3 D GameLab is an online learning environment. The lessons we have been learning are for instructors interested in using digital media in their courses. The lessons include instructions on where/how to find digital media such as texts, images, and video, to discussion pieces about legality and morality. It is an interesting interactive environment. 

The lessons I did this week were about finding images and texts, about legality vs morality, and tracking resources. 

In the advice about video, I connected it to Brain Rules's chapter about attention. The 3D Game Lab lesson "Finding Video" suggests that videos should be no longer than 10 minutes- just as Brain Rules does. I also connected much of what I learned in 3D Game Lab to "Confronting the Challenges of Participatory Culture: Media Education for the 21st Century". In this article, the authors point to several problematic areas in the teaching digital media the participation gap, the transparency problem, and the ethics challenge (3). 

3D Game lab addresses the participation gap by giving instructors resources that their students could then use. Repositories like compfight could help students create multimedia projects without worrying too much about copyright. Some of the lessons also deal with attribution, which would be important for instructors and students to learn. 3D Game Lab addresses transparency by suggesting ways instructors could use open-content in their own courses. The Common Sense ratings mentioned in the lesson "Legality vs Morality" also speaks about how media can transform the way children look at things, thus it is important for media resources to be age-appropriate. The ethics challenge is also addressed in  "Legality vs Morality" through the Code of Ethics for Bloggers. The code, adapted from the Code of Ethics for the Norwegian press, urges its audience to think carefully about the information they put available online and how they should make sure to represent themselves truthfully. 

Link to Capzle 

This week I used capzles, an environment in which you can create an outline. I like the different themes that you can choose and I found the program very easy to learn- uploading media rather than being able to take it from the internet is rather tedious, however. I condensed the information a lot this week on each blog for the timeline. Capzles work a bit like a simplified Prezi or powerpoint- you can make your blog posts slides that have images or sound embedded. I wish there were more customization options. 

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Responses

Kevin's response and note-taking challenge were interesting. It's a good idea to enter screenshots of the site. I also found his storify for brain rules very informative- the videos do speak for themselves and its a good use of embedding. 

In Kim's reflection notes, she talks about the gap between the variety of online resources and the knowledge of how to use them without infringing copyright. While education often gets a fair use exception in the classroom, if teachers are trying to put their work online it may be important to know. Creative Commons copyright is very useful for this kind of thing. Clicking on a creative commons symbol will take you to the CC website where it will tell you what you can and can't do with the material. Kim's comment about access to computers in community college is also important to think about. OERs could get rid of expensive textbooks, as Kim said, but not every student has access to a reliable computer with reliable internet connection.