In this video the lecturer is talking about what role scientific reasoning – thinking in mathematical scientific ways – has in gaming in MMO games. In a study she conducted the following scientific practices were gleaned from AAAS (American Association for the Advancement of Science) standards and divided into three categories.

These standards where then used to analyse over 200 forum posts and these are the results;

In the lecture she expounds each of the above habits of mind. One of the most amazing results was the 1% mathematical computation that was exemplified with this impressive spreadsheet:

The last category of tacit epistemology was interesting. The three minds of the absolutist, relativist and the evaluative. Data was then presented showing that WoW gamers have a much higher percentage of evaluative thinkers than the general public, and many less absolutists. This makes me think of the inquiry based learning book I am reading at the moment. Inquiry based learning requires people to be evaluative thinkers. Student creative content as apposed to teacher/expert content is another important aspect of modern learning that can foster evaluative thinkers.

Sorry this post is so late. Week 5 has been really dense in content I am particularly interested in and I didn’t want to rush through just for the sake of finishing. We have also been having a busy time at home with family and work – published student created iBooks for Wrightstuff Interactive (post about soon…).

The next couple of lectures were about using video games to teach historical content. The lecturer – Kurt Squire – first spoke about his research into Civilisations. This game is strategy based. It places the gamer in different historical periods and requires them to build and sustain an empire through time from ancient to modern time. Gamers create the world incorporating new technologies relevant to the era.

After the lecture I watched this introduction to the game – it was a great intro but only watch it if you actually intend to teach with or play the game because its almost an hour and a half long!

The next lecture was about giving students the opportunity solve problems within a historical space. In the Stronghold 3 simulation game the goals are to build a castle and maintain the community connected to that castle. The gamer is forced to make choices and negotiate tasks within a historical frame work. I also had a look at Europa Universallis IV which I immediately liked because of the authentic geography – I couldn’t understand in Civilsations how one gamer had just created Otowa, then turned it into Toronto which no topographical transformation and then Venice attacked him???

I really liked in this lecture when he started talking about history as a series of choices rather than a pre-determined story. History is simply the choices that others have already made. Games can allow students the space to live history again and see what their decisions would be – yes they have a benefit of hindsight but once the timeline errs far enough away from the reality they can then get a sense of making history changing choices.

Don’t worry – this isn’t another course – it’s a book 🙂

Was given this to read by a beautiful teacher and I am so glad she did as it’s bring the practicalities of inquiry learning/facilitating into focus for me. Here are a few points of interest and things I just don’t want to forget…

Guided Inquiry is a way of thinking, learning, and teaching that changes the culture of the school into a collaborative inquiry community. (It) develops academic competency, career readiness, and life skills… Learning content in isolation is an inefficient, outdated practice. (As) student cannot possibly learn all of the content that is known, learning how to learn and understanding one’s own learning process are more important than ever before.

Guided Inquiry Design Process

1. Open: invitation to inquiry, open minds, stimulate curiosity

2. Immerse: build background knowledge, connect to content, discover interesting ideas

3. Explore: explore interesting ideas, look around, dip in

4. Identify: pause and ponder, identify inquiry question, decide direction

5. Gather: gather important information, go broad, go deep

6. Create: reflect on learning, to beyond facts to make meaning, create to communicate

7. Share: learn from each other, share learning, tell your story

8. Evaluate: evaluate achievement of learning goals, reflect on content and process

Classroom time is not call lessons – which infers a teacher-led classroom – they are called sessions. The book contains a session plan – consisting of starter, work time, reflection and notes (pretty simple but clearly marked with a copyright symbol so I can’t share 🙁

Five Kinds of Learning

We have talked about symbols, language and norms

4. Values
Can be considered the most important. Values are what is important and worthwhile. They are the points of reference that guide our behaviour, direct our goals and define our judgements.
As a matter of comparison what are America’s values
– freedom/liberty/democracy
– individualism (self fulfilment)
– success
– justice
– equality
– honesty (Korean culture does not value honesty Confucius taught submission)
– patriotism
– prestige
– Wealth/money
– Power
– Family (highest divorce rate in world)
– Hard work
– Do I yourself
– Science/tech to solve prob
– Do to others what you would have unto you
– Charity
Korean Values
– respect elders, parents and ancestor worship kajonk
– family
– hard work
– education (83% of graduates go to uni)
– collectivism Confucius
– nationalism
– hierarchy (Confucius says inequality is natural)
– success
– wealth (almost equated to worth)
– prestige
– etiquette/politeness (defining characteristic)
– health/long life ( eat snake, drink goat/deer blood) Confucius
– save face
– social harmony
– social conformity
– loyalty
– personal relationships (Confucianism)
Values have roots in Confucianism. The most important values that we hold dear come from Confucianism. Other influence is shamanism (health long life success and wealth). Shamanisn has no concept of life after death. Good is a shamanistic ritual that brings good fortune to the participants. Buddhism never told people to pray for anything. Desire only causes pain so why pray for stuff? These values are based on shamanism – this worldly wisdom. A small minority of Korean monks still act as fortune tellers – based on historical link to shamanism. Lanterns of Buddhist temple roof – name of person who bought lantern with a wish. Names determine people’s fortune – bad and good names – based on date and time of birth this defines a name.
Koreans are shy speaking to foreigners because they are afraid of not speaking at the highest standard. There is a great emphasis in Korea to speak English.

I have enjoyed this course so far but it hasn’t really fulfilled my expectations. I assumed (and we know what they say about assuming…) that it would be more education focused and directed towards game creators and teachers. Then I started watching the lectures for Week 5 and… Yay! Gaming and Literacy! Here are my lecture notes for the first video.

Constellation of Literacy Practices
To get beyond a beginner levels you have to work with other in the game and use many literacy skills.

Sorry about the quality of the diagram – its a screenshot from the lecture.

In-Game Talk

Despite the abbreviations the communication depicted below actually contains a lot of the information. abbreviations are an important part of the discourse of the game. This interaction has three clauses: request, statement of fact, and an account.

The lecturer explains how, by using the abbreviation “POMS”, this player is showing that he was a beta player as this term was only utilised during the beta stage. This maters as the longer the you play this game the more experience you have and the higher your prestige in the community. Displaying shared values, participating in shared activities and displaying identity.

Orally Delivered Narratives: similar to folklore

In-Game Letters: using genre language (i.e. medieval in War of Warcraft)

Other external test also play a critical role in a gaming community.

Official Fandom (usually sponsored by the company behind the game)
– official discussion boards
– official fan fiction

Unofficial Fandom (created by the community and usually valued more than the official content)
– discussion boards
– fan fiction
– collective databases
– Clansites
– annotated discussion boards
– game character emails
– personal game blogs

How fan fiction communities support budding authors. 

The lecturer recounts a situation where she came in contact with a player in Lineage during her research. This teenage boy was a very popular fan fiction writer who had even be endorsed by the game’s company as an official writer. Before the stories were published for the general public, this writer would distribute his story to the guild leaders as a special preview. In his story he states that he dedicates the work to Kushie and says in the email that accompanied it that he only wrote the story to hit on a girl. This shows that the games culture actually supports and values teenage boys writing stories! This is in stark contrast to your average school classroom. This writing, unlike the in-game talk, fulfils all the curriculum requirements of ‘proper’ writing.

This is an interaction between the lecturer and a 13 year old boy at the beginning of summer vacation.   Note that he is planning a 2 – 3 month writing project over the summer.

Games are not replacing reading and writing for young people they are infact bringing these skills back (interesting contrast with TV).

What kinds of resources are gamers interacting with? (quality and quantity)

Fan Fiction only comprises of only 7% of what gamers read.

Information Resources 46%
Game User created resources of text, symbols and images. Texts in the form of expository, procedural, transactional and persuasive texts. Average reading level of 50 sample pages is 12th grade. 4% academic vocabulary.

Text quality is high.

Game Reading vs. School Reading
In the last clip the lecturer talks about the study she conducted. She took gamers, usually boys, who are reading at or below their grade level in school yet reading at 12th grade level in games. Why are these boys reading at such different levels in these two contexts. She tested for strategies and they were the same. She then tested for interest – finding texts that fulfilled a need they currently where experiencing in their gaming. This is where she saw their self correction rate double… they were more determined and motivated to decipher meaning when it was in their interest.

She ends the lecture saying that she entered her studies thinking of games as a means for accomplishing her educational goals but has shifted to thinking of education as means for accomplishing their goals.

Language continued…
Korean language is one of the 11 most spoken languages in the world. More people speak Korean than French as their first language.

Hangul – Korean alphabet – most simple and yet most sophisticated writing systems in the world. Indonesian community that had no system of writing adopted Hangul as their system.

3. Norms
They are expectation -tell you what to and what not to do. Rules guides and terms conduct.

Korean Norms
– use honorific
– take off shoes when enter a house
– child not pick up spoon before elder
– block air flow so don’t stand in doorways
– subordinates bow first and lower than superior
– subordinate shakes hands with two hands but does not offer it
– if subordinate offers hand they come across aggressive
– Koreans are called by the title not first name. Only same age friends call each other friends

The Korean language reflects the important observance of a speaker or writer’s relationships with both the subject of the sentence and the audience. Korean grammar uses an extensive system of honorifics to reflect the speaker’s relationship to the subject of the sentence and speech levels to reflect the speaker’s relationship to the audience. Originally, the honorifics expressed the differences in social status between speakers. In contemporary Korean culture, honorifics are used to differentiate between formal and informal speech based on the level of familiarity between the speaker and the listener. (Wikipedia)

– married couples call each other titles
– people are always called the highest title they have ever held
– do not use red ink when writing a persons name because it welcomes bad luck
– don’t fill your own glass fill the glass of others
– turn sideways when drinking alcohol with older person
– blow your nose away from others
– never put utensils or chopsticks sticking up in food bowl because that’s what you do during ancestor offering
– don’t point at children you are welcoming evil spirits

New course! This one is called Korean Social Structure and Culture and lecture one was great! 

Definition of culture: four elements of culture

1. Symbols
2. Language
3. Norms
4. Values

1. Symbols
Swastika: meaning auspiciousness, goodness in Buddhism
Cross: Christianity
Buddhism – 11 million
Protestant – 8.7 million
Catholic – 5.3 million

2. Languages
Languages reflect worldview
People from the USA – “Americans”
The Chinese character for china literally means centre of the universe
In Korean the word Meokda means eat. Linguistic theory proposes that when a concept is at the forefront of the peoples mind this term is projected into unrelated concepts. So, in Korean history there has never really been an abundance of food thus where a western person would say, “enjoy your meal” or equivalent – older Koreans quote a saying that literally translate “eat lots”. See further examples from slide show:

This is really fascinating and made me think about words I use and how they may be coloured with a worldview and to ask the question: are the words I use, is the worldview I communicate linguistically, consistent with my Christian worldview? Is the considered external worldview consistent with the subtle, underlying worldview?

PS: it amazes to no end that this is a Korean lecturer with both Korean and Chinese students lecturing in English – I really want to learn another language!