tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7029419017923677229.post3289094094991483405..comments2023-10-26T04:38:06.297-04:00Comments on TeachPaperless: On Baking Pies and Raiding DungeonsAnonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14091328599818819777noreply@blogger.comBlogger9125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7029419017923677229.post-60103138421948996092009-12-18T10:09:19.461-05:002009-12-18T10:09:19.461-05:00I am the partner school in the WoW in School Proje...I am the partner school in the WoW in School Project and I can say from first hand experience that the students participating are not only learning the social dynamics that have previously escaped their grasp - but we are constantly referencing curriculum connections while playing....You said it all when you said, "In the end, I guess I'd like to see more kids baking pies and more teachers leveling up and going on dungeon raids. Because there are all sorts of performance assessments; and serious gaming may offer some of the greatest clues into the real creativity, task determination, and intellectual aptitude of a given child." May I extend to your readers an invitation to join teachers who are doing just that: The Cognitive Dissonance Guild in World of Warcraft, Alliance, Sisters of Elune server. For more info about our journey "Learning to Game to Game to Learn" goto<br />http://thejournal.com/Articles/2009/11/09/Virtual-Communities.aspx or http://cognitivedissonance.guildportal.com/Guild.aspx?GuildID=228854&TabID=1927706<br /><br />May Elune light your way!<br />Peggy aka Maratsade (Level 80 Human Paladin)MaggieMarathttps://www.blogger.com/profile/03651162225518942003noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7029419017923677229.post-72820611215953919942009-12-16T08:22:09.484-05:002009-12-16T08:22:09.484-05:00I find this argument fascinating basically because...I find this argument fascinating basically because I completely agree with you, and as an educational consultant cone across very few other professionals who do. As we go forward in the movement of incorporating advanced technology for teaching, I feel it behooves us to build bridges between the ways our students are using technologies outside the classroom and applications for those skills both inside the classroom & workplace. I do NOT think we can allow the buck to stop with "video games are culturally irrelevant". We are the teachers. No one is going to do our job for us, and making excuses for not making our students lives relevant is something we have been trying to do since the 1960's. However, that transference has to be both practical & provable. And that means ultimately that students will have to show it on paper, just like in college and in professional exams such as the CSET, LSAT, GRE and so on.Food, she thought.https://www.blogger.com/profile/04510492084023508648noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7029419017923677229.post-58172518378332889542009-12-15T23:22:02.663-05:002009-12-15T23:22:02.663-05:00Interesting insight. If you're interested in u...Interesting insight. If you're interested in understanding online gaming from a sociology point of view check out Play Between Worlds by TL Taylor. Also check out gamesforchange.org for online games with a more specific focus.Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7029419017923677229.post-79472505201237293992009-12-12T22:46:17.163-05:002009-12-12T22:46:17.163-05:00I'm one of the core world-builders of the Whit...I'm one of the core world-builders of the White Wolf Game, EXALTED. I'm a strong believer in the power of games and world design in role-playing games to be teaching environments; indeed, I incorporated aspects of ancient China, and my reading of Icelandic sagas and Indian mythology, and classical history, into everything I wrote. <br /><br />Underlying all of that was a thorough grounding in Art History and History. I wouldn't have been interested in the stories without the objects; I wouldn't have been interested in the objects without the stories; I wouldn't have been interested in the objects or the stories without knowing the interrelationships between them.<br /><br />I was in a D&D club that was part of the talented and gifted program at my school around 1980. Then it got banned from school (someone complained, I have no doubt), and we went underground. Instead of it being fodder for the "talented & gifted" kids it became an outsider haven for the allegedly-talentless, and the allegedly-lowlife, and the confirmédly-geeky. It's telling where we went from there — one drifting from a shiftless suburban punk scene to New York and (I think) into a nigh-criminal underworld, and one into a high profile NCO spot with the Coast Guard, and one to a moderately important job with a bank. Then there's me: freelance world-designer for roleplaying games, school teacher, and philosopher. <br /><br />All things considered, we didn't turn out better or worse than the kids in the talented & gifted program, but our teachers certainly looked at us as likely future failures because of our interests in gaming.Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7029419017923677229.post-36601659142716953512009-12-11T16:16:42.104-05:002009-12-11T16:16:42.104-05:00I did my final thesis in graduate school at Teache...I did my final thesis in graduate school at Teacher's College about Warcraft. There is NO doubt that the skills- and the enormous amount of time- spent achieving within Warcraft are potentially valuable. <br /><br />However, here's my issue with this. <br /><br />The REASON why people forgive the captain of the football team or the lead in a school play is that these skills have relatively specific real-world and cultural benefits (as evidenced by the fact that athletes and actors are the professions that are arguably MOST valued in American culture). Warcraft is... not. <br /><br />The educators who talk about nebulous "system knowledge" or "leadership skills" when explaining why leading a guild is actually useful need to stop and think about the CULTURAL value of the entire MMORPG enterprise. There is no monetary reward, but more importantly, the cultural rewards are ENTIRELY in-group. Only another warcraft player can recognize how much skill and effort it takes to earn epic shoulder pads, or prestige with a certain clan, whereas the very NATURE of sports and acting is that they are entirely populist: they have audiences, for god's sakes. Those hobbies win you real-world points. They get you noticed. They get you laid. This matters. <br /><br />Educators should be very careful about blindly advertising games like Warcraft as educational or skill-building. The skills that are built in-game are virtually never transferable to the real world, and are almost never appreciated by anyone else, which often makes them, in very real terms, culturally useless.<br /><br />AlexAlexnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7029419017923677229.post-38400320539676540582009-12-11T13:16:31.677-05:002009-12-11T13:16:31.677-05:00Awesome! I have seen the same scenario described ...Awesome! I have seen the same scenario described above with the World of Warcraft-playing student many times in my 10+ years in education. In fact, it's these very sorts of things that inspired me to start the WoWinSchool project: http://wowinschool.pbworks.com<br /><br />It has now become a collaborative effort and the community that's emerging around it is even writing full-fledged lessons that use World of Warcraft.<br /><br />My after school program is now underway, and we have about 15 at-risk 7th and 8th graders participating. It's a fascinating thing to watch! I've shared some observations already at http://edurealms.com.<br /><br />-Lucas GillispieLucas Gillispiehttps://www.blogger.com/profile/05815339407877108335noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7029419017923677229.post-47651734198137059012009-12-11T12:54:01.192-05:002009-12-11T12:54:01.192-05:00Wonderfully done!
Can you imagine what an amazing...Wonderfully done!<br /><br />Can you imagine what an amazing project he could create in a high-school economics class using the idea of auction houses?<br /><br />Or how about the correlation of preparation for raid (the research, knowledge and know-how) and preparation for a big test/paper (research, knowledge and know-how)?<br /><br />There's a thin line between gaming and education, but the teachers that can walk it are reaching our "future" students in a very real way.Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7029419017923677229.post-76175705143864921782009-12-11T12:46:27.404-05:002009-12-11T12:46:27.404-05:00Great Post!!! Have your read any of Brock Dubbels...Great Post!!! Have your read any of Brock Dubbels (@brockdubbels on Twitter) materials? He's a Minneapolis elementary teacher using gaming in his classroom. He would be a good resource for collaboration.BKhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/12880121067443145641noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7029419017923677229.post-22642374789467939022009-12-11T12:43:39.858-05:002009-12-11T12:43:39.858-05:00What a great perspective to have. If we (teachers...What a great perspective to have. If we (teachers, parents, administrators) just step back and learn more about our students as people, we would see their strengths. If we took time to learn what skills are used in gaming, skateboarding, running, etc. we might find that many of them are transferable skills, especially in math and science. We, as adult professionsals, need to be slower to judge and quicker to accept and even embrace the activities that students love. We will become better educators as we use more creativity.Anonymousnoreply@blogger.com