Artemis has entered the World of Warcraft. It is a very different place then she has ever been. The process of downloading this game and entering this virtual world was way more intimidating then Joykadia and Second Life.
In World of Warcraft Artemis has to take on a role and begin to uncover her missions and level up. Our first venture into this world was overwhelming and exhilarating. Our time flew as we learned to navigate, friend, battle and level. In a pause in the action the question was raised, "but how do we use this in the classroom?" I flashed back to a presentation I had watched by James Paul Gee in the summer of 2013 (http://youtu.be/JnEN2Sm4IIQ). In this presentation he discusses how the interaction of the game teaches us how to work collaboratively to solve a problem. "They need to understand the big picture so they can integrate their skill set with a very different skill set of the other people. In the world of high tech work this is called a cross functional team. Every member of a team has to be an absolute expert but understand the roles of everyone else so that if needed they can take their place (Edutopia, 2012)."
World of Warcraft gives us a space to lead, to collaborate, to overcome a challenge (TedxYouth, 2013). In our current culture of high stakes testing, we do not take the time to teach students that great successes come from great failures. When we discuss educational benefits we often look for something that is measurable. How do you measure confidence, leadership the ability to collaborate, and the ability to problem solve. What I see when I play WOW, enter Joykadia, or even play Dots on my phone is that these games teach us a lot about how we learn, excel and develop as a life long learner.
We need to shift "how do we use this in the classroom?" to how can we change our classrooms to create environments that allow students opportunities to explore the world with meaningful and supportive interactions that allow them collaborate, create and even fail.
References
Edutopia (2012, March 21). James Paul Gee on learning with video games [Video File]. Retrieved from https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JnEN2Sm4IIQ
TedxYouth (2013, October 21). How World of Warcraft saved me and my education [Video File]. Retrieved from https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IBpcTw7pzJs
Heather - Your comment, "We need to shift 'how do we use this in the classroom?' to how can we change our classrooms" really gets to the heart of what's wrong with our classrooms and a way to improve them. We don't need to "plug in" a new module e.g. gamification, into the same classroom concept and structure. A different approach (to be trite - a paradigm shift) is needed.
ReplyDeleteWhile I agree that the need to evaluate our teaching has driven much of the mes we're in, I think that we do need to evaluate our teaching and teachers. It is hard to quantify. It's a bit like, "I'm not sure, but I'll know it when I see it." I'm not sure what the answer is but it would be nice to have confidence that all of our teachers are effective and working to be more so, or being helped in that direction.