{"id":5920,"date":"2026-03-08T13:18:14","date_gmt":"2026-03-08T20:18:14","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/edtechuvic.ca\/edci336\/2026\/03\/08\/weekly-reflection-7-3\/"},"modified":"2026-03-08T13:18:14","modified_gmt":"2026-03-08T20:18:14","slug":"weekly-reflection-7-3","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/edtechuvic.ca\/edci336\/2026\/03\/08\/weekly-reflection-7-3\/","title":{"rendered":"Weekly Reflection #7"},"content":{"rendered":"

This week in class, we talked about gamification and game-based learning. Our lesson began with Kara Dawson, the District Information Technology Support Teacher for the Comox Valley (SD 71). Kara started with a general overview of Minecraft, then explained why teachers should use it. She explained that by having students use Minecraft in educational ways, it supports student learning, collaboration, and builds problem-solving skills. It was really interesting to see how there are pre-built worlds for students and educators to explore. I really liked that as educators, the website allows teachers to search by subject. Kara used the example of cybersecurity, which I found fascinating. I like how a lot of the lessons and challenges are not multi-day activities; you can complete them in one day! I really liked this resource, and now knowing that I will be doing my practicum in a grade 2 classroom, I think that using Minecraft and other gamification and game-based learning will support students and find ways to make learning fun.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Gamification and Game-based Learning<\/h2>\n

Next, our instructor Randy explained the difference between gamification and game-based learning. Gamification is lessons that are enhanced by playing games, such as playing Kahoot in class. Game-based learning is learning that is embedded throughout playing games; students learn new information through the games they play. Then, Randy sent us off to explore some games. I decided to check out Be Internet Awesome<\/a> for grades 2 to 8. I decided to play the game called Kind Kingdom<\/a>.<\/p>\n

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This image was collected from Interland Wiki. Click on the image to read more about the game<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

This game was interesting\u2026 <\/p>\n

I think that since the resource was meant for grades 2 \u2013 8, it felt like a game that would be better suited for grades 1 \u2013 3, maybe grade 4. The game was fun at first; you were a little robot that went around spreading kindness and stopping\/reporting bullies. After a few minutes of this, the game became boring because it was highly repetitive. I did like, at the end, however, how there were check-for-understanding questions and a \u201cmini game\u201d where you had to go around to all the sad robots and spread kindness; that was the only way you could stop the megabully (showing that kindness can spread and if enough people share support and kindness, it can defeat bullying and hate).<\/p>\n

Game-based lesson using MagicSchool AI<\/h2>\n
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This image was taken from MagicSchool AI\u2019s webpage, click on the image to go there.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n
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MagicSchool AI Lesson Plan Conversation<\/a><\/div>\n<\/div>\n

Randy also challenged us to create a lesson plan using generative AI. I chose to see if MagicSchool AI could make a Grade 2 lesson on financial literacy using a game-based approach. I would say that MagicSchool AI was easy to use and very education-friendly. My main complaint is that MagicSchool AI seemed to not initially recognize the BC school system. I had to manually paste the link for the BC Mathematics 2 curriculum (which is no big deal, but it took some organizing to have everything work). I wasn\u2019t in love with the lesson plan and found the formatting slightly challenging. I decided to share a Uvic lesson planning template and have MagicSchool AI give me all the information to input into the Google document. It took a long time and as I was transferring information I found that the Big Ideas, Curricular Competencies, and Content were not fully accurate and aligned with the BC Curriculum, which was disappointing. I also noticed that the lesson plan aligns more with gamification instead of game-based learning because the games it suggested all support the content the teacher is sharing, but the learning isn\u2019t actually happening through playing the game. I hope that as time goes on MagicSchool AI becomes more friendly and usable for BC teachers as it seems to be a great tool!<\/p>\n

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Magic School AI Lesson Plan, In UVic Lesson Planning Template<\/a><\/div>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

This week in class, we talked about gamification and game-based learning. Our lesson began with Kara Dawson, the District Information Technology Support Teacher for the Comox Valley (SD 71). Kara started with a general overview of Minecraft, then explained why… Continue Reading →<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":61,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-5920","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/edtechuvic.ca\/edci336\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5920","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/edtechuvic.ca\/edci336\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/edtechuvic.ca\/edci336\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/edtechuvic.ca\/edci336\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/61"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/edtechuvic.ca\/edci336\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=5920"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/edtechuvic.ca\/edci336\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5920\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/edtechuvic.ca\/edci336\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=5920"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/edtechuvic.ca\/edci336\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=5920"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/edtechuvic.ca\/edci336\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=5920"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}