Using gaming to build community

Bronwyn Stuckey: Cultivating Identity and Community Through Gamification 

Organisation: Innovative Educational Ideas

Twitter: @bronst

Google+: Bronwyn.stuckey@gmail.com

Website: http://about.me/bronstuckey/

Star the day increasing endorphin levels - look at puppies, kids photos and giving people hugs.

See the link to the presentation: Collaborative notes

Community and 'game inspired' learning rather than gamification.

Video game play is valuable to children.

Educators need to engage in 'Games' to identify and interact with their kids.

What is 'game inspired' learning?

Learning should not all be a game but learn from games to better inspire, motivate and support learning.

- add basketball hoops over rubbish bins - adding a game element to things.

- you got grounded - to get ungrounded you need to gain points from these activities....

- taking a game element or 'atom' and inserting it into learning.

- try adding this approach into teacher PD as well.

Jim G:

Literacy expert that explored the effect of games.

g - is the game or media you download to plan (World of Warfare or Candycrush)

G - the conversation people have to modify or change the game. This space around the game where people talk is the powerful place for learning. The community 'Metagame'. Talk in the game, videos made from the game, dicsussions they have, connections they make through the game. This is the spacce we want to use for learning.

Use games to improve a practice:

Add elements of a game to aid learning and teaching - fractions, oral language etc. 

(Image from notes to go here)

Plane Austalian Teacher Community: http://my.plane.edu.au

Programme environment set up with training, resources and community area - an alternative to POND? The Hero Journey must be undertaken which introduces teachers to all the elements and gives them the skills. Then they can work in the areas that are most relevant for their teaching. 

Purpose - make connections, share resources, make use of shared knowledge. This develops a sense of belonging between teachers.

See the video link: 

Recognizing The Hero's Journey: Gamification Of Teacher Professional Learning

Just press play: https://play.rit.edu (Professor Liz Lawley)

Gamified the University programme but not the learning.  Focussing on getting students connected, resulting in lower drop-out levels.

They examined the elements of what 'Highly Successful' students do and made these the focus.

This type of learning can only happen if people have choice to participate or not - establishing elements of community.

Four player types:  

Explore

Learn

Socialize

Ceate

They gave students tasks to stregthen the community and used their QR code to allocate reward points. This was not a replacement for assessment but a way to stregthen the qualities of 'Highly Successful' students. It then enabled students to run coaching sessions to support the success of others.  

Highschool example: 1:1 ipad school within a non-tech-savvy school.

1.  Needed to enable the teachers to master the skills.

2.  Two levels completed in Goggle Docs before getting their school iPad.

3.  Begin to investigate things like Twitter etc.  Missions around these tools.

4.  Next step is to develop your own missions for colleagues.

5.  Earning level 10 by presenting at a conference or writing a paper etc about the school focus - iPads.

This identifies teachers or students with expertise that can be the support from within the school or classroom.

Watch out:

You have it wrong when the badge or title you achieve becomes more important than the learning. Points might give you currency to trade for further support in their own learning e.g. a master class.

Purpose:

Develop a sense of belonging to a community.

Show reciprocity by them beginning to design and further develop the programme or suppport AKO Kids teaching.

Develop reputation of yourself, your class or school for effective learning.

So What:

Develop a programme to develop the skills of independent learners: 
 Look for gaining points from the teacher and peers for aspects of being an independent learner. 
  - run a KidsAKO session
  - always ready for learning with stationery

Look at how those points can be utilized to further their learning or get the kids to develop an poster where the badges can be attached. Achievement allows them to gain responsibility in the commnity, which then stregthens the community itself.

Resource links:

https://play.rit.edu

Community Capers Blog