To Game or not to Game?

Lately, when I have been talking to other teachers about how I and other educators in the TDSB, namely Liam and Diana, have been using Minecraft in our classes.  I hear a lot of people say: "I would love to do that, but I'm not a gamer."  What I felt they really meant was: "I am not a stereotypical video gamer who has bad hygiene and few interpersonal relation skills beyond the fantasy world of a video game, be it FPS, MMORPG, or arcade game."  Which, admittedly is a mouthful.  Then after after some sober second thoughts (thank in part to Melanie), I thought that I might be judging others to quickly.  Maybe they just don't know they are gamers yet.  Either way though, I believe that if you play games you are a gamer.

Perhaps the issue here really is how avid a person has to be in order feel comfortable or justified in calling themselves a gamer.

For insitance, when I was a teacher librarian it use to drive me crazy when people would announce to be that they are not readers.  Can you read?  Do you surf the internet?  Like comics/magazines/newspapers/blogs...? Play any video games? I would ask. If the answer was yes to any of these questions, then yes friend, you  indeed, are a reader.  The problem here being that many people believe that if they aren't reading the latest top selling book, or up on the classics then they are not really a reader, and if they are not an avid reader (read: always with their nose in a book) then they have no right to call themselves a reader.

I believe the same is true in gaming: If you built a farm on Facebook, or play Crush Candy, or Words with Friends, then you're a gamer.  If you have ever play Plants vs. Zombies, 4 Pictures 1 Word, you're a gamer.  If you enjoy the occasional game of Monopoly, Scategories, cards or chess... etc then, -you guessed it-, you are a gamer.  Being a 'gamer' shouldn't be an exclusive club for a select group of players.

Playing games in the class should not be a scary, or intimidating thing either.  If you truly do not enjoy games, then fine, I get it.  I won't shame you or think you are 'less than' because you don't want to play.  But, if the fear is that, you cannot introduce games to students unless you yourself are an expert at the game being taught, then I say this: relax.  Half the fun of gaming is discovering something new.  And what better way to allow students to be leaders, develop inquiry skills, class community, and build teacher/student relationships,  than to explore the unknown together?

For example, I may have a long computer gaming history, but I really only know how to accomplish a fraction of what is possible in Minecraft.  I know the basics of the game, and I introduced the bare minimum to students and then we played.  Students share knowledge freely, get excited when they discover something new, or solve a problem, and they especially love it when they can teach others what they have now become experts in.

(Incidentally, this is also how I feel about teaching using web 2.0 tools.  I teach the basics of Prezi or Google docs, or whatever tool would work well with what we are learning in class, and challenge my students to see where, and how far they can take it.  The age of the 'Sage on the stage' is ending (or over), and while I still often play that role in content areas I don't have the energy, or time to be the expert in everything, and I don't have to be.)

And really, when you know everything there is to know about a game, isn't that when you stop playing it?  If there is no challenge or mystery left then 'The Thrill is Gone.'

To sum up:

• to game you don't have to be an expert, you just need to like playing games. 
• expert knowledge is not required to play
• have as much fun as you can

Centres in a Junior Class = an Opportunity to Play

Heads up, this is a bit of a longer post than I normally put up.

This has been one of the most challenging years for me as a teacher.  I have had the privilege of teaching the  first class at the TDSB Girls Leadership Academy.  This is one of the programs of choice created by the TDSB; others include the Boys Leadership, Music, Sports and Wellness, and Africentric academies.  The challenge I speak of is not teaching 25 girls -while there are challenges there too.  No, my challenge is covering 3 grades and include time for play and discovery.  You read correctly, I teach a grade 4/5/6 split grade class, and yes I believe there should be time for play.  I am not the only teacher to teach 3 grades in one class.  It is possible, just challenging.  I have been fortunate to have support from a morning resource teacher for at least one period a day, great student teachers and Instructional Leaders.  But I digress, The point of this post is not to talk about the challenges of teaching 3 grades at once, but how I was able to use centres to get to target some small group instruction, useful class production, and play at the same time.  It only took 7 months.

I have been toying with centres in the junior grades for years (in the library, working with classroom teachers as a teacher librarian), but I have never really got the right balance of activities to ensure that the time is used effectively, but I think I got it, or that I am at least approaching a balance.  My concern was making the centres both engaging and purposeful.  I still think there are things that need to be tweaked, but for a first attempt it went far better than I had expected.

MY CLASS

In our class we have 4 groups of six students with one student sitting alone (her choice).  One group is all grade 5 students, and the other groups are made up of four grade 4 students and two grade 6 students.  We have a 30 computers, and that means that this year we have one computer per students, plus 4 on standby.  Next year, we won't have that luxury, but for this year it is a pretty nice setup.  Computers can be used at all the centres, but only really needed at one.

CENTRES

Here is the centre breakdown: Writers Workshop, Silent-ish reading, Research and Minecraft.  At almost every centre students had the choice to work on or offline.  Each table started where they were and then rotated to the other centres, logging off at each centre before rotating, except at the Minecraft centre where they stayed logged into their Minecraft accounts.  This was done to minimize laptop movement, and to make transition in and out of the Minecraft centre smoother.  Most students choose to use the computers, and in the research centre, students used a mixture of books and computers.  I was actually surprised that many students wanted to use the computers over books at  silent reading centre, but it gave me the opportunity to show students some of the ebook resource the TDSB has to offer, mostly Follett Shelf, but others wanted to read articles too.  In the next couple of weeks I will be spending more time at the reading centre to help facilitate online reading choices -one of the problems was that some students were choosing ebooks that were either far to easy.

MINECRAFT

The Minecraft centre was the centre where I had to give almost no support.  The girls helped each other for the most part, giving advice, and help to each other.  The only time I was called upon, was when someone got stuck in a hole, or if there was a message for me from one of the teachers playing on the server in another school.  I had one student opt out of playing, but by the end of the class she seemed to be open to trying it out if given another opportunity.   I think the main reason behind that change is that one of her peers was very happy to be able to play and was excited to see their mutual friend from another school (Highland Heights) online at the same time, and it gave her the chance to have sanctioned chat time in class.  Little did she know, I was happy with her chatting, as she is a reluctant writer and anything that gets her writing is a step in the right direction.  I look forward to their future chats, and am interested to see if their chatting leads to play.  I have already talked to the teachers at Highland Heights to see if we could plan to be on at the same time again.  I also want to see what students will create, how will they play -one student has already made it clear that she wants to play separately- and how/if I should make them report on their time.

Some of my students have been asking if we could construct villages in Minecraft to represent the societies we have been studying (Midieval, Early and First Nations).  I am inclined to do this, but I really want it to be from them more than from me.  In Math, as a culminating task for area and perimeter we designed our dream home -on poster board not Minecraft, and I think that maybe I will let them know that if want to design a village they need to first show me their plans and then find them time to construct their villages.  I will see how this flies this week.

FINAL THOUGHTS

All of these centre, with the exception on the Minecraft centre have been a part of the regular class program, but instead of having students work a full 50 minutes on their current research/inquiry project, or writing piece they want to workshop, students have 15 minutes to get to work then move on.  There was also a couple of minutes transition time between centres that was not included in the 15 minutes.  I wanted the centres to change every 20 minutes, but we had a later start than I hoped.  Next time we should be able to be able to do it that way.  The feedback at the end of the period was mostly positive, with the only negatives being; that there wasn't enough time at each centre, and it was difficult to work with Follett Shelf.  The second complaint I took with a grain of salt, because I hadn't really planned to introduce Follett Shelf, except that students were choosing to read ebooks off other sites that were not very challenging and I intervened with a brief intro to Follett, and they really didn't have a very long time to practice using it before they had to rotate. So, all in all, it was a positive experience.  Depending on how things go I may even split the centres over two days, but that's a challenge for future me.

How Do You Fit Play in the Junior Classroom?

While you may not actually learn everything you need to know in Kindergarten you do learn a lot.  One of the best things about kindergarten is that much of the learning is play based.  Students go thought the inquiry process and a variety of ways.  Much of the inquiry is not coming from the direct teacher instruction, but from the students themselves.  This inquiry is not about achieving levels or getting stickers, but more about the interests and curiosity of the children in the class.  Student lead play that goes to both places that teacher can see coming, and to surprising places of discovery that no ever expected.  I know my friend who has been teaching kindergarten for 20 years never expected her building blocks to inspire an inquiry on how to create a better Beyblade and Beyblade stadium, and yet there was a lot to learn, many experiments, written plans, and class discussions on the topic.  A rich topic that came from the students and linked with many curriculum expectations.

I know there is value in play based learning, I'm just not sure where to fit it into a junior class.  With 6 curriculum documents (not including French), CASI, assemblies, and other interruptions to learning, it is hard to find a way to fit play into the classroom.  I have had my students play Minecraft in the class, but the only free play they have had is during class party time.  Otherwise the 'play' has been task oriented.  Which isn't a bad thing; I am confident that the bridges my students built in game were at least 10 times better than anything they could have come up with using Popsicle sticks and glue.  But I don't think all that is enough.  I am trying my best to incorporate inquiry into the classroom, but how do I balance play too?

Is play still important in grade 4, 5 and 6?  When does play become unimportant?  Does play ever become unimportant to education?  I believe the answer to the last question is: play never becomes unimportant, but is that really true or just idealistic?  As an educator in a junior classroom how can I justify 'play' to my colleagues, Principal and parents?  So much of the education field is driven by data.  What data do I collect about play?  How do I balance play with everything else that I need to do in any given day?  I know there is a lot that my students can learn from playing: social skills, communication, science, connections to social studies, art, music... but without knowing what exact expectations they will met how much time can I invest in 'free play'?   These are things I wrestle with more and more these days.

I guess I will have to play with these problems myself for a while and see where my inquiries takes me.  If anyone out there has any articles or experiences they have had with play in the junior grades please feel free to share.  I will share too.  (I learned that in kindergarten.)

Bridges over the River Lava

Just under two weeks ago the TDSB opened a port allowing students from Highland Heights, Agnes Macphail, and the Girls Leadership Academy (GLA) to access the multi-school Minecraft server house at Ryerson University's Edge Lab.  Liam, Diana and I went on to the server and set up our class meeting areas, Liam set up a central square with ports to our different school areas so we can go between playing among ourselves or together.  The fun has just started!

My grade 5 students (GLA) had a task to design a model bridge that was suppose to span 30cms and be able to have 2 cars travel across at the same time in opposite directions.  Since the server was up and running I decided to give the task a bit of a tweak.  I told my students that their task would now be to build a bridge that spans approximately 20m (in Minecraft one block equals 1m squared) and go over a river of lava.

What surprised me was how seriously -most- of the students considered the materials they would use, the height they would have to make the bridge (so that people would not be effected by the heat from the lava), and the dangers of travel in Minecraft (zombies, skeletons, creepers and endermen).  Before students entered the space they made detailed sketches of dimensions and materials they would need.  One of my students even went back to her drawings after starting to build to update them with changes she had made to her structure after actually being in the space because her original drawing did not match the terrain of the actual lava river.  Another student, continually went back to add new features and more detailed dimensions to her plans.

The problems solving, communication, and the sense that their construction actually mattered was incredible.  There were problems that were connected to the task: "How do I make an arch?" and problems that were more social: "You're building too close!"  These problems led to conversations, conflict and compromise and both type of problems led to great learning opportunities.  The students are still working on the finishing touches to their structures, but I included a video (below) of what they have done so far.

 I plan on writing up a lesson plan for the task and posting it on www.gamingedus.org

Gamer Girl vs Girl Gamer is Fail or How Late to the Party Am I?

As I was washing some dishes this morning (read: avoiding working on report cards) and I started thinking about the gamer girl vs. girl gamer argument that has been going on a for while.  I know I am late to the party, and I may not be totally informed on all the current relevant points in the debate, but I do know this for sure: people who are arguing about this are missing the point.  The point being, that even suggesting that all women fit into either one of two gamer'categories' (one of which that has very little to do with actual gaming) is -to put it mildly- incredibly insulting.

I mean, think about it, would you ever hear a man refer to themselves as a boy gamer?  It would not even occur to them to think this way.  Why do -some- women allow others to label them that way, or willingly choose to label themselves as such?  Sure I have been guilty of having the conversation with my friend Louise and my sister about being a 'serious' female gamer as opposed to being 'gamer girl' but I felt so stupid using those terms, and at the time I wasn't sure why.  I guess know why now, and its all thanks to dishes and report cards.

I would love, LOVE it, if someone hung out outside of 401 Games (tabletop game store in Toronto) or any Gamestop or EB Games location and asked men as they are leaving if they are gamer boys, or boy gamers. (I checked YouTube and have found no such video, but I found pages of videos about gamer girls and girl gamers).  I bet the reactions would range from confused to amused about that ridiculous question.  Yet, apparently if 'the internet' is right, any female gamer who knows anything will respond with: "I'm a girl gamer".  Hmmmmm actually, I wounder if that's true.  Man I wish (for just a moment) I had the kind of presence on the internet where I could say: "Hey internet I want a video comparing men and women responding to the question: Are you a gamer girl/boy or a girl/.boy gamer?" and within days/hours there would be tonnes of videos posted.

I bet Wil Wheaton could make it happen.  That would be so cool.

What's my gamer identity you ask?  Okay you didn't ask, but I'm gonna tell you anyway.  I prefer computer games to consul, and RPG's to FPS's. I am a causal gamer that loves MMO's, and who really digs sandbox games (yeah I said that), and also enjoys variety of tabletop games like; Betrayal on Hill House, Chez Geek, and Descent.  That's the kind of gamer I am.

Anyways, these report cards aren't gonna write themselves.

-Sigh-

Holiday Class Party 2012

As you may already know, I'm a teacher.  I teacher a grade 4/5/6 split of 23 (female) students.  It is unusual, but we make it work.  We are in an open concept area that has 4 classes; which has kinda spoiled us, since we are 25 (including teachers) in 4 rooms.  One room is ours, one is for French, one is our daily physical activity room, with a t.v. and wii, and the last is unused right now.

We have started the tradition of class parties being centred around gaming.  For our holiday party we had three gaming areas: the DPA room was for students wanting to play wii, the main classroom was for students wanting to game on -teacher approved- gaming websites, and the French room was reserved for Minecraft*.  We celebrated in the afternoon after we exchanged our library books -reading over the holidays is important after all   I felt very much like a kindergarten teacher, asking each student where they were planning to start their gaming.  Students were free to move between areas as they wanted, but since there was a cap on the amount of students who could play Minecraft, (I only have 9 accounts) I wanted to make sure we didn't have an issues straight off.

My principal stopped by in the middle of our gaming party and was pretty stunned to see how focused all the students were at there areas.  In the last hours of school, before a break, one seldom expects to see a class not bouncing off the walls.  From someone looking in it looked like a very relaxed, boring, class party, but my students loved it.  I wish I had taken pictures of how they organized themselves in each area because they were are slightly different.  In the wii area, the girls made a semi circle around the ones who's turn it was to handle the controller, and they all participated together; they even kept the volume down to a respectful level.  There was only one conflict and it was resolved amicably before I could even get there. The Minecraft group sat together around one of the French room tables to help each other, and random game players lounged on the carpet area of the main classroom in a group, where they could still talk to each other.  A couple of students choose to play apart from the large groups, but they would go in and out, maintaining some social interaction.  I occasionally wandered the different areas to check in, but the Minecraft area needed the most attention since they were all n00bs.

I found it really interesting to see and hear students at the different areas.  On a whole they didn't get very loud, even at the wii Just Dance area.  The girls were are very focused on what they were playing, and most of the talk was centred around the task they were doing.  Sure I had a couple of girls who got a bit silly, but on the whole, it was pretty amazing to see the focused determination that they had while playing.  And if you asked any one of the students, they would tell you they had a great time.  I wish I could see them that focused and engaged in everything we do.

The first gaming party we had was to celebrate Halloween, and I wasn't sure how it would go over, but I now see that this will probably be the pattern of every class party for the rest of the year.  I love it, not just because need for classroom management was very low, but also because whether they knew it or not, they were actually learning and practicing many skills too.  From communication and problem solving skills, to dance, to Mathematics skills, they were all doing something I could at least make an anecdotal comment on, and if I had thought about it, I might have been able to create a simple skills checklist to see if they apply skills taught in class while playing.  But it was a party, so I was more concerned about playing with my students than assessing them.  Maybe next time.

*At our first gaming party there was a board game centre as well but there was no interest in tabletop gaming this time.

Post Where I talk about ECOO 2012 and go off topic

Overdue reflection of ECOO.  Thank goodness I am not being marked on this!

This was my first time attending ECOO and I was lucky enough to be presenting with my two GamingEdus, Liam and Diana.  We presented on Minecraft in the classroom, and it went well -I think- as we had a pretty full room.  What I enjoyed most about our session was that some female students who were (I learned later) presenting with their teacher @royanlee*.   They arrived early, because they had heard we were presenting on Minecraft and wanted to check it out.  Fortunately, we had decided to bring our laptops with us and connect them to our Minecraft server to play.  It was great having students, then teachers come up and try out the game for themselves. 

I went to a couple of workshops and learned about a couple of web tools that I hadn't heard about before before including Popcorn.  I can't really explain it, but I think it is pretty cool.  A very, very, basic description would be to say that it combines video, and live web content that you can access while watching.  I really need to spend some time with it and play around, at least until I get the basics of it so I can let my students loose on it and have them show me what they can do.   

Much of what I got from ECOO was additional resources, validation for some of my beliefs around education (mostly from small group discussion with people before and after sessions), and a few things that challenged me.  Or to be more accurate: got my back up.

One of the things that got me was a comment about gaming along the lines of: he (the person presenting) uses games in the classroom, but that he wasn't a 'gamer'.  I didn't understand why he felt the need to say that.  As far as I'm concerned, if you play games you're a gamer.  To me it's just a matter of what's your game or games.  I respected that this he discovered for himself the ability for games to engage students; I just didn't see why he needed a disclaimer.  Talking about it with Liam and Diana we and came up with a few reasons why people would feel the need to do this.  Possibilities we discussed included : being intimidated by 'hard core gamers,' fear for being labeled a geek or nerd, and similarly the fear of not being taken seriously.  I'm sure we had other reasons too, but it's been a while and I forget.  It's stupid, but that comment got in the way of my engaging to his presentation for a while, but once I got over it, I found that much of what he spoke about came alongside my own understanding of how games can be a catalyst in the classroom.

On another note this past week I went through some old recordings of others workshops I had been too, and found another session (from the OLA Super Conference) where one of the presenters admitted -at their gaming workshop- that they did not game, and had to spend the last couple of weeks researching to prepare for the session.  Why?!?  

Sorry, I feel that I have gone well off topic here.  Anyways, to sum up: ECOO was a good experience, and everyone should play games proudly.

*is it weird that I find it easier to write people's twitter handles rather than their actual name?  I actually had to stop myself from refereing to Diana and Liam as @MzMollyTL and @liamodonnell.

Here is a random thought about writing this blog post: I had to go through this post, (which I first started writing on my phone, then my computer, and finally my tablet) and make sure I capitalized my 'I's. It seems I becoming so use to my phone and tablet automatically correcting it that I don't even think about it.  I was surprised that I had to give a mini lesson with my junior students about capitalization rules, especially the use of 'I' last week too. Are these two things connected? Are my students not capitalizing 'I' because they are use to their phones doing it for them, or did they really not know that they needed to capitalize 'I'?  Just wondering.