A Virtual Worlds, Games and Education Tour

Be Epic!

Welcome to the Virtual Worlds, Games and Education MOOC (VWMOOC) Portal!

This is where we  did our pre- VWBPE conference warmup. Feel free to think of VWMOOC as an unconference that is happening after the VWBPE conference. While VWMOOC is happening post and pre-VWBPE, it is not owned by VWBPE. An independent group is working on it that will continue after the VWBPE conference.

The conference was held from March 15 – March 17.

So on  March 19th, we start VWMOOC over  at P2P University  – the course is titled, “A Virtual Worlds, Games and Education Course.

Week 1 – Virtual World Exploration and Tours

Week 2 – Machinima

Week 3 – World of Warcraft

Week 4 – Bleeding Edge – What do you consider bleeding edge? What else? Was there something at the conference that you would like to see more of?

About MOOC as a reflective SPACE

The VWBPE MOOC (Massively Open Online Course) is a “afterglow space” or “work out room” for out- of-conference REFLECTION and “muscle strengthening.”

REFLECTION is a “best practice” IN EDUCATION. Get your teaching muscles buffed! J

Upon reflection, educators may find they experience some of the same frustrations that students face (not enough time to fully process important data). This is especially true after conferences where learning/ideas begin to form, but need time to develop into PRACTICE.

• Educators may be at different stages in their adoption of virtual world related pedagogy and activities.

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• We may have different skill levels. We may resist change/adoption due to fear more than any other factor.
• VWBPE REPRESENTS A GROUP OF EDUCATORS WHO EMBRACE TECHNOLOGY AND ARE NOT AFRAID TO USE IT!

Zinsser notes that educators’ writing and other skills are not like recipes from a cookbook. How much more so in virtual world education!

How can reflection shed light on and clarify the process of virtual world best practices adoption?

For educators: This would be an easy job if there were no LEARNING involved!

• Can we do this better within virtual environments? For one thing, our Kinesthetic activities in classrooms AND online environmental options within learning management systems are limited: problematic because this group is the second largest group of learners.

• “Your body will remember this lesson” (or your avatar as you move it, LOL). Obviously there are benefits In World for visual and auditory learners as well.

• “We tend to assume that others learn in the same way that we do and are sometimes mystified when explanations or approaches that make perfect sense to us do not click with others. But not everyone absorbs and retains information in the same way, and different students respond to different …strategies” (Ryan and Zimmerelli 55)

True, effective education is not for the faint of heart. Reflection represents “healthy” adoption of best practices IN WORLD and “OUT.”

Join us to reflect purposefully within the MOOC!

World of Warcraft Sessions at VWBPE

World of Warcraft Sessions at Virtual Worlds Best Practices in Education 2012

WoW at VWBPE animoto

Thursday

Keynote – WoW in Schools
Peggy Sheehy and Lucas Gillispie
5 pm SLT  at  VWBPE Central

For more information on the projects please go to:
WoW in School wiki http://wowinschool.pbworks.com/
Edurealms blog on World of Warcraft in schools http://edurealms.com/

Friday

Tour – WoW in School  with Legacy Guild
Peggy Sheehy
6am – 730 am SLT Departure Area on EduCommons Alpha at Tour Departure Area

This tour is a  World of Warcraft Field Trip With The WoWinSchool Project. This 90 minute session/tour starting at 6 am SLT on Friday March 16 is for educators who are new to WoW. Participants will receive tours with experienced WoW players – and did we mention students! Sisters of Elune Realm, United States Server.

Registration for the field trip is required please email abacuscapalini@gmail.com Participants will be emailed with login and server information. This tour does require you to register for a free account and download an application that can take 2 hours or longer depending on the computer.

For more information on the projects please go to:
WoW in School wiki http://wowinschool.pbworks.com/
Edurealms blog on World of Warcraft in schools http://edurealms.com/

Saturday

Poster Session –  Cognitive Dissonance, Social Constructivism, and Play
Kae Novak, Chris Luchs, and Kate Hagerty
7 am SLT in EduCommons Alpha Poster #12

This poster session invites teachers to cohort playing sessions with alliance and horde guilds in World of Warcraft. The purpose of this project is to provide interested participants with the opportunity for organized exploration of the game. The focus of the play will be to develop a cohort of teacher-players to explore battlegrounds and arenas. These forums have been chosen because they allow rapid intense play for a short duration. This allows players to engage in rapid prototyping of strategies in a fail fast environment.

Invited Speaker Session – One School’s Approach to Vocational Transition: Gaming
Kimberly Flack/ Fairekimmer and Dave Flack/Tigovar
8 am SLT in Machinima Auditorium on Builders’ Brewery in Second Life

This World of Warcraft (WoW) presentation will focus on the delivery of skills that enable students to build on college and career readiness.  WoW itself allows students to build on diverse skills as collaboration with others near and far, technical skills as they interface with their own computer platforms and perhaps most importantly, allows them to build academic skills in a format where they have enjoyed a modicum of success, i.e. gaming.  When the paradigm has shifted from traditional classroom delivery models into a more supportive learning community, results can be impressive.  Tigovar will incorporate students from  class into this presentation since they are true consumers of this product delivery. Presentation will utilize existing websites and cite various sources.

Session: Theorycraft: Quantitative Analysis in World of Warcraft
Kae Novak and Chris Luchs
1 pm at VWBPE Central

This session will explore the cognitive surplus that exists inside the World of Warcraft MMORPG and on fan sites. With over 11 million players, World of Warcraft enjoys the surplus productivity of these players as they have developed extremely detailed meta data for free. Many of these meta data sites focus on the quantitative analysis and the idea of optimizing performance according to each class of player. Participants will be given a glimpse of the world of theorycraft and see that players are not just playing, but creating models, algorithms based on game mechanics as well as macros and mods.

Start with Beowulf

The first stanza is from the translation of Beowulf by Liuzza: the second stanza is my own.  Please add your own EPIC lines as you are inspired by VWBPE!

“I shall offer treasures for true daring

Be hasty now, bid them enter

to see this troop of kinsmen all assembled;

and tell them in your own words that they are welcome”

to reap the educational spoils virtually

at VWBPE… let the hero’s journey begin

WoW and beyond.  Take your sword and shield

find  your own way here…

How to Do a Tweetchat

You’ll need a twitter account. If you don’t have one go to www.twtter.com and make one.

(if you have one, but it’s been awhile – just try logging in ahead of time to make sure you still remember the password.)

If you don’t already have tweetdeck or hootsuite  -try tweetchat

Go to Tweetchat http://tweetchat.com/

Type in #vwbpe – you’ll see it pulls up all recent tweets

Then log into twitter.

You’ll get a box on the top which will allow you to tweet as you are following all the other tweets.

Just make sure when you tweet to include #vwbpe.