When I think of about the term “Game Jam,” I don’t often think about industry giants like Ubisoft, Rovio, Sony, and Disney.  This weekend in the gorgeous offices of Learning Objects, those very same developers along with a host of educational developers and small teams came together to spend 48 straight hours, each creating an educational game.  What’s even better is that they also invited several teachers to act as mentors and guides, which is why I’m writing this blog post now.

I’ve pointed out before that the idea of leveraging games for classroom use is gaining traction, and these kinds of events go a long way to backing that claim.  The question is quickly changing from whether we should use games in the classroom to how we should use them.  During the introductory remarks, it was pointed out that studies show significant cognitive gains in students who play video games in school.  92% of young elementary school students could solve algebraic equations after spending an hour with the amazing game Dragon Box.

After a quick morning meeting, teams were sent to “jam.”  They were given suggestions in each content area and asked to keep standards in mind.  About a day after they begin to brainstorm ideas for their game, teams welcome students into the office to playtest.  A mere 24 hours later, each team is expected to have a working, playable prototype to unveil at the White House.  They will create a two-minute video about their game and have another minute to speak about their product.

It’s early yet, but the atmosphere here is electric.  Perhaps most gratifying for me personally is seeing how eager the developers are to receive guidance from the educators.  More than once, teams have pitched their idea to me, asked for suggestions, and modified their trajectory based on my input.  There is a real positivity in the room, and I think it stems from the fact that gaming as a source of entertainment, as a form of art, and now as a teaching tool is finally being taken seriously.  Most of us are here because games have had a positive impact in our lives and we recognize that we learned and grew from playing them.

For a long time, I would have been slightly embarrassed to admit I was a gamer.  Many of us, even those of us who should know better, still have that skewed mental image of a gamer.  You know the one.  The image is almost always male, adolescent, and adverse to sunlight.  Often, a basement is involved.  That stigma is gradually falling away, as young gamers become adult gamers and refuse to ditch their beloved past-time because they’ve reached a certain age.

To deliver to students the kind of rich, engaging experience that we know is possible in gaming provides the ultimate validation.  We’re still many hours and lots of energy drinks away from the end, but I can’t wait to see what comes from this jam.

Minecraft continues to grow as an essential part of my academic curriculum, as well as, after school clubs.  I continue to be amazed by how deeply the game engages young people.  I use the word "game" hesitantly, though, as it doesn't quite seem to capture the possibilities presented by Minecraft.  There really are some amazing opportunities for learning, collaboration, and creativity inside the game.  Recently, I've joined an online community of educators using Minecraft (mostly the MinecraftEDU mod), and I've seen the possibilities.  Check us out.

By far, the most impressive resource I've found is a map made by a teacher named Eric Walker.  He uses the map to teach the humanities.  The scope of the map is breathtaking.  He has recreated structures from the ancient world, fantastic fictional locales, and placed them all inside the game world.  See just a few of the sites below:

If you don't find those impressive, then you should probably just skip the rest of this post.  In case you'd like to download and use the map, you can find it here:

In several pictures you can see little columns with a blue, lower-case 'i.'  Those are information blocks that give the students information about the structures or direct them to complete various assignments.  What a wonderful way to learn about humanities.

In my last post, I spoke about my students playing more traditional games.  Specifically, they've been playing Warcraft III, an intense strategy game with beautiful graphics and sound.  I guess I wasn't really surprised when they asked to play Minecraft instead.  Well, they're getting their wish.  My plan is to begin to create an epic Minecraft map that might someday rival Mr. Walker's map.  So, I'm putting my high school students to work.  We've recently invited about ten sixth-graders into the game club.  We had to because if I hadn't given these middle school students a chance to play Minecraft, there would have been a revolt!

So, we're going to be working together--some of the oldest students at SEED and the youngest.  We are just getting started, but we're going to be tracking our progress with a wiki.

Currently, we're working to decide which seed to use.  Seeds are like world templates.  As we begin to add to the seed we choose, we will keep updating the wiki so feel free to stop by and see how we're doing!

Greek mythology tells us about Sisyphus who was doomed to roll a boulder up a hill, only to have it roll back down just before it reaches the summit.  It also speaks of Tantalus who, parched with thirst, is unable to drink from the stream in which he is eternally standing.  Well, for me, these terrible fates rank just above the idea of taking an entire class called simply "typing."  Nonetheless, I was tasked this year with teaching just such a class this year.

Seriously, for 70 minutes a day, my students are supposed to practice their keyboarding skills.  Well, that wasn't going to work for me.

A common (and valid) complaint among the teaching staff here at SEED is that students lack some basic computer skills.  For most teachers, this means that students don't understand the basics of word processing.  It's a terrible cliche that anyone under the age of 18 has an inherent and impressive knowledge of computers.  My students could use their phone to friend on you on Facebook in 11 seconds flat, but ask them to center and underline some text in a document, and you'll be met with a blank stare.

So my solution is to teach the basics of word processing using game based learning.  If you've been following along with my blog posts, you probably know what I'm going to say next.  Yep, we're heading to Minecraft.

So, here's what I've done.

1. Found a beautiful MC seed (blank map)
   
   

Then, I record some tutorial videos that demonstrate to students how to survive in the MC world.  As they do, they create a "survival guide" that catalogs their adventures and shares the information they learn.  Here's the template I've been using to demonstrate.

Also, here's one of my tutorial videos:

And one more:

So far, so good.  Students are really into it.  And I've got a great reason to incorporate MC in class.  As we move forward, I will updating this site with information.  Thanks for tuning in!

If you're like me, when you think of "educational gaming," you think of the much beloved, sometimes reviled classic Oregon Trail.  Every week in elementary school, we would trudge the computer lab, where our computer teacher would give us 5 1/4" floppy disks.  What career do you want to choose? Well, banker, of course.  Then, we were off.  Uh oh, Nicole has dysentery.  To this day, I still don't know what typhoid actually is, but I know that it's terrible and to be avoided at all costs.

Well, we certainly have some a long way in terms of gaming.  Pac-Man has given way to Call of Duty, Halo, and John Madden Football.  These games cost dozens or hundreds of millions of dollars to produce.  On it's release day a few weeks ago, Call of Duty: Black Ops II made over 300 million dollars.  With the next generation of games on the horizon, the line between cinema and gaming graphics blurs even further.  These games often have symphonic scores.

One thing hasn't changed, though.  Educational games are lame.  Seriously, they're no fun.

So, do we even need them?  I'm starting to think no.  There's plenty to be learned from "real" games.  The students in my gaming club have been having playing Warcraft III, an older game that stresses tactics and strategy.  While my students work in teams to battle one another, they are forced to juggle several factors.  They have to manage inventory, make value-based decisions about how to spend their resources, communicate with their teammate(s) about how and when to launch attacks. The whole time they're making these decisions, they keep a mental image of the massive map in their heads.  It gets very complicated very quickly.

I'll give another example.  Remember history class?  I do.  I remember it involved a lot of reading from a textbook.  Don't get me wrong,  I think that learning from written text is an extremely important skill.  However, we can certainly supplement the old-school with the new.  

Let me be very clear, you can explore every nook and cranny of Rome.  You climb all the walls, explore the Colosseum, and splash in the fountains.  It's a truly incredible experience.

Of course, this particular game is also full of simulated violence.  The point, though, is that the technology exists for us to create truly immersive experiences for our students.  Take out the "assassin" part of "Assassin's Creed," and you have one of the most powerful educational tools I can think of.

I was very excited about using Minecraft in my classroom, but I was not prepared for the shear level of excitement its inclusion would bring.  As a long time gamer myself, I was familiar with Minecraft, but I hadn't spent any real time immersed in its blocky landscape.  For the uninitiated, Minecraft is an open-world game in which players explore, mine, and add to a world.

The world is constructed entirely from cube-shaped blocks of various material (dirt, sand, stone, wood, etc.).  As the player, you can "mine" these blocks and re-position them into any configuration.  Of course, some enterprising players have created some truly awe-inspiring structures using Minecraft.  The pictures below is constructed from thousands upon thousands of blocks.

My initial concerns centered on the fact that Minecraft is nothing like Call of Duty, Madden Football, or any of the other games my students report to play in their spare time.  I wasn't too surprised to find that a few students had played the game on their own, but I was unprepared for the response of the rest of my class.

I know it's going to sound like exaggeration, but I have never seen students so happy and motivated in all my years of teaching.  The laughter and smiles continued unabated for an entire hour and a half.   In future updates, I look forward to sharing the projects we're working on with Minecraft.

If anyone out there wants to discuss how to use Minecraft in their classrooms, I have been made a true believer, and would be happy to share my experiences in more depth.