3D GameLab Guildsite

So I've been thinking... and searching around a bit... and I can't find a simple solution to this.

As part of the Linked Learning movement, integrated units are becoming crucial to many smaller learning communities. I'm wondering how to pull this off in GameLab. (This may turn into an "Idea" in the Get Satisfaction space, but I wanted to throw it up here first.)

How would you set up a Group (unit) where more than one teacher can manage the learning? Let's say that a "Crime Time" unit includes writing and science activities that are to be assessed by those particular teachers. If the written work is published on a blog, it sort of solves the problem of access, but unless I'm not thinking correctly there's no way for the English teacher to then respond within the GameLab system say to give a badge or even approve or return work.

Any thoughts? This is pretty important as I hope to implement GameLab across five subjects for 140 freshmen in the fall...

I'd love to have the time over the summer to make my entire fall java programming course into a quest based learning adventure. However, with almost two months of travels coming up (tough life, right?), I just won't have the time. So, my aim has become taking one or two modules of the course and working with just that part for this fall.

I'm lucky to have a student (who has taken the course with me this past year), who is interested in helping me create quests over the summer, and I hope to get some great ideas from a real gamer as a result.

A colleague and I are also working on a game to enhance student engagement over the summer, and that will also be implemented in the fall with the same group of students I teach. So as not to confuse them completely, this is another reason that it's perhaps best this year to implement only one or two modules with 3DGL.

I'm happy with my quest chains thus far, and right now I'm only facing the challenge of creating everything in the 3DGL platform. I find that I'm getting faster in the creation, but I keep going back and editing and changing text in the quests to make it more accessible. I keep forgetting that the lowest common denominator as far as technological prowess goes.

I'm hoping that this summer, I'll be able to run teachers through the course, and have an after-school program for the kids come September.

Using my UDL guideline sheet from CAST, I am becoming more comfortable evaluating the learning environments I find online. I recently signed up for (and am waiting to hear If I get accepted) for a summer school in Norway that offers a program on integrating technology into learning and teaching environments. As a Canadian teacher, I am excited to see how other countries are making learning more accessable to ALL students by striving towards inclusivity. If anyone wants to share some information about how they have designed their online learning environments using UDL, I would love to hear his/her thoughts!

It's interesting to me that, while I often look at gaming and gamers as one homogeonous group, there is so much diversity in the gaming community and the virtual world. Take Minecraft, for example. This experience - for to me, it's so much more than a game - is so appealing. From the music by C418 to the texture packs available to the night and day transitions, I love this game and find it intrinsically appealing. However, World of Warcraft felt like homework to me. I had to spend effort engaging in it and in learning just the basics. This is not even to touch on such diverse experiences as Second Life and Call of Duty, for example.

What this emphasizes to me is the importance of recognizing the diversity in our students and how they naturally have inclinations and preferences that affect their engagement in learning. What an amazing challenge and honor to engage with students and try to engage them in learning!

The semester ends this week, including the two classes I ran through 3D GameLab. Our final class quest was to discuss what worked and what didn't, and I've summarized my students' opinions as well as my own reflections on my own blog at http://argfored.blogspot.com/2012/05/gamelab-round-up.html

I have several students gaming at this point. I have one students that has already met their weekly goal of 100XP in one night. You know things are working when students are willing to revise with out question. I have created a badge for persistence that I am awarding when students have to revise a quest. This way it keeps up their motivation levels even when asked to revise. So far the feedback has been great.

Here are 5 of my favourites:
1. Don't leave out vowels and punctuation in a text - when I first started texting, my son told me I sounded like a 14 year old girl and to stop using abbreviations!!
2. JTLYK, refrain from using elaborate abbreviations (just to let you know)
3. People first - a real person always has priority over a device and deserves your full attention - I feel it's very rude to ignore someone sitting with you in favour of your phone!
4. Position your camera at eye level unless you want to look like a giant or a dwarf (or a gnome, my WoW avatar!)
5. Try to speak to the camera, not to your video image. Do not take it for your bathroom mirror.

Ok, so I've made it through the 3 week camp, took a week and a half off due to marking and grade submission, and now I'm back ready to start designing quests of my own.

I originally thought I would finish every single quest before embarking on my own, but I've realized that if I do that, I may never get my own done (very hectic summer schedule coming up), and that completing them all is just a form of procrastination so I can stall having to do my own.

Fortunately, having read a few of the posts here, it seems that creating them may not be so bad after all - I think it's the overall quest planning, assigning xp, etc. that actually scares me. My current thinking is to jump into one unit of course material and do the quests chain for it. That should give me a good idea of what one chain will look like. Once I have that under my belt, I should feel more comfortable trying to put an overall quest framework together.

Does that sound reasonable?? Hope so, I'll let you know how it goes...

I read through the majority of the 101 tips. There are many I do not agree with because they do not take into account all sorts of situations. Some of the tips left me flabbergasted; many of them refer to such basic courtesy that I am left wondering if I am so old that people don’t know what that is anymore. It was a worthwhile task because it made me consider how I view the use of digital tools versus how others must perceive it. Anyway, I managed to find 5 that I wanted to comment on.

1. Balance your media diet and shut off once in awhile. Remember, there is still a large analog component to modern life. I have been using computers and digital tools in my social studies classroom regularly now for four of my five years that I have been teaching. My first year I did not have access. Those students I had in my first year are now graduating this year and many have come back to see me and invited me to their graduation because I was “their favorite teacher.” Every year since, I have lost more and more of that “favorite teacher” status and I believe that is in due in large part to the fact that I have been lost behind the computer teaching the tech applications that accompany my social studies lessons rather than my being out front “in person” with my kids. I became aware of this earlier this year and have been working to bettter merge the digital and analog -but I am a long way from that. My hope is that 3DGL will help me achieve this goal. If I have my lessons preset in manageable bites, I should be able to be out in amongst my students more.

2. Not everyone can interrupt their day for a time-consuming impromptu chat. Set a limit with IM.
I don’t set a time limit, but rather try to remember to ask people if they have time to talk, or how much time they have to visit.

3. People first: a real person always has priority over a device and deserves your full attention.
This tip reminds me of another piece of advice I heard years ago. If you are in a conversation with a person who is in front of you (especially a customer) it would be advisable NOT to answer an incoming call or to at least tell them you will get back to them. The person on the phone needs to “wait their turn.” To do otherwise is sending the message to the person in front of you that something or someone is more important than they are.

4. Check image and sound quality before public presentations or video conferences
I recently attended an afternoon meeting in another school district that was conducted by their Tech Integration person. I was surprised that they used a good 15 minutes at the start of the meeting to iron out the connections on Adobe Connect with the first person on the docket. I have become pretty used to the first 5 minutes in virtual meetings being used to sort some issues out, but this was an excessive waste of time.

5. Avoid sneaking a peek at your phone under the table to check your messages once you are in a meeting - unless you are David Copperfield. I don’t care if one is able to magically check their messages undetected, this is a big no-no in my book. I am always astonished at how many of my colleagues do this. They also tend to be the same ones who go berserk when their students try to check their messages.

In my quest based social studies class design I have created my levels like the social hierarchy of ancient times. At the bottom of society students star as cave men at beginning of time. As they work their way through the game the level up to farmer, artisan, scribe, priest, and pharaoh. It is my hope that having these associated with their XP will help students to get an understanding of social class system.

Hi Everyone,

Just an update. I am working tirelessly to get my Character Education Quest off the ground. We are going to use the book "The City of Ember" as the vehicle for the quests (much like Lucas used the hobbit in his WoW in Schools project). I am using mostly pre-made quests to get started and then I am going to meet with some teachers in my school to divide and conquer the quests for the different character traits.

I often find that there is a lot of text, and I really liked the intro that Shallow and Dalai did, so I am thinking that I will add a Voki or something similar to most quests so that students can listen instead of read all the time. So, I am looking for any recommendations for sites that have creative commons background music that I can put behind my narratives. Any suggestions?

Okay, so I've been trying to get this thing put together before summer break. All of our teachers have been forced into part-time, half-day positions due to low student population, but I figure that means I can give extra attention over the summer to my new guild site and running the thing.

Here is a Popplet of the curriculum as a work-in-progress (WIP):
http://popplet.com/app/#/288710

If anyone has opinions or suggestions on what I have so far, I'd love to hear them!

EDIT: Since we seem to be having an issue with the Popplet link (I'm working on finding a reason why it's happening), you can see the draft in Google Docs. Just click the link. The image will probably be a big one. If you right-click the image, and select "view image", you can then zoom in to read the bubbles.

Today I met with my schools Faculty Advisory Council, building administration, and school district Technology Director about 3D GameLab. It was a really validating experience. Through my presentation I discussed my work with 3D GameLab thus far, and my concerns with implementation relating to both academics and technology. Our schools FAC aided in helping me to problem solve some of these concerns in a PLC model. In addition, the computer teacher offered to have older students test the quest I have designed prior to launching them with my current students as part of the core curriculum for feedback. This may be an opportunity to create student designers of quests relating to my content.

There are five the the Netiquette quotes I liked
1)
2
3
4
5
[list]
I have chose these quotes for a variety of reasons. Looking at someone's screen while they are working without an invitation just should not be done. Just because you can look at something doesn't mean you have to.

You should know what is out there about you on the net. It is good to do a Google search once in a while on yourself to see what outsiders perception maybe if they are searching you. This ties in with the quote of don't put anything out there you wouldn't want your mother to see.



Often times students think that when they work on computer that it is ok to leave out vowels and abbreviate everything. This is ok for informal texting with friends, however, it has less of a place in academia.

The last quote I selected I feel is important part of teach students to become digital citizens. It is the role and responsibility of parents and teachers to teach students how to effectively use technology to become lifelong learners. This starts with mentoring students through using technology for a variety of purpose such as: locating information, entertainment, creating digital products, and social networking.

I love the Netiquette site. I was thinking it might be a good review for my students at the beginning of the year before I get them onto the internet.

There were quite a few I liked but 5 I responded to:

1) Respond to personal e-mails in a timely manner. - I have two feelings about this one. First, that I hate it when someone doesn't get back to me. There was generally a reason I e-mailed them and I'd really like to get a response quickly. The flip side though is that there are days that seem like I could literally spend the entire day reponsding to e-mails. If I don't respond immediately and the e-mail dips below the horizon of my Outlook window, I'll most likely forget it's even there.

2) Keep e-mails brief and to the point. I'm am notorious for lengthly e-mails because I'm trying to give people all the information I think they'll need for something but, generally, they aren't getting read. I'm trying my best to use bullets or numbers and trying to narrow down the focus of my thoughts but sometimes I think it's almost better to call a quick meeting so I know they all heard what I needed them to hear.

3) Formal e-mails with spelling errors make a poor impression. Informal e-mails with spelling errors make you seem more human. I'm not sure I agree. Family and close friends might be forgiving if you are texting but spelling errors pretty much say you didn't bother to read what you are sending beforehand.

4) Avoid staring at other people's screens. Just behave as you would in a gym locker room and mind others privacy. This drives me crazy. My son watches me on occasion and I have to shoo him away. I like the metaphor of the gym. I'm going to have to use that one. Maybe it will make more of an impression.

5) A quick phone call can circumvent the need for a frustrating and interminable e-mail exchange. E-mail is not always faster. If you are trying to coordinate a date for a meeting, or coordinate anything for that matter, I highly recommend getting everyone in a room with their calendars rather than passing e-mails. If it's anything even remotely sensitive, as in someones feelings might be involved, it's also much better to just make face to face contact!!

My administration and colleagues are all excited and behind the idea of using games in education, 3D Game Lab specifically. I'm working on a design of a short term curriculum to give them a good taste of the experience. My current sticking points that I'm trying to figure out are:

1. What are some interesting 'activities' to have teachers do besides submit a response? I'm trying to keep things short and relatively easy to do, since I know how precious time is to everyone. I've thought about a few things, like posting links to popplet designs, having them upload photos to a forum, or linking a video.

2. How much interface explanation should I spend time on? I don't want to have them loose interest in the teaching aspect by getting them caught up in what might be seen as minutia.

This is an exciting adventure. I am on this adventure, but do not know where I am going or where I will end up. I have been going through the teacher's quests and learning a lot about 3D Game Lab. I am still uncertain about how things work. I have not received access for my students yet. I am taking my time learning about the program. This is what I will work on for the remainder of this school year and the summer. I hope to have a better understanding soon. I would like to run with this next school year.

So, I finally got going with introducing 3D Game Lab to my students. I am using it for photography and have entered quests for exposure, aperture, shutter, and ISO. We'll see how the next two weeks goes!

I like the quest building, it makes me think about each lesson and how I can make it more interesting or enjoyable. It also gets me adding additional or side quests related to the topic that I otherwise would not include in a regular lesson. For instance for aperture in 3D Game Lab I included an optional side quest on the math behind f-stops. I have added recurring quests for researching famous photographers, and turning in a weekly best-of photo. They now have flexibility in how they approach this material, since they are all working at different rates, it is staggering when they need resources so that will make my life better too ... if cameras are not available they can just wait on that quest.

Looking forward to getting the rest of the course in there!

I have been enjoying exploring all the potential that GameLab has to offer over the past few weeks. I am still working through the quests to unlock additional features of 3DGameLab. This is certainly a tool than creates a unique virtual learning platform where students become part of the "game" of learning. During the course of this exploratory workshop, I have gained new skills, insights, and colleagues in the quest to becoming an integrator of technology into my classroom. I look forward to continuing the journey and unlocking all that 3D GameLab has to offer.