Wk3 Publishing_Leadership project part 2 of 2: Publish or Present

There are more places to present than I initially thought on using gaming in education, but some of the conferences or symposiums that I think my project would make a real impact at are:

Games in Education Symposium  

Games+Learning+Society (GLS) Conference
 

New Media Consortium [NMC] Conference

Virtual Worlds Best Practices in Education Conference 

International Society for Technology in Education (ISTE) Conference 

  

Society for Information Technology & Teacher Education (SITE) Virtual Presentations

PodCamp

I am sure that there are possibly other sources out there that I am unaware of that would allow me to present my Action Research on learning social skills through gaming, but I am still searching for those.  I could also see this making a powerful Podcast after our look this week into podcasts. Even sharing it with other educators on SlideShare is another alternative, but actually being a part of a conference or symposium would be great.  At any rate, I still feel that creating a presentation versus writing an article is the best choice for presenting my research and after looking at all of the above choice for conferences to present at I have chosen the Games+Learning+Society (GLS) Conference.   

Creative Commons: an Educational Primer

This is a very interesting  article on EdReach that I feel goes perfectly with our copyright topic last week if any of you would like to check it out:
Creative Commons: an Educational Primer

Can our dreams of becoming teachers be realized in this economy?

Have you ever wanted something so badly, but it just always seems to be out of your reach?  I have and still do!  Since I was a child I have dreamed of becoming a teacher.  I didn't go to college after High School like many of my friends did, instead I started a family that I stayed home and raised.  


In 1998 I went back into the workforce as an Office Manager for a computer store, where I dealt with the various school districts around us on a daily basis as I quoted them computer labs and other peripherals.  I continued to work at the computer store for about five years before I decided that I would never be able to grow at my current place of employment and I wanted something more out of my life.  It was then that I thought about what was really important to me along with my hopes and dreams.  I thought about my children and their education.  It was then that I took my first step and decided to go back to school to get my degree in education.


I began that journey in the Summer of 2003 and I worked very hard to keep my grades up while taking care of m family.  I even started volunteering at my children's school with the parent teacher organization, which I later became treasurer and president of.  I also became a Girl Scout leader for both of my daughters Girl Scout troop.  It was a very rough ride, but in December 2007 I graduated with my BS in Early Childhood Education (P-4). 


It was at that time that I began my job search for a lifelong career as an elementary teacher.  I began by substituting for all of the local school districts.  After a year of doing that with no nibbles I took a job offer at a local NBC affiliate in their Accounting department to help my family meet their financial needs.  I continued submitting applications and resumes for job positions that became open throughout the various school districts, but never received a phone call to interview for any of them.  


In February 2010, my position at the television station was eliminated and the very next day I received my divorce papers in the mail.  It was a very hard month, but my children and I decided to move from the only home they had ever known in Arkansas over 2400 miles away to Oregon for a fresh start.  We have been settling in here for almost a year now and I have gone back to school to get my Masters in Education Media Design & Technology, which I will graduate with in July of this year.  I am still submitting applications and resumes to various school districts hoping and praying for a teaching position, but have yet to see a response or even a glimmer of hope in that direction.


In our current economy I am not holding my breath for an education job due to all of the budget cuts, employees who aren't ready to retire, and being in that over 40 age bracket that sometimes isn't considered with all the younger graduating hopefuls.  Everything has become so political and if you don't know the "right person" then your chances are even lower.  I am not so much set to teach elementary school anymore as I once was, but then again breaking into secondary education or even online education for that matter these days is just as difficult.  Especially if you have absolutely no teaching experience besides just your internship and substituting.  So how does someone get their dream job these days with so much against them???  That is a very good question and one I would love to be able to answer.  I just keep trying and pray that one day I will be able to fulfill my dream of teaching.


I have been told by my friends, colleagues, and other educators that with all my technology background and willingness to try new things that there should be multiple opportunities available to me.  Being out of work for a year now I have looked at taking a position just about anywhere and everywhere.  However, it seems that I am over qualified for many of the accounting or office positions I have taken in the past or that they are afraid to hire me in fear that I will leave if a teaching position should become available.  The economy has been hit hard making it difficult for us all.  This has been a very hard road to walk down, but I am determined to follow it through until I finally do reach my goal and dream of teaching somewhere in what was once a great land of opportunity for us all. 

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