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.