Research in Guild Wars

I began my Action Research project in Guild Wars last week, but with the holidays we are a bit behind schedule and trying to get everyone situated.  We had some problems with participants and the Moodle interface I was trying to use, so I have setup a forums to use instead.  Last week we completed the pre-searing quests in Guild Wars getting everyone to about level 7, so that we were able to enter post-searing this week.  We are basically following the Guild Wars storyline completing the various quests and missions that lead us through them.  


Pre-searing only allowed us to work in groups of 2/2, then the first several quests/missions of post-searing only allowed for groups of 4/4, we have now entered an area where we can work in groups of 6/6 and will eventually come to the point where we can work in the max group of 8/8 that Guild Wars allows.  This causes us to have to split up in groups, but I feel this is a good test of leadership and teamwork skills because it allows different people to work together and share their skills with the group.  


I have noticed that so far there isn't a whole lot of teamwork going on as everyone is trying to adjust to the members in their group and excited about the various quests/missions.  There is more solo work going on within the groups than actual teamwork, which unfortunately results in several deaths/revives that would be necessary if they worked together.  My goal with this project is that they will eventually realize that they can accomplish more when working well together than they could alone or by running ahead without their team members.  We are coming to the close of week 2, so we shall see how it turns out.

VirtuGuild.com/forums

Bias in Gaming

I'm an avid gamer. It's kind of my thing. After a long day at work or school, it's great to come home and play a first person shooter or MMORPG. What's unusual about my gaming is that I am a 41 year old mom who generally plays with my teenagers and their friends. I don't do this because I am trying to bud into their friendships or lives, it is because it is something we have been doing together as a family for about 12 years now and we enjoy the time together.

It all started when I worked at a computer store as the Office Manager there and they started an after hours LAN gaming center where people would come in and play Counter Strike:Condition Zero (CZ). I really had no interest, but the guys there insisted that I try it out. I really enjoyed the adrenaline rush it gave me and the conversations with friends while playing. Being new to that type of thing really messed with me in the beginning and believe it or not all that movement gave me motion sickness, but after awhile that subsided and it was just a lot of fun!

What started then has stayed with me over the past 12 years and I have continued to play CZ and even have my own clan that I started a couple of years ago. I have made many friends online playing this game and others (Call of Duty, Left 4 Dead, Killing Floor, Guild Wars, Dungeons & Dragons Online, Runescape, SilkRoad, etc...) Just a few days ago I received the new Call of Duty: Black Ops that was just released. We have been playing it for days during my spare time as a family and we love it. What I don't like about it and most of these other first person shooters is that these games are bias. Why do I say that? It's simple, the people that make these games either assume that only men play them or don't care about the women who play, because all the characters are ONLY MALE.

At least when I play one of the MMORPGs, I can select a female character to play, but when I switch back over to play a first person shooter I have to play as a MALE or not at all. What's wrong with this picture. A 2009 study showed that 60% of gamers are male and the other 40% are female (http://www.theesa.com/facts/pdfs/ESA_EF_2009.pdf). Do those 40% not matter? Apparently not, since there was an online petition (http://www.PetitionOnline.com/l33tgrls/petition.html) started many years ago (around 2004) to add female skins to the game Counter Strike, which now has 969 signatures, mine being one of them. Do you think that they have added any female characters to the game? No, they have not! This as well as the newly released COD:Black Ops are one of the many reasons that I say there is a definite bias in the gaming industry, especially when it comes to first person shooters.

While I will still continue playing these games because I enjoy playing them and it is something I do with my online friends and family, I can most certainly assure you that I don't condone this bias.  I feel that as more and more women play these games that they should stand up and be heard. That the makers of these video games and others should really consider adding at least one female character to these games, so that the women who play don't have to always choose to play a male character. Isn't this world already male dominated enough when it comes to the workforce and pay. Do we, as women, have to sit here and allow the video game industry to also force us to play as male characters because they refuse to put female characters into these games? I know that there are a large majority of men out there that would say stop whining and don't play if you don't like it. Well that's because they aren't all having to run around as female characters because there aren't any male characters to choose. They don't know what it is like to have the proverbial shoe on the other foot.

I sincerely hope that the makers of these video games and others will take a serious look at the bias they are generating in the development of their games. If they do, I hope they will see what they are doing is wrong and start making a difference by changing this bias and adding female characters to their games. Until then I will just have to make do with what they have given me, another male character, in what seems to be a male dominated world. However, I will continue to speak freely about this bias, in the hopes that others will join me and force the game industry to take a hard look at their bias towards creating female characters in their games.

100 Incredibly Useful YouTube Channels for Teachers

There was a recent post on Free Technology for Teachers which really caught my eye. It was a link to the Online Courses website who shared 100 Incredibly Useful YouTube Channels for Teachers. There are a lot of the usuals there, but so many more you may not have ever considered and could use in your classroom. Check it out!

jMockups Web 2.0 tool

jMockups is a cool web 2.0 application that allows you to design mockups of a website before you ever write a line of HTML/CSS code. Great tool for website designers or people who are collaborating on a website together to help them plan out how it will look. Check it out!

FV_AR Pitch

This is my final video for the ETC course at Full Sail University online. It is a pitch for my Action Research project on using Guild Wars to teach Social Skills.

I invite you to participate in this research project with me if you are interested by visiting: http://www.virtuguild.com/invitation.html.

PE6_PBworks

Okay, it has been a blast learning how to put together my wiki site on PBworks. It is fairly easy and user friendly once you get the hang of it. I continued my learning in this last session by learning how to add assignments to my wiki. I went in to create a new page and used the template they already had setup for assignments to lay out the work for week one. It was as easy as 1, 2, 3...

I also added a resource section in my sidebar that was just links to external sites that were needed for the assignments I posted.

I then learned how to set the security on my wiki by watching a video they had under the support section.

Setting Page Security from PBworks Support on Vimeo.

The only thing I didn't like was not being able to lock certain pages to only be edited by the administrator without having to pay the $99 subscription fee. I am still going to try it and see if it works out, but I am leery of not having that feature in the free version.  

I also would have rather had an option for a blog or discussion forum, but I did not see that as a feature in the PBworks wiki. I supposed that I can still put an external link in my resources section to one elsewhere. I just prefer having it all in one place for easy access.

Now all I have to do is invite my users to join and I will be on my way to having a collaborative workspace.

PE5_PBworks

Wow, editing was a bit more difficult then I first expected it to be. However, once I figured out how to upload images to the wiki it wasn't quite as bad. I began by working on the front page of my wiki. I went into editing mode where typing the text and formatting was basically like any other word processing application. I then figured out to get the images into the wiki that you had to drag them over into it. After I got that down it was pretty easy from there to edit it.

I then looked at how I could make it easier for people coming to my wiki to find their way around. There is a sidebar feature that you can edit with the links to each page to make navigating your site easier. I loved the fact that you could add headings above each section of links to make it better organized.

I now have the beginnings of my wiki and I am on to setting up additional pages and assignments. Stay tuned for more on how to do that.

PE4_PBworks

Well I have been hearing a lot about wiki's over the past couple of weeks and I decided that I would check it out this week by exploring it further to see what all it is capable of. Join me on this journey as I view online tutorials and videos to learn all about PBworks. 

I started out by choosing the basic account and an address to create my wiki site. Since I am considering using it for my Action Research project I named it VirtuGuild. You are welcome to click on the link to follow me along as I progress through putting together this wiki.

 

Above is what your starter page looks like when you sign-up. Now I am off to watch tutorials and see what I can do. 

W4_Reading

Here is my summary of the four articles I read this week for my Action Research project literature review using linoit.com.

Linoit.com Week 4 AR

References

Ducheneaut, N., & Moore, R. (2005). More than just ‘XP’: learning social skills in massively multiplayer online games. Interactive Technology & Smart Education, 2(2), 89-100.

 O'Connor, D., & Menaker, E. (2008). Can Massively Multiplayer Online Gaming Environments Support Team Training? Performance Improvement Quarterly, 21(3), 23-41. Retrieved October 16, 2010, from ERIC

Squire, K., & Jenkins, H. (2003). Harnessing the Power of Games in Education. Insight, 3(1), 5-33.

Wiklund, M., & Ekenberg, L. (2009). Going to school in World of Warcraft. Observations from a trial programme using off-the-shelf computer games as learning tools in secondary education. Designs for Learning, 2(1), 36-55. Retrieved October 16, 2010, from Education Research Complete.

Searching for Action Research Project Participants

Being that I am not currently teaching I have had quite the go of it when trying to figure out how to accomplish this whole Action Research Project. I finally settled on creating a Virtual Guild "club" to seek out participants who might be willing to help me with my research. Yesterday I went to several of the Guild Wars online forums and posted a call for help so to speak. I also submitted my project to ArenaNet who makes Guild Wars to see if they would make a community announcement for me. I am still eagerly awaiting that response and hoping for the best. At any rate, this is what I put out there and anyone reading this is welcome to join in as well.

Morrigan Branwyn
Level 20 Warrior

I have been playing Guild Wars for some time now and cannot wait for Guild Wars 2. I was hoping that it would come out before I started my Action Research project for my Masters Degree program in Education, but since they still haven't set a release date, I am not going to hold my breath.

Therefore, I am using the original Guild Wars for my research and I am looking for participants. Everyone seems to be using World of Warcraft (WoW) these days to show how it can be used in education to motivate students, but I have been playing Guild Wars, as I said, for some time and would much rather use it.

I just started a guild with my level 20 Warrior called VirtuGuild to use for this educational project. I wanted to create a virtual guild “club” to bring members together in order to research how social skills like leadership and teamwork can be taught by using Guild Wars. These skills are needed to help people in everyday situations from group projects at school to the workplace.

When looking to address social interaction I can see many potential sub topics. One of these I will be looking into is how improving social interaction skills will help improve a persons chances in the workforce, not only when looking for a job, but once they acquire a job as well. So far in my research I have discovered that MMORPG’s encourage group interaction and involvement. They require large groups of players to cooperate and work together as a team (clan/guild). Isn’t that a skill needed in the workforce?

There are several social skills that are relevant to real-life and the workplace that I could look at for sub topics. (Conflict resolution, communication, relationships, time management, leadership, following the chain of command, and problem solving.)

Communication skills could be taught by using voice communication through a program like Skype or Ventrilo versus just pure text in the chat box. Also in researching I saw that another is modeling behavior. Looking at how different people interact within the game by watching the conversations in the chat box for a period of time and evaluating it.

Some studies I have read show that the virtual friendships that are formed while playing MMORPG’s can develop into real-life friendships and/or relationships. Being an avid gamer myself for the past twelve years I can attest to this as I have made many friends through online gaming that I keep in contact with and/or have met in real-life. This is another area for possible further research.

If you would like to help me out with my research then please visit the invitation online at: http://virtuguild.com/invitation.html.

Thanks,

LeVonda
aka Morrigan Branwyn

Best of the EdTech Web 2010 - With Links

Check out this SlideShare Presentation:

Best of the EdTech Web 2010 - With Links

View more presentations from Richard Byrne.

BP12_OMM_Skype

This is my one minute message on the web 2.0 tool I discussed during week one, Skype. It's a great tool and I highly recommend it. If you haven't tried it out before then visit Skype.com and download it today!

W3_Reading

AR Research Notes - Week 3 created on Linoit

References

Gillispie, L. (2008, April 01). 10 Educational Things I Learned From Playing MMORPG’s - edurealms.com. Retrieved October 16, 2010, from http://edurealms.com/?p=12

Southwood, D. (2007, October 01). It's Not Just a Game -- It's Skills for Life. Retrieved October 16, 2010, from http://www.techlearning.com/article/7904

Wagner, M. (2008, February 24). MMORPGs in Education: Social Learning [Web log post]. Retrieved October 16, 2010, from http://edtechlife.com/?p=1959

 Yee, N. (2003, February 11). The Daedalus Project: Learning Leadership Skills. Retrieved October 16, 2010, from http://www.nickyee.com/daedalus/archives/000338.php

PE3_Google Docs

The last application I decided to learn more about in the Google Docs suite were the forms. I had used it once previously to create a survey for one of our other courses. You can click here to see the full survey form.

I saw many templates showing me a lot of different ways that I could use the forms application. There are book requests forms, surveys, questionnaires, feedback forms, evaluations, and so many more. I looked at several of them to see what all they could do and how they were put together to see if I was able to replicate it or not.

I decided that I would focus on registration templates so that I could possibly make a registration or interest form for my Virtual Guild to get interested parties to help with my Action Research project. I looked through the hundreds of different templates on Google Docs to see if any of them were similar to what I needed. 

I then created an interest form to go along with an invitation I had made to invite people to join my Virtual Guild. You can view the form here by clicking on this link, which will later be embedded directly into the website that the invitation is on.

I learned a lot the past few days watching many tutorials and focusing on the different applications available in Google Docs. I can definitely see it as a great collaborative tool that I will be using a lot more in the future.

PE2_Google Docs

After watching some more tutorial and looking at the other applications within Google Docs I found the drawing application. 

I saw templates that could be used to brainstorm.

There were templates for wedding rehearsal plans, inferences, compare and contrast diagrams, logos, and so much more. The possibilities are endless. If you can imagine it you can most likely draw it with this Google Docs application. 

I decided to play around in it for awhile and just see if you could draw a very basic picture using all the different shape tools that were available. Apparently you can. I could see using this to show students who have to draw and may not be very good at it that you can draw a picture just from using shapes. 

I then decided that I would import a picture of a map from Guild Wars to see what I could do with it in this application. As you can see from the image below, I was able to use it to map out missions and where the main bosses were to battle along those missions. I could see this as a very useful tool when teaching students about geography and following directions. The great thing with this being on Google Docs is that they could work together or each of them could be adding a mission to the map at the same time. I think this one is a definite keeper for part of my Action Research project.

 

I am very impressed with the drawing Google Doc application and I am sure that I could find many more ways to use this tool in a classroom. Go try it out and see what you can make. :)

PE1_Google Docs

For my practical experience project I chose to delve deeper into Google Docs. I was first introduced to Google Docs a few months ago when I began the EMDT program at Full Sail Online. Since then I have used it to collaborate with group members, but mostly only using the docs and spreadsheets feature. I decided to take a closer look through the templates to see what else this powerful tool offered that would help me meet my collaboration needs.

I found a great template under the albums and flipbooks section for a scrapbook presentation. I love to scrapbook, so this really caught my attention. I downloaded the template and decided to try it out. 

I could see using this as a great tool to use at the beginning of the school year, during the first day or week of class. It would make a great icebreaker to have the students introduce themselves using it. It sounds like a lot more fun than stand up in front of the class and tell us about yourself or what did you do over the summer.

Stay tuned as I explore other ways to use Google Docs and as I find helpful tutorials to better familiarize myself with the applications.

BP11_Comment to Kristi Swartz

Follow this link to my comments on Kristi's blog about Toondo. This site is a lot of fun and I invite you to check it out. I went there and created the image below within just a couple of minutes. I can see students having a real blast with this one!

What a great and fun way to teach story sequences in school.

BP10_Comment to Anne Alsup

Follow this link to my comments on Anne's blog about Symbaloo. It is a great visual personal learning environment (PLE) that could be used in the classroom to help get students organized and teach them to be more responsible for their own learning. Check it out!

BP9_Moodle

I decided to try something new this week that I have heard a lot about, but since I haven’t been in the classroom I haven’t had the opportunity to use, Moodle. According to the website, Moodle (Modular Object-Oriented Dynamic Learning Environment) is a Course Management System (CMS), also known as a Learning Management System (LMS) or a Virtual Learning Environment (VLE). It is a FREE web application that educators can use to create effective online learning sites.

I decided to download the software and install it on one of my websites, VirtuGuild.com. For someone who is used to working with websites and setting up MySQL databases, it is fairly easy to walk-through the setup process. Even if you are not used to doing all of that there are a lot of helpful resources online that can help you get it all setup. I used Moodle’s: Getting Started for Teachers and Moodle Essential Training for Teachers on Lynda.com. 2 Minute Moodles is also a great resource and has videos you can view to help you get started. 

After I got Moodle installed on my web server I decided to setup a course. Creating the course was pretty easy after following the tutorials above and a lot of it was self explanatory.

I loved the various features that were available for you to add under your course management. You have two choices: add resource or add activity. Under each of those choices is a list of different resources or activities that you can add.

The resource section allows you to compose a text page or web page, link to a file or web site, etc…

Under activities you can add assignment, chat, forums, lessons, quizzes, surveys, wikis and more.

I went through and setup up week 1 of my course by adding resources consisting of links to other websites that I wanted to be read or items to be downloaded as well as a survey. Then under activities I added assignments and forums for discussion posts. 

I love the wide range of choices making it easy to allow for collaboration and reflection, so that learners can help contribute to their own education versus it just being instructor based. You can use it as a standalone or as a supplement to your current teaching. Even if you don’t have Moodle at your school or your own website to install it on, you can still visit Moodle’s demonstration site to check it out. So far I am really enjoying all it has to offer and I am thinking of using it as the interface for my Action Research project cycles. Check it out!

BP8_OMM_doTemplate

My one minute video on doTemplate.com. 


Credits:
Animation created on GoAnimate.com
Website created with doTemplate.com
Video edited with iMovie 

W2_Reading

While researching for my Action Research project this week I came across the following four sources that were of interest. I decided to write a quick summary of each source to meet my week 2 reading requirements for the ETC course I am enrolled in at Full Sail University online.


1) Reflections on Play, Pedagogy, and World of Warcraft – This article looks at the results from an online course at a community college entitled: "Warcraft: Culture, Gender, and Identity". Pirius states that the reason for this course was, "to critically investigate topics including subjective culture, personal and group identity, gender and stereotypes, language, citizenship, and technology." There were positive and negative results with descriptions of areas for improvement to make it successful for future practices. Some of these included reflection by the students to relate their experiences in game to real-world connections and feedback to not only help gauge the learning, but also for possible areas of improvement. Another good point was keeping the guild environment active by possibly offering extrinsic motivators like participation points.


2) The WoW Factor – This article looks at a group of educators who use World of Warcraft to relax, network, and discover possible learning strategies. Catherine Parsons created a guild called Cognitive Dissonance for educators to do just that. They found out that video games could teach a lot about learning. Multiple skills across the curriculum are needed like reading, communication, analytical skills, statistics, economy, writing, and the list goes on. Other MMORPG’s are being used as well such as Lord of the Rings in a college course that studies the works of J.R.R Tolkien along with his books and the films.


3) WoW for Education – This is a slideshow presentation that goes over areas such as games as learning theories and World of Warcraft in school. It lists out 36 learning principles that can be taught using games in education as well as the eight myths of video games and violence in video games. It also shares 21 research-based instructional strategies and learning principles in gaming. It shows how gaming is creating students who are leaders and can collaborate with others. They went on to create a collaborative project called WoW in School to study using World of Warcraft in an after school program to targeting at-risk or “fringe” students, and focusing on literacy, writing, mathematics, 21st -century skills, and digital citizenship.

WoW for Education

View more presentations from PeggySheehy.


4)    Schools Use Games for Learning and Assessment – This is a video published on YouTube by Edutopia. It discusses how not only playing games in school is beneficial to students, but creating their own video games as well. It shows how games can be used as online learning environments to teach real-world applications like surgeries where students can make mistakes without risk and explore in a 3d environment. It’s touted as a better way to learn than just sitting in a classroom. It also discusses how our educational system could be in trouble if its reaction to things like cell phones and technology is to ban them. Squire says that games can let students start as novices and become experts. It also shows schools that are Tech Magnets that teach students to be designers of instructional technology.

References

Demski, J. (2009). The WoW Factor. THE Journal. Retrieved October 10, 2010, from http://thejournal.com/articles/2009/11/09/virtual-communities.aspx?sc_lang=en

Edutopia (Director). (2010, May 12). Schools Use Games for Learning and Assessment. Retrieved October 10, 2010, from http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U-GVEANUEVo

Pirius, L., & Creel, G. (2010). Reflections on Play, Pedagogy, and World of Warcraft (EDUCAUSE Quarterly) | EDUCAUSE. EDUCAUSE Quarterly, 33(3). Retrieved October 10, 2010, from http://www.educause.edu/EDUCAUSE+Quarterly/EDUCAUSEQuarterlyMagazineVolum/ReflectionsonPlayPedagogyandWo/213663

Sheehy, P. (2010). WoW for Education [PPT]. Retrieved from http://www.slideshare.net/PeggySheehy/wow-for-education