FTW: Gaming for Learning

To celebrate the history of World of Warcraft and the imminent destruction of Azeroth in Cataclysm, The Escapist has compiled a visual history to highlight the important milestones and events to date, from the servers opening to the Real ID fiasco last month.

Street identifies three main reasons for bringing the apocalypse to Azeroth. First, shock value was a crucial component. Deathwing's awakening is an explosive event for Azeroth. "We were trying to stage an apocalypse here," he says, "and we wanted some crazy things to happen and we knew there were sacred cows that might shock or upset players a bit."

A list to identify and connect educators (k-12 and up) who are researching and/or using games for learning - in school, out of school and otherwise. Please add your name, contact info and project to this list!

"Back in February, Georgia Tech Digital Media and SCAD Atlanta held the Art History of Games conference, which I organized along with Michael Nitsche and John Sharp. We had an amazing group of speakers as well as an opening for three commissioned games"

Design a quest chain, based on your experience with other quests in the game. The chain must involve at least two different areas in the zone and have at least five steps. Write all the dialogue that the NPCs involved in the quest would say. Make sure you indicate the quest requirements and the steps involved in the quest. You can research quest chains using one of the online quest helper databases like WoWWiki, Thotbott, etc.

It's an introduction to what many of us have either experiences first hand, have friends who've experienced abuse online, or we have read stories about it. The article notes that game developers are trying to crack down on it:

"Games like World of Warcraft give players the means to save worlds, and incentive to learn the habits of heroes. What if we could harness this gamer power to solve real-world problems? Jane McGonigal says we can, and explains how."

"This is a collaborative workspace for the development of instructional items for the use of the MMORPG, World of Warcraft, in a school setting. Please take a moment to explore the various sections of the site and if you would like to contribute, please email Lucas Gillispie at lucas AT edurealms.com."

"We've spoken with other groups of academics who band together in guilds, and they don't always progress very far or become truly embedded into WoW's player culture. Is Cog Diss actively raiding? "

"A YouGov poll has suggested that computer games can damage children's ability to communicate, but Tom Chatfield argues that gaming imparts a range of new, vitally important skills"

"Don't play video games yet? Then it's time to get with the program - just try not to jab the console too hard"

"Mark and Rose showed people the wild fun to be had attaching balloons to buses with Gary's Mod, and Davin invited people to draw their own videogame character which he then animated in front of their eyes"

"The scientists conclude that video-game players develop an enhanced sensitivity to what is going on around them, and this may help with activities such as multitasking, driving, reading small print, navigation and keeping track of friends or children in a crowd."

The future of video games is social.

"Overall, if you really want to "gamify" something, you should ask yourself "how do I make it more fun?" instead of "how do I get people to use it compulsively?""

Giant spiders, skimpy armor, no bathrooms, kill ten rats ... and others

"So you want to make a game for change? Congratulations and welcome!"

What we're currently terming gamification is in fact the process of taking the thing that is least essential to games and representing it as the core of the experience.

Another point here is the importance of "play" - games are designed to offer play in some form or another. Achievement structures are not play but an end object.

"a long-running survey study of MMO players. It is currently in hibernation mode. There will no longer be updated findings or surveys, but all information accumulated will remain available and comments will remain open."

"I recently defended my dissertation at the University of Washington College of Education, and, as you can guess from this post on Terra Nova, it was on learning in MMOGs. Specifically, I looked at the change in raiding practice of a group of World of Warcraft players as I played alongside them for 10 months. Of particular note, my data is from the early days of WoW, spanning the life and death of a Molten Core (and later BWL and AQ40) group that came together out of a multi-guild alliance. We were on a role-play server, which I think is important to note, given the group's shared values and goals of hanging out and having fun over and beyond itemization and progression. "