First Thoughts on Minecraft

I've been playing around with Minecraft for the last three days or so - not to the exclusion of everything else in my life, but I can see how that could happen! Since I am so new to the game, I only have the beginnings of ideas for how to use Minecraft as a learning opportunity. Here are some of my first thoughts as a player:

Survival Mode

1. Unless you really like to figure out everything on your own, watch a tutorial about how to survive your first night.
2. Be prepared for the adrenaline rush of nightfall and strange creature noises.
3. My daughter and I partnered up: She played the game on our desktop while I used my laptop to research how to accomplish various tasks on the Minecraft Wiki. When we couldn't find charcoal to make torches and had to spend the night in a dark hole, just waiting for morning to come, this was the place that showed us how to make our own charcoal.
4. Making blocks of glass was one of the first things we did. That way we could have a protected view out into the night so we could see when it was daylight again.
5. Even when it is daylight, there may be a spider hovering above your front door. I wish I had a video recording of the first time this happened. Terrifying and hilarious!
6. Here's one of my first hidey holes with my crafting table and furnace - very important!

Creative Mode

1. In this mode, I had access to many different items rather than having to mine and craft my own supplies. It was fun to be able to use whatever I wanted as I built the beginnings of a home under a hill. (Not quite a Hobbit hole...)
2. This mode shows me what I could aspire to do in Survival mode. It shows me something of what is possible.
3. There are monsters about, but they don't attack, so that's nice.
4. Here's one room of my house under the hill:

Why Games?

Photo by Bjorn Hermans

So why am I so interested in learning more about gaming and education? Because I love games. And kids love games. Don’t we all love games? Tennis or chess or Monopoly or Castleville or Minecraft or Super Mario Bros. or Angry Birds?

What makes games so enticing?

If you think about all of those games, they all share certain features:

• Goals
• Rules
• Feedback
• Voluntary participation 

We enjoy participating in games when these four elements are well-designed and meet our personal interests. Some of us like really clear goals and some like more open-ended objectives. The rules need to provide just the right amount of challenge: if the game is too easy we get bored, if it is too hard we give up.

The feedback lets us know that we are succeeding with points, XP, leveling up, badges, etc. Or if we do something wrong, feedback comes in the form of fewer points, losing a “life,” starting a level over, or losing the game to an opponent. The great thing about games is that negative feedback usually leads to trying again.

Voluntary participation is a huge part of what makes playing a game fun. It includes the decision of whether to play the game or not. I think this also relates to the amount of choice within the game. We enjoy playing when we can choose how to participate.

How does traditional education compare with games?

http://capl.washjeff.edu/2/l/4040.jpg

You may have noticed that educational activities also include goals, rules, and feedback. Sometimes we make the goals clear to our students. Sometimes we provide scaffolding that makes the “rules” of our learning activities at the right amount of challenge for students, but not always. Too often we offer one level of difficulty which some students find to easy and others find too hard.

Some voluntary participation and choices may be included, but not nearly as often as mandatory activities, at least in traditional classrooms. Too often students feel trapped in school, forced to do whatever activities teachers put in front of them. Where’s the fun in that?

http://farm4.static.flickr.com/3634/3424044473_bab8a257b8.jpg

Another big difference between games and traditional education is in the type of feedback. Usually when students complete an assignment, quiz, or test, if they do poorly, they get the feedback of a bad grade and that is the end of it. They just fail with little opportunity to try again. Also, there is a stigma attached to that failure that is lessened in games. In a game, you can always try again.

Gamifying education

As I consider my teaching, I would like to design learning activities that are more like games. I would like to give students more choices, so that they have more of a sense of voluntary participation. I would like to set up activities that provide variety and scaffolding so that they are at just the right level of challenge. I want to set up feedback systems that recognize students for their accomplishments and encourage them to try again. I think 3DGameLab will provide the structure for these learning activities.

Credits

 My thinking about games in education has been influenced and inspired by Lucas Gillispie and Peggy Sheehy through NCSLMA and NCTIES conference sessions this school year. Gillispie’s blog Edurealms is a great place to read more about games in education.

A couple of questions for you

In case it isn't clear, you can respond by sending a text message to 37607. Your message has to include the poll number: 268451 for the first question and 268522 for the second question. After the number, put a space and then your response.

Or you can go to http://PollEv.com and answer there. You will still need to enter the poll number and then your response.

Get a free sms student response system at Poll Everywhere

Replace audience response hardware with Poll Everywhere

Miss Peregrine's Home for Peculiar Children by Ransom Riggs

I first heard about Ransom Riggs when award-winning author and vlogger John Green shared a video Riggs had posted about his photograph collection. It appears that these photographs played some role in inspiring Riggs to write this book for young adults*.

Jacob is a teenager who was fascinated by photographs of extraordinary children his grandfather showed him when he was young. As Jacob gets older, he dismisses the stories surrounding these photographs as mere fantasy and accepts his ordinary life as the way things really are.

When his grandfather is killed in the woods behind his house, Jacob thinks he sees one of the tentacled monsters that were the villains of those stories. Ensuing nightmares lead to visits to a psychiatrist and a diagnosis of acute stress disorder. To resolve Jacob’s continuing questions, he talks his parents into letting him visit Cairnholm Island, the setting of his grandfather’s stories of peculiar children threatened by monsters.

Readers will get drawn into Jacob’s journey to seek the truth. What he finds is an intriguing and dangerous world with some very peculiar children indeed. Their meeting will cause irreversible changes to the worlds of both Jacob and the children.

• Book trailer 
• Information and the first three chapters

 *Disturbing violence and some profanity

Game on!

Next week, I am starting an online class on game-based learning through 3D GameLab. I am really excited about finding ways to harness the motivation that is inherent in good game experiences and use it in learning experiences for my students. Check back if you are interested in seeing what I discover along the way.

The following infographic from Knewton gives a good overview of why I am interested in this topic.


Created by Knewton and Column Five Media

The Strange Case of Origami Yoda by Tom Angleberger

Dwight is a weird kid and therefore considered a loser by many of his classmates. Tommy and his friends are not much higher on the social totem pole, but at least they try to avoid potentially embarrassing situations. This is not easy to do in middle school when you always strike out playing softball in P.E. or your pants get wet in an awkward location or you really want to ask a girl to dance.

Unexpectedly, Dwight’s weirdness offers possible solutions when he tells the other kids to ask his origami Yoda finger-puppet for advice.  But can Tommy really trust Origami Yoda’s advice on a matter of great importance? Is the finger puppet magic? Or is it just Dwight messing with them? How can Origami Yoda seem so wise when Dwight seems so clearly clueless?

To help him decide, Tommy puts together a case file with stories from classmates who asked Yoda’s advice. His skeptical friend Harvey adds his rather mean comments and eventually makes his own advice-giving origami Yoda. In the end, Tommy has to decide whether to trust weird Dwight’s Yoda and risk embarrassment or listen to negative Harvey’s Yoda and play it safe.

The Strange Case of Origami Yoda is a fun, quick read, illustrated with doodles and instructions for making your own origami Yoda.  The audiobook is well done, with five narrators for the different kids who contribute to Tommy’s case file. The embarrassing situations are true-to-life, and the questions of whether it is okay to be weird, to be mean, to take chances, or to hide behind criticism add real depth to the story.

Author's web site: http://origamiyoda.wordpress.com/
Sequel: Darth Paper Strikes Back (Published August 23, 2011)

Tangerine by Edward Bloor

Paul Fisher is legally blind and an outstanding soccer goalie. He’s been told that he stared at an eclipse too long but has no memory of how his eyes were damaged. He fears his older brother Eric while their parents seem oblivious to any threat.  These contradictions pulled me right into Tangerine by Edward Bloor.

When the family moves to Florida, their new town of Tangerine adds to the mystery: the continual muck fires, disappearing koi, a student struck by lightning, and a massive sinkhole.  Paul finds his way around these hazards as he joins the soccer team at Tangerine Middle School - the school on the other side of the figurative tracks from his middle class subdivision.

Paul is a clear-sighted and honorable character surrounded by a family absorbed in their own concerns and dreams.  The mysteries and citizens of Tangerine provide a complex and rich world where Paul can seek his own place and perhaps a clearer view into his own past.

Author site: http://www.edwardbloor.net/b_tangerine.aspx