Live-Streaming Class

Starting Monday, March 11th, I will be live-streaming my Technical Reading Through Games course (a high school English course for 17-18 years old students) every day and it terrifies me.  I decided to head down this road because I received so many questions from teachers and students about what we do in this class that I thought, “Why not show them?”  So, I am.  I will be live-streaming through YouTube and you can access the stream here: https://youtu.be/_LB9-BO0FRs every day from 8:40am-approximately 9:15am, depending on the bell schedule for the day.  Each stream will also be cataloged on my YouTube channel.

This will be a “warts and all” (to steal a phrase from Stephen Elford and Simon Baddeley) type of experience…nothing canned, nothing staged…all real and all live.  I am scared of this because it makes me vulnerable.  As a teacher, one of the comforts was closing my door and having the freedom to conduct class as I like.  Now, I am opening the door…for everyone to see what we do.  I have asked myself so many questions:

• What if no one watches?
• What if no one cares?
• What if I am not a good teacher?
• What if the content is not rigorous enough? Too rigorous?
• What if the class is not taken seriously because it uses video games as texts?

I could go on all day.  Instead of letting my own fears get the best of me, I decided to approach this two ways:

1. This will make me a better teacher because I will, hopefully, get feedback from many sources.
2. Hopefully, this will change the way other teachers approach both game-based learning and their own classrooms. If I open my classroom doors wide, then others may be willing to do the same.

Technical Reading Through Games was designed and created by me for students that needed an alternative to the traditional English course for a number of reasons.  I spent a year and a half researching game-based learning and speaking with experts to design the syllabus for this course (which can be viewed here: https://docs.google.com/document/d/1BfOAMuh9pc7pQMtJAuIYRRNhhSGYg8GvnM2kSgavjVY/edit?usp=sharing).  In this course, we use video games as texts to explore technical reading.

The general outline of the live-stream will be:

• Direct Instruction
• Game play
  • Question students about the topic as they play

Some days we may be reading through articles, having class discussions, or working through their online portfolios.  One common theme will be present…transparency.  I want people to see the entire course structure, from beginning to end.  So, join me every day from 8:40am-approximately 9:15am, and we can explore Technical Reading Through Games together: https://youtu.be/_LB9-BO0FRs

 

Moral Combat, book suggestion

Video games have always held a special place in my heart.  I have warm memories of sitting in my parents’ sunroom at age seven playing Zelda on the Nintendo Entertainment System.  In fact, a lot of my memories with friends involve video games. From Tecmo Bowl to Goldeneye, or playing StarCraft in my college dorm room with friends down the hall.  I can still hear the screams of being raided by a Zerg rush.  Video games have almost always been a part of my life.

Now, as an English teacher of over 15 years, two of my classes are centered on video games.  In preparation for these courses and for my own curiosity, I picked up many books about game-based learning and video games.  I recently finished Moral Combat, by Dr. Patrick Markey & Dr. Christopher Ferguson, a book about the war on violent video games.  In full transparency, I have a Call of Duty: WWII poster (right next to an Assassins Creed: Origin poster) hanging in my classroom if that reveals anything about how I felt on the topic before reading the book.  My personal feelings aside, I wanted to find out the truth behind what violent video games may or may not be teaching.

I took my time reading Moral Combat…I researched…..I reflected….I used post-it notes for sections I wanted to revisit.  This resource was written unlike any book I have read. It was funny and honest, cutting and bold.  As it parent, it challenged my own preconceptions and as an educator, it gave me a new perspective. Admittedly, I have played violent video games for years and I would like to think I am fairly well adjusted and peaceful.  Personal experience rarely is an accurate measure of one side of a controversial topic.

Over the course of the book, I learned quite a bit.  I am not going to outline all of the lessons, Markey & Ferguson still deserve to be paid for their hard work instead of having an overzealous teacher reveal a dozen lessons completely out of context.  So, instead, I will reveal one of the most important takeaways: most people’s perceptions of violent video games is not only wrong but harmful. Violent games do not create school shooters. In fact, these “action games” actually generate empathy and reflection for the player.  How so? For that, you will have to read the book. In all fairness, the book is a whole work and it needs to be read as such.

So, why write this blog post then?  I spent a long time searching for books on the topic of video games that are research-based and fair, and I had already found a few on using games in the classroom by Matthew Farber (which I also recommend), but none on the content of video games themselves.  So, I took a risk on Moral Combat and am glad I did.  The research was explained so I could understand it, the psychology was demonstrated clearly, and the bits of humor lightened the mood on a very serious topic.  My suggestion is that ALL PARENTS, any educator using games in their classroom, and ALL policymakers should read this book. If you have ever wanted to explore the debate over violent video games, this book is for you.  

As I continue to use games in my classroom and share my love of video games with my own children, I can do so with more focus and purpose.  Knowing what games can do beyond provide immersive experiences is invaluable. Using games in the classroom carries the added responsibility of being sure that the classroom culture encourages students to explore games beyond who wins and loses.  The melding of the two, going beyond the immersive and exploring the journey, is really what interested me the most. Games are a powerful way to leverage engagement and deepen thinking if we wield them in the right way.

Unconventional Minecraft:Education Edition

For years I have used Minecraft: Education Edition to bring literary worlds to life and create immersive learning experiences.  However, this year I have been using MEE as a way of allowing students to create both experiences and projects that would have been impossible or cost prohibitive.  One course I teach is a course titled Persuasive Communication.  It is a marketing/advertising course designed to get students to move from consumer to creator and to think critically about information.  In this course, students create a series of projects, one of which is a Marketing Campaign.  The goal is to create an entire marketing campaign around a new product, album, video game, really anything that can be sold.  This year I had four groups use MEE to create four separate projects: a movie trailer, a mini-game, an invention, and an adventure map.

All four of these would not have been possible in the real world.  The movie trailer was for a scary movie and required a setting that would be difficult and time-consuming to use, the mini-game could only be done in MEE because of the time and game mechanics, the invention is for a product that cannot be created in the real world but can exist in MEE, and the adventure map was made specifically for Minecraft fans.  I should also state that I did not push students in this direction, they realized that their projects could be completed in class using MEE and done the way they wanted, without the constraints of shooting on location, in the cold, or making a prototype of an invention that would never work (the invention was a food recycler that turned garbage into food).

So, after a few weeks worth of work and editing and reworking, students presented their projects to the class.  These projects were enormous and required a lot of pieces and parts, only part of which was created in MEE.  My goal was for students to use many different resources to create powerful visual aids that would result in excellent sales presentations that showcased their hard work.  Some were more successful than others.

One project, in particular, was a standout…it was a project that was centered on creating mini-games for Minecraft.  The world itself did not contain the mini-game but was created to show the setting and concept of the game.  What stood out in this project was not a stellar mini-game utilizing a thousand command blocks… it was the use of outside resources by a student, Andrew.

Andrew used WorldPainter to create an ideal space for his map.  He then moved the world into MCEdit and imported free schematics he found online to help create a village and ship.  After this, he brought the build into Minecraft (Java Edition) and then used AnvilDB to convert the Java world into MEE.  The best part…he did it all himself.  Andrew was motivated to create his vision but knew that with limited time he wouldn’t be able to build everything from scratch.  He also knew, from previous Minecraft experience, how to use mods.

Andrew’s Mini-game Concept World

All of this led him to ask how he could do a complete build within the timeframe of the project.  I told Andrew that he could use outside resources to help him in his build, and gave him the titles of the software needed.  He took it upon himself to learn how to use each piece of software and created an impressive mock-up in a very short time.

There are several lessons here:

1. MEE can be used in unconventional ways to allow students to produce things they otherwise wouldn’t have been able to produce.
2. If used as more than an engagement tool, MEE can inspire kids to seek knowledge beyond MEE.
3. As a teacher, sometimes the best thing to do is to give kids the right tools at the right time and point them in the right direction.

Not everything went off without a hitch but even that was a good learning experience.  Students realized that their vision may have been too huge to develop, their skills may not have been up to the level of their vision, and/or recording MEE footage and adding voices is not as seamless as they thought.  The beauty of this project is that the best learning happened as the project unfolded, not when it was due.  The groups who were unable to make their complete vision a reality still learned a lot in the process.  These groups had to plan and see both their overall goal as well as the steps needed to achieve this goal.  The groups who used MEE were more successful overall because they had to plan their builds, share their vision with the group, and think through how to alter their vision as a group.  I was very pleased with the results because the process took precedence over the product.