virtual worlds, better classrooms megan bilodeau

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Virtual Worlds, Better Classrooms Megan Bilodeau

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Page 1: Virtual Worlds, Better Classrooms Megan Bilodeau

Virtual Worlds, Better Classrooms

Megan Bilodeau

Page 2: 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

Page 3: Virtual Worlds, Better Classrooms Megan Bilodeau

Can gaming technology improve students’ narrative and academic writing?

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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.

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• 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

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

Seeing the Big Picture

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PossibleWriting Experiences

• first and third person narrative

• description

• character portraits

• instructions

• poetry

• problem solving

• vocabulary building

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Successful Examples

• Tim Rylands, Kent

• Teaching and Learning in Scotland

• Future of Learning Group, MIT Media Laboratory

• Westfield Vocational Technical High School!

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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/>.

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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

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