WoWinSchool: Student Perspectives
by Lucas on Mar.02, 2010, under Education, Games, Thoughts
Here’s a video I put together for the upcoming NCTIES conference in Raleigh. It gives an overview of what the students are doing and learning in their own words. Keep in mind, these interviews were recorded with almost no preparation. I simply showed up with the camera and said, “C’mon, it’s your turn to talk!”
-Lucas
Conference Presentations!
by Lucas on Mar.01, 2010, under Education, Games, Research
The interest in the WoWinSchool Project continues to grow! Next week we’ll be presenting the project and student work at North Carolina Technology In Education Society (NCTIES). The following week our students will be serving as virtual tour leaders for the Virtual Worlds Best Practices in Education (VWBPE) Online Conference called Know Your Gnomes. During the first week in April we’ve been invited to present for the North Carolina Distance Learning Association’s (NCDLA) annual conference. In June, Peggy Sheehy and I will be leading a hands-on session for educators as part of the Games, Learning, and Society (GLS Educator Symposium) annual conference.
Here’s the presentation I’ll be using NCTIES next week, Learning With The Lich King 2.0:
-Lucas
Meet “The Legacy”
by Lucas on Jan.27, 2010, under Games
Yesterday marked a milestone in the WoWinSchool Project. Students from Cape Fear Middle School in North Carolina and students from Suffern Middle School in New York formed their guild, The Legacy. They’ve been submitting names and voting for the past two weeks on the name, and I think they’ve chosen well.
Our kids were really excited about the day and the opportunity to officially mingle with each other in an organized way. As of yesterday, the roster stood at around 22 members with several more who’ll be added in the coming days. The next step for them is to determine what organizational structure they want (single leader, leadership team, etc.). Then, they have to elect officers to those positions, so we’ll be having elections and perhaps even speeches over Ventrilo.
How will they manage their guild’s vault? What will they choose for their guild colors and emblems? Will they have class leaders? Raid leaders?
Really, this signals what will hopefully be a shift from the teachers as guides to a more student-centric and student-led program. Let’s see if they step up to the challenge of guild leadership…
-Lucas
Diving Into Deadmines
by Lucas on Jan.06, 2010, under Education, Games, Thoughts
Monday marked our first day back on the project following our Christmas break. Though I was out sick with a cold, I was able to log in from home and work with some of the students in the project. Four of our highest leveled players wanted to do their first dungeon run into Deadmines, and they wanted me to take them. So, I logged into my hunter, Weyr, and met them at the meeting stone in Moonbrook.
As we jumped into the instance, things began to get interesting. We ranged in levels from 12 – 15, so we were a bit low, but the kids were determined. What really amazed me is that before we began fighting, the students were discussing strategy! ”Who is going to tank for us?” ”I can do heals.” ”You should get full mana before we start.” Before we’d encountered our first foes, the students were thinking critically about what would happen and how we might succeed. Another observation is that the students are readily adopting the game’s jargon and using it properly (tank, mana, aggro, heals, etc.).
Our first pulls were chaotic affairs. Due to our lower level the Defias Miners and Overseers were coming out of the woodwork for a chance to beat on us. Whether they realized it or not, students became acquainted with the concept of “aggro radius,” or the imaginary radius around a character at which aggressive creatures will come after you to attack. After a few wipes, we made it to the first boss, Rhahk’Zor, a particularly hard-hitting and tough Ogre. At this point, the students had decided that my pet dragon hawk was the best tank, so they discussed how we might beat the boss.
“I can heal as a Paladin and you can heal as a druid, so maybe if we both heal, we can do it.” As a former science teacher, that sounds a great deal like a hypothesis to me! So, we tried it, and Rhahk’Zor made short work of us. The students were determined, and though our time was running short, they wanted to take another stab at it, again, with similar results. ”I don’t think I have enough mana to heal this fight,” one said. ”Maybe we need be higher level.”
Again, the collateral learning is huge here. One, the students are using trial-and-error approaches to overcome a difficult situation. The amazing part about it, is that they are doing this in a completely virtual environment in which they are not clear about the underlying rules and their mentor is working with them from his home 20 miles away. The learning is completely non-threatening and the reward is clearly defined: the satisfaction of beating the boss. Another thing they’re learning here is teamwork. They must rely on each others’ strengths and trust in their teammates.
I can’t wait to go back.
-Lucas
Reflections and Updates
by Lucas on Dec.15, 2009, under Education, Games, Thoughts
WoW's Mini-Map
Work, both with the project and outside the project has kept me extremely busy lately, and the new content and mechanics included with the 3.3 update have kept me busy in-game during my free time. So, what’s going on with the project over the past week?
1. Turnover. Unfortunately, we’ve had several students decide to move on to other after school projects. On the bright side, there’s still a waiting list of students interested in participating, so, those spots are immediately filled. One thing that seems to be changing is that our core group of committed students seems to be growing. To me, there are some interesting parallels to long-term guild membership dynamics.
2. Emerging Leaders. A couple of our students are beginning to emerge as leaders. As they are mastering the game’s mechanics and learning the quests, they are increasingly being called on for assistance by their classmates. So far, they’ve been quite willing to peer tutor. It is becoming more and more apparent to me that this game can really foster that sort of relationship.
3. Ownership. The idea of ownership is critical, I think. If our students take ownership of their role in the project, of their characters, and soon, their identity as a guild, I believe their engagement (and the potential for learning) will increase. This is happening, but it’s slow. This is more of a meta-game concept and will require reflective thought on their part. The educators in the project, Peggy, Craig, and I, are actively pushing this sort of thinking. In fact, I recently created a message board for our students as a means of providing a forum for our students and teachers to interact and also to document this journey.
4. Collateral Learning. I wish there was a way to easily document the collateral learning that’s taking place. To really appreciate it, you’d have to have a good profile of our kids’ current knowledge and understanding. This is what I call ninja teaching, because these students are learning and they don’t realize it. Here are a few examples of things that fit this category:
- Cardinal Directions – How many times have we reviewed this concept since we began? Many of the students in my group could not have readily drawn a compass on paper and correctly labeled North, South, East, and West. The quests they’re getting in-game are constantly using these to direct the players to specific destinations. There is also a tie-in with overall spatial reasoning as well when students hit their “M” key to bring up their map and conceptualize that the arrow is their avatar, its orientation is the way they’re facing, and the symbols on the map (new with the 3.3 patch) are their desired destinations. I suspect that soon these things will be more automatic for them.
- Vocabulary – We’re not making any efforts to tone down the gamer lingo or game vocabulary. Several times already, we’ve stopped game play to define terms, especially when asked, but otherwise we’re going for full immersion. This also applies to the quests that the students are getting which are vocabulary rich. Here’s an example of an early quest that many of our students completed. I’ve highlighted some of the vocabulary that I don’t typically hear middle schoolers using:
- Technical Skill. Students are already troubleshooting and fixing technical issues on their own. Early on, we had sound/volume issues due to access permissions. One student found a solution, shared it with the class, and now the students know how to fix this.
“A Refugee’s Quandary – We drove the troggs out of Gnomeregan, but then it all went so horribly wrong! Now our home is completely irradiated, and we gnomes have been scattered all over Dun Morogh. In my haste to get away from the radiation, I lost all my personal belongings and tools. It was the trolls that got them. They stole my chest, my box, and my bucket of bolts! They took them back to their camps southwest of Anvilmar. I’m no adventurer – could you find my things and bring them here to me, please?”
So, we forge ahead with this our final week before the Christmas break!
-Lucas
First Contact
by Lucas on Dec.04, 2009, under Education, Games, Thoughts
Earlier this week students from Cape Fear Middle School and Suffern Middle School had their first in-game contact with each other. In some ways it was similar to the kinds of interactions you might expect if you put a random assortment of middle schoolers together at school dance. There was a little mingling, a few timid “‘Sup’s?” and a few silly emotes. Then, they ran off to complete a few more quests before the day was over. Could this be the beginning of a guild? Yeah. I think so.
-Lucas
Why Professional Development On Gaming Is Important…
by Lucas on Nov.30, 2009, under Education, Games, Prof. Development, Thoughts
Perchance…
by Lucas on Nov.20, 2009, under Education, Games, Prof. Development
So, Erud, my Death Knight in Cognitive Dissonance, checked his mail this morning. And, look what I found! I love creative people! Perchance, thank you! Please consider joining Cognitive Dissonance if only for casual play.
-Lucas
Lore Keepers – Always Watching
by Lucas on Nov.19, 2009, under Education, Games, Thoughts
Yesterday, several students met Lore Keepers. Who are the Lore Keepers? They are characters that the teachers in this project have created that will give assignments to the students. Yesterday was my first attempt at using them to interact with the students. First off, you should understand the setup. The lab where we’re playing has a sort of side-by-side U-shaped arrangement of computers. I was not playing in the same “U” that the students were, though I was sitting right across from some of them. I logged in Weyr, leader of the Lore Keepers and began contacting students via private messages (/w).
Observation #1 – Students are either not reading or are ignoring WoW’s chat system. (Considering trade chat, this could be a blessing!) It took me sending five or more messages to about four different students playing Night Elves before I got any response. Craig who was actively helping students, finally had to point it out to our first group to get them to respond. Keep in mind, the students had no idea it was me.
Observation #2 – Most students have little to no concept of online chat etiquette much less roleplay. No surprise, really, because that’s one of the goals of the project is focusing on digital citizenship. Our kids desperately need this. For those of you who are ever on X-Box Live, you know the kids I’m referring to! Again, for all the students knew, I was some other player (and some thought I was the game itself). Several of them communicated in very broken street-slang, text message style in their responses. I even had one student use foul language. Eventually, they decided to take my “quest,” though were quite reluctant.
Observation #3 – So far, they are not good at working collaboratively in game. My initial quest was to simply have them form a group and bring me bean soup. The soup was sold by a vendor in a building about 100 yards North of my position. I promised a handsome reward and each of them had to give me at least one bowl. This took the first group nearly 45 minutes to complete, and then, only two of them followed instructions and received a reward. One girl, who was actually polite and encouraged her male counterparts to be polite received two rewards.
Observation #4 – Giving a new player a Netherweave Bag as a reward is like your grandmother giving you socks for Christmas. They simply didn’t understand the value this early into their experience. Noted.
At the end of the day’s session we closed with a chat and I reiterated our behavioral expectations. As word spreads, there are students lining up to get into this program and I only have 15 slots and the students are aware of this. Today, we’re taking an approach that will be a big turn-off to many of them: silent play. No, I’m not one of those teachers. The idea here is to allow them to communicate all they like as long as they are using in-game chat. We’re also using a seating chart today.
Their first real challenge is coming soon: Deadmines. Deadmines will be their first, grouped, dungeon experience, and to be successful, they’ll need to begin to work cohesively and in balanced groups.
For now, the Lore Keepers will continue to interact with the students. Some will get rewarded, others will not. I don’t think any of them are reading my blog, so my “secret identity” is safe for now. Let’s see what happens.
-Lucas
Explorers From Different Worlds
by Lucas on Nov.18, 2009, under Education, Games, Thoughts
Yesterday, Principal Edie Skipper took her first steps into a virtual reality. Around her, 13 – 15 year-olds were eagerly exploring new areas, taking new quests, and discovering the wonderful world of slash commands (like /dance). Edie’s initial foray into Azeroth, however, was much more calculating and intentional. Observing the differences in the way our students and their principal approached their first taste of WoW was incredible. When it came to race selection, our students seemed more influenced by what their peers thought was popular rather than considering the story elements that contribute to each race. No surprise there, really. As for choosing a name, well, let’s just say the Sisters of Elune player community (a roleplay community), will be glad that we were “guiding the process.” Edie’s actions were considerably more intentional than the students. She spent a considerble amount of time perfecting the look of her Dranei mage and choosing a name she felt suited her new blue-skinned self.
The differences in approach, here, are fascinating to watch. I’m no student of psychology, but there’s no wonder the field is focusing considerable energy studying the way we interact with and project ourselves into virtual environments. If you haven’t explored it yet, Nick Yee’s Daedalus Project details some of his work doing just that.
The unfolding of this process and how a student approaches it compared to how their principal approaches it will be exciting to see. Eventually, I believe the game will begin to put greater and greater pressure on the students to tighten up their game, their cooperation, and focus. On the other hand, watching an adult educator’s approach, and how they support their own learning will make for an interesting comparison.
-Lucas
