Computer & Gaming Club...A Brief History

This blog post is dedicated to a special group of teens at Herrin High School...Computer & Gaming Club.  Originally Computer Club, we were first established in 2008, went dormant from 2012-2014 when FBLA and Abby Rose monopolized most of my free time, and then re-established in 2015 by an ever-persistent student looking for a club he and his friend would enjoy. (Notably, this student is now a junior at SIUC majoring in Computer Science.)

What do we do in C&GC you ask...well, we play games.  All kinds of games ranging from card games like Pokemon, board games such as Dungeons & Dragons, and LAN games like HALO.  While I love all the clubs and sports I sponsor/coach, I am particularly fond of C&GC for one reason...they expect nothing from me.  They wait patiently on the sidelines, waiting to be called into the game.  I'll offer them an hour of my time on an early-out day, or a random Friday during the winter, and they eagerly and gratefully accept the offer.

These students are humble and kind to each, and to me...you will not know most of these kids, their own classmates won't know them, but they have each other and they have their games, and I'm happy to know every one of them :)

Selecting My Blog Tool

While searching for different blogging tools, I was surprised how often Tumblr showed up in the list of most used blogs. It never occured to me that this was a blogging tool, but because it very popular with students I thought I would look into it. For a teen, I suppose this is a good tool, but mostly it appeared to be mostly a social networking site. I decided to check out Edublogs as it is so popular with educators, but the free version didn't offer very much. I'm a huge fan of video embedding and media embedding, but it was not offered with the free version. Ultimately, my decision to use Blogger was made for one reason...I'm a huge Google user. I'm logged in to Google account all day and use Google Docs in my classroom...it just made sense!

Netbooks in the classroom

Education "futurist" David Thornburg convincingly argues that mobile devices, especially tablets (e.g., iPad), will change education. As students at HHS you have been given the opportunity to use netbooks in the classroom, do you feel they have had an impact in your education in any way, either positive or negative?