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.

Being a Slaker and Loving It!

I found this old post from the summer in my unpublished folder as I was avoiding work and thought I would share it.  In it I plug, being lazy, some books, a cafe and the YouTube show Tabletop.

It's summer and as I read my tweet feeds I feel like a slacker as I haven't really done much to enrich my professional development or deepen my understanding of the things I hold to be true.  In June I selected a pile of professional texts to read; they are still in a lovely pile in my living room.  However, I have made a great strides in my 'pure enjoyment' pile*.  Maybe I will start getting back to work next week, but right now I am enjoying reading and playing games with my friends.  Two things in particular that have helped me on the gaming side of my life are: Snakes and Lattes and Tabletop.

If you live in Toronto, you probably know about Snakes and Lattes.  For those who don't, Snakes and  Lattes is a cafe where you pay a $5.00 fee to play as many games as you want for however long you want, while enjoying a beverage or snack. Believe me, whatever game you want, they got it.  (Although recently I heard they have a banned list with games like Hungry Hippos on it)  I have spent many afternoons/evenings here this summer.  I even had a meeting her with @MzMolly and @liamodonnell to talk about gaming, without actually playing any games.  I bought a game here that I plan to bring to my class in the fall, Story Cubes, (a big hit with my students thanks @MzMolly!) and games for myself, including Gloom and Ticket to Ride.  I love these games, and would not have heard of it if it had not been for Tabletop.

I watch a lot of 'lifestyle' programming on television.  Home renovations, decorating, cooking, and so on.  I have yet tried to try anything that has been taught to me on any of these shows.  A few months ago I heard about Tabletop through a tweet from @wilw.  I was intrigued, and a bit worried.  I  looked forward to watching it on YouTube; learning about new games, seeing if they feature any games I already play etc.  But I also worried: what if it sucks?  Thankfully I had nothing to worry about.  I have enjoyed every episode of tabletop, and I have even watched a couple of them twice.

For those of you who do not know, Tabletop is a lifestyle program on Geek & Sundry, a YouTube channel.  Each week a different game is featured.  Wil Wheaton gathers 3 other people (usually celebrities from the geek and/or gaming world) to play the game with him.   They go through the basics of the game and we watch the hijinks ensue as it is being played.  While, Wil is adept at all the games that are featured, his guests are often not.  They do not show the whole game (the show is only around 30 mins), they do show enough to whet your gaming appetite.

<end random plug here>

* Storm of Swords, and Feast of Crows by George RR Martin, Divergent and Insurgent, by Veronica Roth.  Next up Goliath by Scott Westerfeld and and Dances with Dragons, by George RR Martin.

Family Games Night (D&D Lite Part Deux)

A couple of months ago I wrote about my memories of D&D as a child with my father.  I don't recall responding badly to my disastrous first D&D experience (read: pouting and whining), and yet for one reason or another, my dad didn't offer to DM (Dungeon Master) a game for almost 10 years.  In the meantime our family played Colecovision, (followed by Nintendo), cards, and board games together.  Until one day we were introduced to HeroQuest

HeroQuest took our family gaming to a whole  new level.  At first we just ran the events as laid out in the quest book that came with the game.  Quickly however, we out grew these scenarios, and the game just didn't seem like much of a challenge.  Just when it looked like this game would be banished to the 'basement of forgotten games' my father decided it was about time he took over and become a DM once more.  He planned new adventures and once a week we would play them.  Sometimes my mom would act as DM, and my dad would join the campaign.  I think I may have tried my hand at it -being DM- one time, but I am sure I must be wrong, cause I just can't see me wanting to do that, because controlling a game seems like too much responsibility for me... but I digress.  What really matters is we used the bones of the game to create a whole new experience.

Most games were played by just our family but occasionally my friend Louise would play.   I was around 17 and my siblings were about 13 (Alan) and 12 (Kat) when we started playing this game.  Being a 13 year old, my brother was beginning to explore his boundaries as only an early teen can: annoying the heck out of me and my sister more than usual, and sabotaging family fun when he could.  HeroQuest was perfect for this, as he would just run into rooms and aggro everything and causing our party to wipe.  (Yes, Virginia, people did that before Leeroy Jenkins.)  This was an unwelcome twist to the game.  Until one day someone asked the DM: "Can we kill the dwarf?"  My father thought for a moment and answered: "Yes, but you will have to roll for it."

This became our standard response to Alan's 'Jenkin-ish' behaviour from then on out, and it add an additional chllenge to the game.  We became aware that not only were there skeletons and monsters out there to get you, but the members of your party could turn on you too.  To be honest we mostly just attacked the dwarf when he stepped out of line, but there was always the possibility that the tables could turn.

I think one of the best things I learned from playing HeroQuest with my family is that it is okay to play a game, then break it, and re-create it. All that, and in the process have even more fun than when you first opened the box.



(P.S. The teacher in me might reflect on this experience and think there was value in playing like this because we had to collaborate in many ways: identify the problem(s) in the game, create a solution, test it, refine, retest, while communicating effectively, and positively in order to established shared norms and goals.  Or something like that.  But really it was just fun.)

The Lord of the Minecraft

I wish I had actually read The Lord of the Flies, because then I would know for sure if the title for this entry is accurate.  Somehow I managed to go my whole educational career without having to read it, and some might say that it was a lucky miss. But I digress, this post is about the descent into madness and chaos that my Minecraft club took on Monday.  It was awesome. 

Here is how it all started: At the beginning of my Minecraft club I informed the members (four grade 8's three grade 6's and one grade 5 who was absent for this meeting) that their world would not be available for the second week in a row, and that we would be in the alternate 'world' again.  I also let them know that I got an email from @liamodonnell letting us, @MzMollytl and I, know that he had given his own club the option of being in creative mode or survival in our shared world.  I let them know I would do the same for them too.  Up to this point our clubs were survival only.

I expected the possibly of having creative mode in our joint game would make them happy, but much to my surprise all but one said they would prefer to stay in survival mode.  They were very insistent that survival mode is the only 'real' way to play.  The one student who asked to be in creative mode was given a pass from judgement because: a) he was in a younger grade and b) he was working with another member of the club and they just figured they would share the resources to build their base together.  Being younger, and using creative mode to build a base, was deem acceptable.

Then we logged in.

As the club members got their bearings and started making plans for what they needed to accomplish they also began to notice what the other club (Highland Heights) had done when they played in creative mode.  They saw the different building materials and things that they had been able to use: there were crazy looking treehouses, (one with tamed wolves in it), another with a lava 'waterfall,' suspicious looking cavities in the ground and TNT left piled in different areas to name a few.  Two members who were struggling with building a treehouse, that they had begun last week, were the next to ask for creative mode: "just so we can finish the building and then we will go back to survival."  Lest they be judged harshly by their peers. The group accepted this and continued with their construction.  

Then one of my members asked to blow up some TNT.  We discussed it, and I caved, stressing :"Just this once, and not too big!"  I have to say, I usually don't give in so quickly but they were finding TNT deposits in areas and craters, so there was a precedent.  From there things started spiraling into chaos.  It was actually kinda amusing to watch.  My students who, at the beginning, were so adamant that survival mode was the only way to play Minecraft properly  started to come to the dark side.  At around the time of the first explosion, the club from Agnes Macphail also joined the server.

Everyone who had creative mode started getting creative -go figure.  It got to the point that it was no longer practical to  play in survival.  Especially if you wanted to survive more than 5 minutes.  Lava, Ghasts and TNT were everywhere.  Only one student in my club retained their survival status, and lived to tell the tale.  Like a post-apocalyptic movie he decided to abandon the destruction on the surface of the world and began again underground.  I think one student from Agnes Macphail stayed in survival mode too, but I do not know how they managed. 

All in all everyone had a great time.  Although I feared what the Highland Heights club would find if they logged back into this world.  What I really found fascinating, was how quickly the members of my group changed from: "creative is cheating!" "look at these people using creative, they need to stop" to  "I'll try creative" and "give me creative mode!"  Anarchy!

Is this an example of why students shouldn't play in creative mode at school?  No, I don't think so.  This is just the activity that can lead to so much more.  As the students were leaving they were talking about how much fun it was to go crazy in game, but they were glad they would be able to go back to their own world  soon, and get back to 'work'.  In their conversation there was so much material that could lead to more deeper conversations.  Why is it okay to destroy a world that isn't 'yours'?  Doesn't it belong to someone?  What about the environment you are effecting?  Are there examples of your in-game behaviour in the real world? What would be the impact of your actions if this was the real world?  And so on...  There are opportunities to  connect this event to Social Studies, Science and Technology, Language and even Health and Physical Education.

All in all, good game. 

Below are some pictures of the chaos.

Cross posted on: gamingeducators.pbworks.com  on Denise's Club Journal

What is Game Based Learning?

There are a lot of companies and people that claim to have great games for higher order thinking skills that are great for Game Based Learning (GBL).  Yet, even though they use the right words in their pitches, post, pintersets etc.. I am left feeling like Indigo Montoya in The Princess Bride: I do not think those words mean what you think they mean.

At the same time I wonder if I know what those words mean.  There are a lot of people who talk about what Game Based Learning is, and how to incorporate it in the classroom, but some of the messages I am hearing/reading are often conflicting and contrary to my understanding and/or personal philosophy around GBL.  Is there a widely accepted definition of Game Based Learning?

Here are some of the things I believe about Game Based Learning, and please add to my understanding or correct something that I don't represent accurately:
-Student lead
-Engages students in creative critical thinking skills
-Not just computer games
-educational without having to be "Educational" -if that makes any sense
-Games students can 'break' and remodel, revise, rebuild
(Here is where I would normally wax poetic about Minecraft, but you can just peek at the gamingeducators wiki I belong to with @MzMollyTL and @liamodonnell)

What I think I am seeing is more of lately is Gamification being called Game Based Learning.  I really think there needs to be more clarification here because the two concepts are very different.

Gamification (click for an infographic) -in my opinion- is like a sticker program for behaviour.  Students complete certain game labeled task, and get a reward in; badges, exp. points etc...  Sounds cool and often is.  What I'm afraid of is that with this kind of program students, with time, will see through the educational modification to their regular program and stop buying into what is being 'gamified'.  Students who do not have as many badges as their peers being among the first to opt out of the program.  I won't lie, I have often become a slave to gaining achievements in games I play  *cough* W.O.W. *cough,*  but after time, and seeing my friends out achieve me, I stopped caring.  Now playing Diablo III I see that there are achievements, and I do experience some satisfaction when I gain an achievement, but I don't really care, nor do I try to game in a way that will purposefully gain more achievements.

Honestly, as a teacher of close to 10 years I have not yet seen this type of modification work for a whole year, whether because of student rebellion against it, teacher burn out from having to administer it, or a combination of both.  That being said, I know there are wonderful educators who are able to overcome both the obstacles I mentioned above.  There are some great looking gamification programs that have been built by educators too. But I still don't think that makes it Game Based Learning. 

I do believe the two approaches to using games in the class is motivated by the same basic goal: to engage, motivate, and scaffold students so they can achieve more.  Yet the two have very different strategies for reaching their goals.  Kinda like the whole language vs. phonics debates.

Perhaps I am being a bit pedantic by stressing the difference I see between Game Based Learning and Gamification.  But honestly, I see them as two different animals.

So what is Game Based Learning anyway? Who should I read?  Where am I misinformed?





(Note: I used the word "scaffold" because I think it appropriate and just in case my friend @nodycer decides to read this.)