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Though we’re nowhere close to having a complete, 36-week course available to share with the world, we do have about 1/4 of the course completed. (Also known as building the plane while in the air!)  So, what in the world does this look like?  How is the Moodle set up?  Though we’re not quite ready to offer guest access to the Moodle yet, I thought I’d give a sneak-peak of some examples of what we’re doing.  I took some screenshots from our course showing how we’re setting it up and put them into a presentation, uploaded to Slideshare.  To be able to read the text clearly, you may want to view full screen or download the presentation.

One feature we’ve added recently, and as instructors are having a blast with, is in-class achievements.  For example, we challenged students to successfully “friend” each of their classmates in the game.  The two students who successfully completed this on the first day assigned, were awarded the “Fast Friend” achievement.  We’re creating game-like achievement badges for unlocking these and then adding them to the students’ Moodle profiles.

-Lucas

Last year was largely an experimental year.  There were so many unknowns going into the WoWinSchool Project that our overall attitude was “Let’s see what this looks like,” and some aspects of the program were largely informal.  That’s not to say that we didn’t learn a great deal and that the participating students didn’t benefit from the program (and we from them).  Going in, we were unsure of even the simplest things like, “What happens when there’s a patch?” and “Will the network and firewall handle it?”

Those early hurdles are behind us and I’m very pleased to announce that we’re ratcheting the program up a notch for the coming year.  In the 2010-2011 school year, both Cape Fear Middle and Suffern Middle will offer a World of Warcraft-based language arts elective during the regular school day.  Development has begun on the course, the syllabus, and implementation plan.  So far, here’s what we’re thinking:

• Though taking place during the regular day, the course will be hybrid, built online using the Moodle LMS.  This grants us the opportunity to be largely paperless (a good model for other classes!) and it makes the course granular and easily shared.
• The course will involve a parallel reading assignment for students, probably a novel.  Cape Fear Middle will likely use Tolkien’s The Hobbit.
• We are trying hard to get away from focusing on grades and are rather granting students XP (experience points) and levels for completing assignments.  Developing appropriate rubrics and scaling is a challenge.
• The course will have an overall theme, probably based on “The Hero’s Journey.”
• The course will be aligned to national/state standards and will supplement students’ regular language arts instruction.
• Our goal is to thoroughly “mash-up” course and in-world experiences.

We have a tremendous amount of work to do to prepare and are excited about where we’re going.

-Lucas

Today wrapped up our last major event in WoWinSchool for the students at Cape Fear Middle.  As the district’s after-school programs are winding down, so does the busing.  The students at Suffern Middle’s program will continue playing for a few weeks.  To celebrate a successful first year of the program, we wanted to get the kids together, in world, for some fun.  What’s more fun that a Gnomish Flash Mob?  Now, if you’re unfamiliar with flash mobs, I highly recommend watching some of Improv Everywhere’s videos, they’re lots of fun.  But, a flash mob in a virtual world?  Why not!

We started the event by having each student create a gnome.  We specified that they should have either pink or green hair, and their name should end in -wumpus.  As the crowd began to assemble at the starting area, I could already tell this would be fun.  We had names such as Firewumpus and Applewumpus, among others.  Each of our students were logged into our Ventrilo server, so I gave them instructions on creating basic macros.  We made macros for /dance, /cheer, and /say “Wump!”  Before rolling out to Ironforge, we practiced our timing.  ”Three, two, one, Dance!”  Seeing 20+ Gnomes in a coordinated dance is a beautiful thing (or totally weird?).

Ironforge was mostly dead.  We had a challenging time of getting anyone to interact with us, so we boarded the Tram and made for Stormwind.  Stormwind, was where the magic began!  Our first order of business was to surround a bystander, kneel, and in unison ask, “Are you the Great Wumpus?”  Now, I don’t know about you, but World of Warcraft is over five years old, players are burning through content, and hanging out in a capital city for any length of time is a clear indication of “I’m bored, but what else am I gonna do?”  It’s not every day, you are deified by a swarm of mohawk-sporting gnomes.  The lady Night Elf invited us to a play a quick game of follow-the-leader, and we obliged.  When she walked, we followed walking, when she jumped, we jumped, occasionally uttering a random “Wump!”  She began casting an area effect spell, we marked her as a traitor, and quickly swarmed the nearest player.  Now, this guy, Elladan, was a breath of fresh air.  He engaged us and played along.  ”Are you the Great Wumpus?”  ”Indeed!  Gather ’round!”  Yes!

Elladan began to play along with our antics and before long a crowd had gathered about this strange sight:  a lone Night Elf druid surrounded by over 20 jumping and spastic gnomes.  Things went along until some player dropped a campfire.  Now, here’s where our students really shined.  I told them on Ventrilo, “Type ‘Fire Bad!’ and scatter!”  Within seconds, our little swarm responded and onlookers were laughing and even sending me compliments via /tell.  Elladan even offered to tell us a story, to which we responded with simultaneous “Ooohs! Ahhs!”  If you can recall the aliens in the crane game in Toy Story, you’re pretty close.

Our time was drawing to an end, so we randomly jumped up and ran to Goldshire.  We had quite a following trailing behind us, now.  From there, we exclaimed, “The evil Hogger must die!” and ran to the Hogger encounter nearby.  The level 80’s who trailed along made short work of Hogger and we realized that we had about five minutes left.  We began saying things like, “The Great Wumpus is calling us home.”  One student said, “I see a light at the end of the great wump,” and we began logging out on the spot.  Elladan, our new steward, pleaded with us not to forget him, and I assured him he’d be immortalized (Here you go, Elladan!).

We had a blast, and the students very quickly filled in their roles, especially once they realized they had an audience.  It was a great way to wrap up our activities.

-Lucas (aka Garwumpus)

How could I not post this video?  It really lies at the heart of what we’re doing with the WoWinSchool Project.

-Lucas

Students are prepping the day before the VWBPE Tour

I’ve always been told that ownership is a powerful tool in student learning, and I have always believed it.  However, the experiences and observations of the past two days have truly validated that assertion.  Today, our incredible (and I don’t use that word lightly) students in the WoWinSchool Project led a small group of educators from around the world on a virtual tour of World of Warcraft as part of the Virtual Worlds Best Practices in Education Online Conference.

I was approached about a month ago by conference organizers asking if I would like to host a virtual tour.  When I asked if I could have our students lead it instead, they graciously (and courageously?) accepted, and the Know Your Gnomes session was set.  I’m not sure our students fully grasped the implications until yesterday afternoon.  (Perhaps some of the best learning happens in the 11th hour?)  I asked them how they’d like to organize the tour and they decided forming two groups would be best, and probably the most comfortable for them.  They then began to organize themselves based on who felt most comfortable leading a discussion on what topics within those groups.  One would take quests, another would cover movement and navigation, while another would talk about communication and so on.

That’s when I sensed a bit of stress among them.  When it hit them that they would be talking to complete strangers from other countries about this program, they very quickly went from silliness to seriousness.  In fact, in my 10+ years as an educator, I’ve never seen such an abrupt transformation among students.  In their minds I think they were beginning to take ownership of the idea and realizing that they, in fact, would be the experts teaching the teachers.  It was incredibly powerful.

The VWBPE tour is underway and the kids have their "game-faces" on.

When I asked them if they’d like to do a trial run, they hastily agreed that it would be a good idea.  It was at this point, I think, that they began to rationalize what would actually take place during the tour.  The “what if” questions began gushing out.  ”What if they don’t understand English?”  ”What if they can’t get into Ventrilo?”  ”What if I misspell something?”  I worked to put their concerns and questions to rest, honestly, not knowing the answers to many, and encouraged them to have some faith in themselves.  At this point they really put their “game faces on.” (Pardon the pun!)

This morning, they literally rushed to the lab and quickly began to help get set up.  Some logged in right away and began greeting the early comers to the session.  I can’t begin to tell you how suddenly professional kids, who are just ask likely to yell “Your Momma!” across the room, become when things got started.  We had participants from as far away as Israel!  It’s at this point that I should probably offer up an apology to the participants from VWBPE.  Your experience in this tour may have been good, but I know it was nothing compared to what I saw taking place.  The real magic was taking place in the lab at the school and I really wish you could have seen it.

You see, ownership is an incredibly powerful tool in student learning.  Teachers, your kids will amaze you if you tap into it, I promise.  I’d also argue that never before have so many opportunities existed for classroom teachers to really share with the world what their students are creating.  ”Creative capital” is something that every child has and it behooves us as educators to tap into it, because in our ever-changing global economy, that’s where they’ll one day shine.

Students have split into groups are sharing with VWBPE attendees.

There are so many tools out there for classroom teachers to use, too.  Have the Skype chat to show off their work.  Have them create a wiki and share their creations.  Publish a book of their writing!  Trust me, show your students that the world is watching, and step back and watch them perform.  They’ll PWN the learning!

-Lucas

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

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

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

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:

“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?”

• 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.

So, we forge ahead with this our final week before the Christmas break!

-Lucas

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