportunities is for example, LinkedIn. I feel that this online resource can have a tremendous community impact. For example, professor Evans has followers that could potentially become my followers and network community because we hold similar interest in using technology in education. I can find a wider network which in turn can give me more tools to teach. There are many activities that these professionals have done and completed that can serve as a resource when I want to model these activities in my classroom.

Overall, I feel that having a PLN is very important, especially in a rapidly demanding and growing profession.