You want an easy publication? Don't Forget to Submit!

[Forbes, Lisa K]

Hello Everyone!

 

David and I will be going through the Playbook submissions soon so we wanted to send a reminder in case someone was thinking of submitting but hasn’t yet. If there’s something holding you back, we’ve got your motivation:

 

Possible reason not to submit: “I have no idea what you are talking about!”

P@P Motivation: Professors at Play is putting together a playful technique book published by Carnegie Mellon’s etc Press to share with the world! We’ve invited you all to submit a technique (or multiple) for an easy pub. More details on Playbook submissions here.

 

Possible reason not to submit: “I am really busy and don’t have the time!”

P@P Motivation: These submissions are super easy! Each technique submission is only 500-1500 words! TOTAL! You can crank that out in 30 minutes.

 

Possible reason not to submit: “I don’t know that I have anything of value to submit!”

P@P Motivation: My friend, first, there’s no idea too small to be Playbook worthy, but also that is simply a “downward comparison” as described in social comparison theory. We are often our own worst critics but we know you are doing great things! Just submit anyway and we will tell you how great it is and we can also provide some ideas of how to adjust it for the playbook.

 

Possible reason not to submit: “I do some playful activities/discussions but they were not my original idea so I can’t submit.”

P@P Motivation: That’s okay! Our submission outline has a section where you can credit someone else for the idea for the technique. We all get ideas from somewhere but then we mold them, shape them and change them for our specific class! We want to see what you have adapted.

 

I am sure there are more reasons why someone might not submit but I gotta get my son to his hockey game (😊) so here is a big old list of Playbook FAQs that might answer more of your questions! Also, attached are some Playbook submission examples if you want to see what we have submitted.

 

So, go ahead and submit your playful ideas!

 

Lisa K. Forbes, PhD, LPC

Assistant Clinical Professor

Counseling Program

University of Colorado Denver

Office: LSC 1115

She/Her/Hers

 

_____________________________________

*Follow my projects on social media

Professors at Play

Website: professorsatplay.org

Facebook: Professors at Play (@professorsatplay)

Instagram: @professors.at.play

Twitter: @PlayProfessors

 

The Mothering Project

Facebook: The Mothering Project

Instagram: @themotheringproject

Twitter: @Mothering_Drs

 

[Rachel Stein]

Hello,

I hope that this email finds everyone well and preparing for the semester! I am looking to incorporate more play activities into my courses this spring. However, between having Covid and having young kids home with Covid I do not have the time and energy to completely redo my courses at this moment. Therefore, I am hoping to get ideas for small ways to add play to my courses. I am not sure how to start. Please share anything that has worked well for you!

Best,

Rachel 

[pat rumbaugh]

Hi Rachel,

I am so sorry to hear about  your family and yourself having Covid. This has been an extremely challenging times.

I highly recommend ordering our two Play Day Handbooks on the link below. The two together are $30 and filled with tons of ways to add play to your course. One is focussed on in-person Play Days and one is geared towards virtual Play Days. You received the Play Day Handbooks digitally.

https://www.letsplayamerica.org/handbooks

If you are looking for someone to speak to your students on zoom let me know. Since 2009 I have organized over 130 play events. See the flyer below for our 12th Annual Mid-Winter Play Day. If this event needs to go virtual we will announce it on our website by February 5. www.letsplayamerica.org

If anyone out there has young children in their lives or would like to recommend a book that will inspire children to play outside, I highly recommend my new book, “Let’s Play Outside.” You can click on the link and watch the fun short voice trailer. https://www.letsplayamerica.org/books

My motto for 2022 is, Take Time To Play.

I wish you the best.

Pat, The Play Lady

Pat Rumbaugh, MA

Executive Director
Let’s Play America

301-928-9962

thepl...@gmail.com
www.letsplayamerica.org

Facebook, Instagram, Twitter@PatRumbaughPlay  
.
http://letsplayamerica.org/donate/

Everyone deserves to play!

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[Maha Bali]

Dear Rachel

So sorry to hear you've had to go through this.

Not specifically focused on play, but has many playful community-building activities here, with demo videos and templates and adaptations mainly for virtual but all work f2f too:

https://onehe.org/equity-unbound

I hope all is going well.

Maha

Maha Bali, PhD
Associate Professor of Practice, Center for Learning and Teaching, American University in Cairo
http://blog.mahabali.me
** Have you seen CLT's interactive newsletter https://learnhub.aucegypt.edu/cltnewsletter**


   

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[Karrin Lukacs]

Hi Rachel,

First and foremost, I hope this message finds you and your family well on your way to recovery. 

When I have felt uncertain / unsure about how to do something in my class, I have found it helpful to turn the "problem" to the students. For example, when my school adopted a 1:1 iPad initiative, I wanted to learn about apps, but didn't feel like I had the time for exploration. So, I asked students to begin each class with a quick demo of their favorite app, why / how they used it, how it related to course content, etc. When I used the same approach for brain breaks, students often chose to share quick games / activities with their peers. (I did model a few first so that they knew what I was expecting.) I asked that the brain breaks / games relate directly to the content and that there were no repeats (we can only sit through so many  rounds of Jeopard, am I right?). Perhaps this might be a fun (and relatively easy way) to incorporate play into your class(es)? 

I really geek out on all things related to teaching and learning, so if you'd like to schedule a quick Zoom chat to kick around some ideas, let me know! In the meantime...

Take care,

Karrin

[Sue Peterson]

I love the idea of using students to give little PSAs about things!  Thanks for the suggestion.  I started working with your First-Year Experience program this past year and they do ice breaker/community builders at the start of every team meeting and they are often based in playful activities and it is so fun to see what they come up with.  Why not do that same thing in our classes?  I don't know why this isn't obvious in the classroom context, but it is a good reminder!

--Sue

Sue Peterson, Director of Speech and Debate at CSU Chico
sepet...@csuchico.edu
530-898-4771

My daughter was saved by a heart transplant!  Please consider becoming a donor.  Check out http://www.donatelife.net/ for more information! To read more of my daughter's story, check out A Second Heart Girl at https://asecondheart.blogspot.com/ 

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[Wendy Wolfe]

Hi Rachel -

Your note has been on my mind since receiving it, so I've been thinking a lot, then my little guy tested positive for COVID too and things went a little off the rails around here. Regrouping now, so glad to have a long weekend! I hope you and your family are turning the corner too.

My background as a graduate instructor is in educational technology, though I recently taught a Differentiation Instruction for Gifted & Talented and am currently teaching a course on innovations in teaching and learning for our Trauma & Resilience program. I'm also deeply grounded in 7-12 Social Studies as I spent 24 years in the classroom there. The grad courses I teach are in three environments, face-to-face, and then online, one course with a 1-hour/week live chat, one course completely asynchronously. Some of the following strategies reach across platforms better than others, though perhaps they will spark ideas for you in your formats too. :)

I understand about not having time or energy to gamify an entire course or redesign everything, I'm also a big fan of free, so everything here can be done for $0. 

If any of the ideas sound intriguing and you'd like to connect about them more, let's connect any time! :)

Here's to a healthier and more sane 2022 for all! 

Warmly, 

Wendy

"Playful" ideas:

1. Works for any environment one is projecting the screen: the Confetti Cannon Chrome Extension. It is fun to celebrate great ideas, presentations, etc with a pop of the cannon! :)

2. Fun slide design. Slides Carnival  and the occasional whimsical slide can bring good spirit to class. 

3. When my students wrote lit reviews, I asked them to create a "Top 5 Takeaways" video using Adobe Creative Cloud Express (the basic free account is quite robust and educators and students have full free premium access if they register with their school Gmail credentials - my students used their university Gmail accounts successfully). When I explained the video, their initial response was, you mean you want us to have fun? :) And we did. We had a film festival, popcorn & snacks were enjoyed, After each video, students asked each other questions, shared connections to their own learning, it was great. This would be able to be implemented in any setting, if virtual and asynchronous, videos could be posted via links to a Discussion Board or Google Slide allowing for discussion to ensue. 

4. To change things up, once per course, we conduct a Twitter Chat in place of meeting. I am not a Twitter pro, and will admit I'm a little nervous each time (one of the instructors on my team came up with this idea/process and it had such positive responses, we put it into a number of our courses), but it is fun to see them engage and they enjoy it too. Before we hold our own Twitter chat, they "attend" one of their own choosing so they have an idea about what it is. They don't have to participate on the first chat they attend, but are required to participate on ours. Here are more details about the process for instructors, information provided to students, and screenshots from our fall chat.

For one of my other courses, we don't host our own Twitter Chat, but one of their assignments is to attend 4 Twitter Chats, they enjoy the change of pace. Here's that assignment too. To see what Twitter Chats are out there for your subject, Google is a great start, try some searches like twitter chat psychology education, twitter chat school psychology etc. Not sure how active they are, but school counselors also have some chat information. 

5. A centering question or activity can be fun too. From sharing a favorite quote (captured on a Google Slide set so all could edit) to a meme of how the week is going to an image of how you are at the moment, favorite place to travel, favorite food, this or that,  Using Google's Jamboard, Padlet, or a Google Drawing/Slide can all be great ways to capture that learning. There are also a ton of Jamboard templates out there if making your own is not your "jam."  

6. A Selfie Adventure can be a fun way to engage with content too.  Anything that can be investigated through images can be incorporated into a Selfie Adventure, places, events, diagrams of systems, This was the template I created as a community builder for a virtual course, 

1. Take a selfie.

2. Upload to https://www.remove.bg/ to take the background out
3. Using ethical sources, find background images to put yourself into
4. Add your backgrounds and selfie to the slide deck, add your name & a title
5. Be prepared to share

7. Having students cartoon a concept can be fun to create and share

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Wendy Wolfe, MAED-EDTC
Concordia University, St. Paul
Program Chair, MA.Ed with emphasis in Educational Technology

[Laura Mitchell]

Hi Rachel

So many great suggestions here already. I think you can use playful activities or games to increase engagement and motivation, or you can use them to develop specific skills appropriate to your course. I find an easy way to start this is to look at basic skills you may have your students working on and engage them in the process.

One thing I am introducing is a ‘cards against humanity’ style fill-in-the-blanks game with the key messages from the required readings on the course and some wider readings from the subject area. As my subject is business ethics, this will allow students to try some funny/horrific mashups! And my hope is that it will encourage them to examine these readings in more detail.

This is a good game activity to introduce if you already have a set of flash cards or other revision aids for students on your course, and there are some online services for playing the game or having custom cards printed.

It’s also worth asking here and other colleagues for games on specific themes. There was an awareness raising game developed by UK colleagues about racism in universities to encourage students to engage in conversation about these issues, and there are many many games about sustainability, emotional well-being, as well as some basic technical skills students need. So don’t feel the need to re-invent the wheel!

Hope this helps,

Feel free to drop a line if you ever want to bounce ideas!

Best wishes for you and your family’s recovery to full health,

Dr Laura Mitchell

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