On one of my escapades into the twitter educational hashtag world I ran into this website.
http://wowinschool.pbworks.com/
Absolutely amazing idea and has been around for a few years now.
The basic idea behind WoW in School is to use WoW (World of Warcraft) to help students learn. At first the program started as an after school program to help some of the disenfranchised students catch up in a non-traditional environment, but then evolved into an alternative language arts course.
The class had no grades and instead you earned XP for completing various quests. There's a scale that determines your level and students were free to choose what quests they did and how much XP they earned. Each task had a rubric so students knew what to do to earn maximum XP and what was needed to advance their student level. I couldn't find it, but I'm sure there are also course badges for reaching certain milestones. The students had a lot of fun and were very successful in meeting the language arts outcomes in a way that surprised the more traditional teachers.
I loved this idea and chose to try and adapt it for a math class. Now WoW does require a subscription so I decided to use a free MMORPG instead. My choice was Star Wars: The Old Republic (SWTOR) as I had played it since launch (consistently for a year, then off and on after that). The game itself is just as polished as WoW and offered interesting writing opportunities with the choice based dialogue. SWTOR does have higher system requirements than WoW though and that might prove a hindrance in implementing it as the school computers in the district tend to be low powered even compared to the cheap pre-built systems you can buy.
The challenge was determining what in-game activities you could do that matched the various math key outcomes at the various grade levels. The following document outlines activities in-game that would match the key math 8 outcomes our department identified.
Math 8
Because the original WoW in School project was a language arts based course, it would be easy to accommodate the english 8 outcomes and thus I envisioned the course to be a hybrid language arts/math 8 course. I haven't approached any english teachers about joining me on this project as none of the ones in the building are gamers except for the one who got into a car accident and is still out with a concussion (no other serious injury thankfully)
I realized after coming up with that list that I would need to fit in actual math lessons so the students would know how to do the calculations. This wasn't as hard as I thought it would be as I could present the math lessons as tasks in the quest chain that would give XP upon completion (and the XP scaled based on how well you completed the math task). I added additional quizzes/worksheets as Bonus quests that gave out XP and if completed at a high enough level, achievement badges. This mirrored the grinding Bonus quests in many of SWTORs quest chains.
Finding good lessons online is an on-going task and so far I have just been using Khan Academy videos as I find those the easiest to follow (and other schools around the world use their videos too). I'm proficient with screen casting so may move to making my own videos that more closely match the in-game activities.
Once complete (still working out all the quest chains, activities and the Moodle logistics), I'm hoping the administration at whatever school I am at next year will let me pilot the project. Although if they don't it won't be that much of a waste as I have already learned a lot about Moodle and have found many resources which will help my practice anyways. Plus with Moodle's export function I can always have the course ready to go wherever I go.
I'd love to try and use 3d GameLab but their free account is not available yet. From reviews 3d GameLab is more useful than Moodle for gamifying a class.
Tuesday, April 8, 2014
Wednesday, February 5, 2014
Games I want to incorporate into my classes
The Twitterverse is quite an amusing place. So many people posting about so many things (both mundane and useful).
I have to admit that I post some pretty mundane stuff as well but I have enjoyed the amount of useful educational information Twitter has given me. A lot of the trending hashtags and topics on my feed are education related and following them for even a few minutes a day gives me so many interesting things to read and to try in the future.
One of my favourite trends to follow are the various games based learning posts I see. So many teachers and educators are involved in this (a lot more than I would have imagined) and gives me encouragement to try to incorporate more games based learning in my classes.
Among the games I want to try and incorporate are Minecraft and Kerbal Space Program. I stumbled upon minecraftedu.com many months ago but today while browsing through the Digital Learning Day hashtags ran across kerbaledu.com. Two great games that have amazing applicability to learning. Now I just need to buy the games.
I have to admit that I post some pretty mundane stuff as well but I have enjoyed the amount of useful educational information Twitter has given me. A lot of the trending hashtags and topics on my feed are education related and following them for even a few minutes a day gives me so many interesting things to read and to try in the future.
One of my favourite trends to follow are the various games based learning posts I see. So many teachers and educators are involved in this (a lot more than I would have imagined) and gives me encouragement to try to incorporate more games based learning in my classes.
Among the games I want to try and incorporate are Minecraft and Kerbal Space Program. I stumbled upon minecraftedu.com many months ago but today while browsing through the Digital Learning Day hashtags ran across kerbaledu.com. Two great games that have amazing applicability to learning. Now I just need to buy the games.
Wednesday, December 11, 2013
ELOs and Passing a Class
Rousing discussion today during our collaboration about ELOs (essential learning outcomes) and whether a student passes for not meeting one of them. The whole thing seems kind of black and white to me. Referencing back to my previous post, ELOs are the learning outcomes that must be met in order for a student to pass the course. In my opinion if a student fails to meet one of those ELOs they have not done enough to pass the course. That is what essential means (to me at least)
To put it in game terms, it's like trying to beat a level in Mario Bros. without learning how to jump. Knowing how to jump is an essential skill to pass the first level in Mario Bros. If you can't, you fail and will keep failing until you learn how. The first half of this video kind of illustrates the idea that if you can't learn the skill, you can't move on (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8FpigqfcvlM#t=16, quite a bit of profanity though so you have been warned)
So combining the two ideas of meeting an ELO in order to pass I put forward the idea of holding a student back if they are unable to meet one of the ELOs for that particular class. Doesn't matter if they meet 9 of the 10 ELOs of the class, they still fail the course because they could not meet (or learn) that 10th ELO. Being essential kind of means it has to be learned in order to move on right? Well not quite according to the admin (the folks who presented this idea of ELOs to us in the first place).
For each ELO we need to determine what exactly needs to be done in order to pass the ELO. So for me, I teach math classes currently, I would give the student 10 problems for a particular ELO and tell the student they need to solve an arbitrary amount of them correctly in order to meet that ELO. Arbitrary because there's lots of different ideas about what passing/meeting means. Some educators say at least 1 problem is enough to demonstrate proficiency, others would say 50% of the problems, and still others would say 80%.
In our discussion we decided on giving them a series of problems of scaling difficulty and as long as they got one of them they would be proficient enough. Some students only do well on hard problems while others only do well on easy problems. If they can't solve at least one of those problems, that ELO would not be met (i.e. they didn't learn to jump) and they would be held back until they could meet that ELO. Then repeat for each ELO. If a student can't meet one of those ELOs they don't pass the course.
That last line kinda irked the admin I think. I likened it to a driving test in that if they can't meet all the outcomes of a driving test, they fail the test. Though it as pointed out that you are allowed a few mistakes and can retake the driving test so that's why I changed my stance slightly to say as long as some of the problems for that ELO were correct instead of all the problems. Students are also welcome to take the test as many times as they want until they do pass. The ability for a students to retake the course (or the course final exam) as many times as they want is definitely a bonus to being enrolled at EBUS as opposed to a traditional school and I pointed out to everyone that we have the ability to make a robust enough test bank that a student could take the final exam 100 times and still write a different exam each time.
Like a video game, if you can't learn all the necessary techniques or strategies to beat a level, you can't move on. Thankfully unlike the old games where one had limited lives and continues, I'd probably take a more modern approach and give the student infinite tries.
The one thing I did not propose to the group was that we make all assignments and chapter tests worth nothing and have their entire mark ride on a final assessment. Again mirroring a driving exam or similar qualifying exam. That would cause quite a stir I think. Maybe in the new year at our next collaboration meeting I will propose that idea.
To put it in game terms, it's like trying to beat a level in Mario Bros. without learning how to jump. Knowing how to jump is an essential skill to pass the first level in Mario Bros. If you can't, you fail and will keep failing until you learn how. The first half of this video kind of illustrates the idea that if you can't learn the skill, you can't move on (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8FpigqfcvlM#t=16, quite a bit of profanity though so you have been warned)
So combining the two ideas of meeting an ELO in order to pass I put forward the idea of holding a student back if they are unable to meet one of the ELOs for that particular class. Doesn't matter if they meet 9 of the 10 ELOs of the class, they still fail the course because they could not meet (or learn) that 10th ELO. Being essential kind of means it has to be learned in order to move on right? Well not quite according to the admin (the folks who presented this idea of ELOs to us in the first place).
For each ELO we need to determine what exactly needs to be done in order to pass the ELO. So for me, I teach math classes currently, I would give the student 10 problems for a particular ELO and tell the student they need to solve an arbitrary amount of them correctly in order to meet that ELO. Arbitrary because there's lots of different ideas about what passing/meeting means. Some educators say at least 1 problem is enough to demonstrate proficiency, others would say 50% of the problems, and still others would say 80%.
In our discussion we decided on giving them a series of problems of scaling difficulty and as long as they got one of them they would be proficient enough. Some students only do well on hard problems while others only do well on easy problems. If they can't solve at least one of those problems, that ELO would not be met (i.e. they didn't learn to jump) and they would be held back until they could meet that ELO. Then repeat for each ELO. If a student can't meet one of those ELOs they don't pass the course.
That last line kinda irked the admin I think. I likened it to a driving test in that if they can't meet all the outcomes of a driving test, they fail the test. Though it as pointed out that you are allowed a few mistakes and can retake the driving test so that's why I changed my stance slightly to say as long as some of the problems for that ELO were correct instead of all the problems. Students are also welcome to take the test as many times as they want until they do pass. The ability for a students to retake the course (or the course final exam) as many times as they want is definitely a bonus to being enrolled at EBUS as opposed to a traditional school and I pointed out to everyone that we have the ability to make a robust enough test bank that a student could take the final exam 100 times and still write a different exam each time.
Like a video game, if you can't learn all the necessary techniques or strategies to beat a level, you can't move on. Thankfully unlike the old games where one had limited lives and continues, I'd probably take a more modern approach and give the student infinite tries.
The one thing I did not propose to the group was that we make all assignments and chapter tests worth nothing and have their entire mark ride on a final assessment. Again mirroring a driving exam or similar qualifying exam. That would cause quite a stir I think. Maybe in the new year at our next collaboration meeting I will propose that idea.
Thursday, November 14, 2013
Gamifying ELOs
A popular trend in education in the last few years (may have been around longer but I'm only in my 7th year of being a teacher) is the concept of essential learning outcomes or ELOs. These ELOs are meant to be the most essential things a student should learn when they pass a class. Ideally, from what I've learned from pro-d days, staff meetings and department meetings, is that each class should only have a small handful of ELOs that the teacher can focus on.
To put it in some more context, the BC government publishes documents that have a number of prescribed learning outcomes (PLOs). In some cases there can be as many as 100 prescribed learning outcomes for a single course. Each PLO basically amounting to a particular piece of discreet knowledge or a particular skill. The ELO approach is meant to compress all these pieces into smaller broader outcomes.
A good example is trigonometry in junior high grades. The PLOs have learning each trig ratio as a separate outcome and then each type of problem as their own outcome as well. When learning trigonometry (at a junior high level at least) it really can be boiled down learning SOHCAHTOA and applying it to several problems. So the ELO would just be the ability to apply SOHCAHTOA to a variety of problems. Seems silly to be honest as we're just repackaging the same material but oh well.
Anyways, how can I use this in my own efforts to gamify my classes? Well I first realized that the ELOs are basically the minimum amount of mastery needed to complete a course and, ideally, be successful in the next course. So meeting the ELOs would be my pass requirement, or rank D if you will (for those not familiar with Asian games, rank D is generally the lowest level of success). In order to get to rank S (the highest) the student would have to complete increasingly difficult assignments but the difference would be these assignments would be optional. In many games getting the higher ranks is entirely optional but usually gave the player perks or prestige or some other reward.
It would require a change in my thinking of students and I'd have to be ok with students being content sitting at rank D (and there are a lot of them). I might post a public leaderboard to show where students sit using rankings instead of actual grades. This might not be allowed despite the students sharing their grades with each other anyways. I never understood this as if someone is embarrassed by their grade, they can work harder to get a better one so they aren't as embarrassed so why not show everyone's grade?
The other issue is how much work would be needed to achieve a rank D? It has to be enough that the rank D students can't finish it too quickly, but it can't be too much that the rank S students have no time to do the rank S stuff.
Things to think about before I get back to a classroom.
To put it in some more context, the BC government publishes documents that have a number of prescribed learning outcomes (PLOs). In some cases there can be as many as 100 prescribed learning outcomes for a single course. Each PLO basically amounting to a particular piece of discreet knowledge or a particular skill. The ELO approach is meant to compress all these pieces into smaller broader outcomes.
A good example is trigonometry in junior high grades. The PLOs have learning each trig ratio as a separate outcome and then each type of problem as their own outcome as well. When learning trigonometry (at a junior high level at least) it really can be boiled down learning SOHCAHTOA and applying it to several problems. So the ELO would just be the ability to apply SOHCAHTOA to a variety of problems. Seems silly to be honest as we're just repackaging the same material but oh well.
Anyways, how can I use this in my own efforts to gamify my classes? Well I first realized that the ELOs are basically the minimum amount of mastery needed to complete a course and, ideally, be successful in the next course. So meeting the ELOs would be my pass requirement, or rank D if you will (for those not familiar with Asian games, rank D is generally the lowest level of success). In order to get to rank S (the highest) the student would have to complete increasingly difficult assignments but the difference would be these assignments would be optional. In many games getting the higher ranks is entirely optional but usually gave the player perks or prestige or some other reward.
It would require a change in my thinking of students and I'd have to be ok with students being content sitting at rank D (and there are a lot of them). I might post a public leaderboard to show where students sit using rankings instead of actual grades. This might not be allowed despite the students sharing their grades with each other anyways. I never understood this as if someone is embarrassed by their grade, they can work harder to get a better one so they aren't as embarrassed so why not show everyone's grade?
The other issue is how much work would be needed to achieve a rank D? It has to be enough that the rank D students can't finish it too quickly, but it can't be too much that the rank S students have no time to do the rank S stuff.
Things to think about before I get back to a classroom.
Monday, November 4, 2013
Gamifying my Classes
Let's start with a video
http://www.penny-arcade.com/patv/episode/gamifying-education
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MuDLw1zIc94
I thought this was a great video, albeit hardly scientific or pedagogically sound but interesting nonetheless. Really hits home with me as I am a gamer through and through and anything to make my classes more interesting/fun for me is always good (I can't control whether students have fun or not so if I can make my classes fun for me at least someone wins). This concept of gamifying eduation has always been in the back of my mind since I saw this video about a year ago and I've sort of implemented some aspects of it in my classes (See Arocena Cup).
This year I've had the 'fortune' of working at EBUS Academy, the school district's online distance learning school. Being at an online distance learning school has removed the need to make course material as the school seems to purchase the courses from other parties (part of my enjoyment of teaching is in developing my own course materials so this was kind of strange to get used to) and also the need to directly teach students as the course materials included fairly comprehensive tutorial videos. This freed up a lot of time to do marking, lots and lots of marking as all my classes tend to have lots and lots of students.
However, all that marking does have some benefits. For one I can listen to a lot of music while marking. Admittedly that got boring after a while so I moved on to podcasts. At first it was gaming podcasts like http://trinityforcepodcast.com/ and http://www.critjuice.com/ but I quickly listened to all those episodes. So I moved on to education stuff and ran into this https://www.coursera.org/course/videogameslearning
I signed up and have been listening to their videos for the past few days and it's got me thinking of how I can revamp my classes to be more enjoyable to teach and hopefully more engaging and interesting for the students; though mainly those students who aren't normally engaged. The good students are always engaged no matter what I do. In some cases a trained monkey clicking through slides would be just fine for those students.
My first step is going to be figuring out a proper XP system that incorporates delivery of course content as well as the assignments and tests associated with that course content.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MuDLw1zIc94
I thought this was a great video, albeit hardly scientific or pedagogically sound but interesting nonetheless. Really hits home with me as I am a gamer through and through and anything to make my classes more interesting/fun for me is always good (I can't control whether students have fun or not so if I can make my classes fun for me at least someone wins). This concept of gamifying eduation has always been in the back of my mind since I saw this video about a year ago and I've sort of implemented some aspects of it in my classes (See Arocena Cup).
This year I've had the 'fortune' of working at EBUS Academy, the school district's online distance learning school. Being at an online distance learning school has removed the need to make course material as the school seems to purchase the courses from other parties (part of my enjoyment of teaching is in developing my own course materials so this was kind of strange to get used to) and also the need to directly teach students as the course materials included fairly comprehensive tutorial videos. This freed up a lot of time to do marking, lots and lots of marking as all my classes tend to have lots and lots of students.
However, all that marking does have some benefits. For one I can listen to a lot of music while marking. Admittedly that got boring after a while so I moved on to podcasts. At first it was gaming podcasts like http://trinityforcepodcast.com/ and http://www.critjuice.com/ but I quickly listened to all those episodes. So I moved on to education stuff and ran into this https://www.coursera.org/course/videogameslearning
I signed up and have been listening to their videos for the past few days and it's got me thinking of how I can revamp my classes to be more enjoyable to teach and hopefully more engaging and interesting for the students; though mainly those students who aren't normally engaged. The good students are always engaged no matter what I do. In some cases a trained monkey clicking through slides would be just fine for those students.
My first step is going to be figuring out a proper XP system that incorporates delivery of course content as well as the assignments and tests associated with that course content.
Thursday, June 20, 2013
Winners of the Arocena Cup for the 2012/2013 School Year
The following are the winners of the Arocena Cup for the 2012/2013 school year. Congratulations to everyone who participated! Your names will join the many before you and will form a legacy in all the classes I teach.
NVSS – Team C – Block D – Sem.1 2012/2013
Nick H
Troy B
Raechel M
NVSS –
Team EF – Block A – Sem 1 2012/2013
Liam B
Max Moritz
Kolby P Bianca P
Kolby P Bianca P
Beth M
Jared K
Ian W
Leah P
NVSS –
Team E – Block A – Sem 2 2012/2013
Mason S
Ocean W
Bea H
Jared W
Daulton S
Derek W
Kaitlyn G
Emily E
Kelson F
Kimberly M
Nadiya W
Jade-Lynn T
NVSS –
Team D – Block B – Sem 2 2012/2013
Ashli O
Nyla S (her second appearance on the cup)
NVSS –
Team EF – Block C – Sem 2 2012/2013
Hannah M
Sydney S
Brittney M
Julia S
Alex P
Ryan V
Mayson S
Conor I
NVSS –
Team RED – Block C – Sem 2 2012/2013
Riley W
Emily F
Danielle M
Tyra M
Emma F
Names have been added to the cup so if you want to see yours feel free to stop by my class and take a look. Also if any of you have any victory pictures I'd like to see them to add to the gallery of previous winners.
Arocena Cup Champions 2009-2010
Arocena Cup Champions 2008-2009
Arocena Cup Champions 2007-2008
Wednesday, April 3, 2013
Science 9
This week's assignment:
- Complete Reading Check p.155
- Complete Reading Check p.161
- Complete 5.1 Worksheet
Chemistry 11
Here's a video about the Mole
Khan Academy - The Mole & Avogadro's Number
This week's assignments:
Khan Academy - The Mole & Avogadro's Number
This week's assignments:
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Complete Practice Problems p.289 #1-2
Complete Practice Problems p.291 #3-4
Complete Practice Problems p.292 #5-6
Complete Practice Problems p.296 #7-8
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Complete Section 10.1 Assessment p.296 #9-15
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Practice Problems p.298 #16-17
Practice Problems p.299 #18-19
Practice Problems p.301 #20-21
Practice Problems p.301 #22-23
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10.2 Section Assessment p.303 #24-31
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Chemistry 12
This week's assignments so far:
Khan Academy - Acid Base Intro
- Complete Exercises #1-14 from pages 110, 112, 114, 115, 117, 119
Khan Academy - Acid Base Intro
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