virtual worlds, better classrooms megan bilodeau

Virtual Worlds, Better Classrooms

Megan Bilodeau

“Every maker of video games knows something that the makers of curriculum don’t seem to understand. You’ll never see a video game being advertised as being easy.

Children  who do not like school will tell you it’s not because it’s too hard.

It’s because it’s–boring”

Seymour Papert

Can gaming technology improve students’ narrative and academic writing?

Strengths

• Nonlinear

• “Pace” controlled by students

• Collaboration between students/teacher & student/student

• “Real” game, not edutainment title

• Gains in quantity and quality of descriptive writing and understanding of complexity of plotlines.

• Students are immersed in the world they are writing about thus are hearing, seeing, touching and moving

• This translates more directly into their writing

Sensory Details

• Students want to create their world = writing isn’t a chore

Seeing the Big Picture

PossibleWriting Experiences

• first and third person narrative

• description

• character portraits

• instructions

• poetry

• problem solving

• vocabulary building

Successful Examples

• Tim Rylands, Kent

• Teaching and Learning in Scotland

• Future of Learning Group, MIT Media Laboratory

• Westfield Vocational Technical High School!

ResourcesAckerman, Edith. (2002). In (Dimitracopoulou, A., Ed.) “Information and

Communication Technologies in Education”. Proceedings of 3rd Hellenic Conference with international participation, 26-29/9/2002, University of Aegean, Rhodes, Greece, Kastaniotis/Interactive, Volume 1, pp. 31-38.

Basu, Anindita. “Full-Contact Poetry.” MIT Master’s Thesis. MIT, Cambridge, MA. August 2002.

Sipitakiat, Arnan, and David P. Cavallo. Digital Technology for Conviviality: Making the Most of Learners' Energy and Imagination.

Media Laboratory, Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Web. 28 July 2009.

Tim Rylands | ICT to inspire with Myst. Web. 28 July 2009. <http://www.timrylands.com/>.

Personal Experience

• Eager students writing

• Cooperative and collaborative game play

• Full-class involvement

• Teacher and student as equal in experience

• Realization by students that one “scene” = three pages of writing = no fear of “length”

• Joy