Learning2gether Episode #381

EVO Minecraft MOOC has been meeting regularly in-world this January and February, as they usually do this time of year.

This video was made Jan 28, 2018 and features Dakota Redstone, Abu Fletcher (Don Carroll), Jane Chien, Mattie Tsai, Maha Abdelmoneim, and Mircea Patrascu. We were a week into trying to crack into an underwater temple that Abu Fletcher found on a cross-ocean adventure in Minecraft.

At this point the team have built a pier out to the temple site and have made great progress in placing glass around the temple and somehow purging it of water. They are now trying to extend their tunnel toward where they feel is the entrance and shore up the massive water leaks with sand. The recording has sound issues because where I am in UAE the computer that does Discord lags awfully when running Minecraft, and the one that runs MC will not do Discord, so I’m having to pick up the Discord sound using a USB mic into which I’m speaking while picking up the discord off the other computer played at high volume into the USB mic. Not the best arrangement, but it works.

Even worse is happening at the temple. The sea environment is patrolled by sea creatures. One kind is a jellyfish that swoops over players and induces a kind of comma that prevents effective use of tools. The only anecdote is to drink milk to counteract the venom. MC is about solving problems, so to break objects at the temple, players have to sustain a milk supply. There are cows back on land. Dakota penned a few up. If you right click on them they will give you milk if you have a bucket. You can craft buckets from iron. Dakota set up chests at the foot of the pier and put buckets inside which players could take to the cows, right click on them and get milk. As the work moved out to the temple itself, Mattie brought a cow out in a boat where Dakota had set up chests at the end of the pier where glass was being erected around the temple and sand used to drive out water. In this video the players are working to remove the sand and then plug the leak letting water back in. They are constantly getting poisoned by sea creatures and having to drink milk to continue the work.

Even worse is a creature called a guardian which can reach its tentacles from the sea onto the pier and even reach places on land. The tentacles are lethal. Fortunately in our game configuration, we don’t lose inventory when we die and we can return to our place of death by using the /back command. So these creatures cause setback and inconvenience, and hinder the work, which is conducted as a cooperative effort guided mainly by our kindly colleague who calls himself Dakota Redstone.

When we engage in directed project like this, it is an illustration of how this might work in a language class, where players / students resolve on a mission (in this case getting at the loot in a sunken temple) and then communicate with each other on how they might engineer a solution, and then carry it out with some difficulty and coordination involving constant communication and interaction. It’s goal-directed and task-based. It’s fun and compelling, and intrinsically motivates people to work together.

Through playing meaningfully in this way, we learn first-hand how this can be a ripe environment for language learning.

Here are another couple of videos made by Don Carroll, Jane Chien, and her young son Mattie Tsai, again showing game play and how players interact and work together.

Mattie and Jane on a Temple Hunt Quest set by Abu Fletcher

This one from Feb 7 I think

 

Earlier events

Sun Jan 14 1400 UTC EVO 2018 annual kickoff event

https://learning2gether.net/2018/01/14/learning2gether-celebrates-evo-2018-with-nellie-deutsch-and-the-annual-kickoff-event/

Thu Jan 18 1900 CET Globinar with Rita Zeinstejer – Podcast and Push Ed Content to your students

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E4.512-1378 Push Educational Content to your Students: PODCAST
18.01.2018 | 19:00h – 20:30h CET
Rita Zeinstejer & Peggy George
Access link: https://webconf.vc.dfn.de/ritapush/
http://globinars.blogspot.de/2017/09/webinar-push-educational-content-to.html

These Globinars are organized by Jürgen Wagner

Here is the previous, constantly expanding program:

http://www.lpm.uni-sb.de/typo3/index.php?id=1258

Also to be found at: http://globinars.blogspot.de/

There will be some changes:

• The link to the recording and the PDF of the speakers will only be sent to registered participants and both the recording and the PDF presentation will be deleted after 2 weeks.
•  Certificates of attendance will only be sent if the registration data is COMPLETE.
•  Participants who enter the room via a pseudonym or are not identifiable by their full names and surnames will be expelled from the room.
•  Registration during the webinar remains possible for spontaneous participants but must be completed within 15 minutes after their entry and must be complete (including postal address of their school, university, institution, organization, company or private address).

Registration:

http://lpm.lpm.uni-sb.de/Webinar/index2.php

Remember to enter both your fisrt AND last names before entering the room.

If you haven’t registered yet, you are expected to do so at least during the first 15 minutes in the room.

Sat Jan 20 12pm EST Gamify It: PD and Classroom Challenge Activities on Classroom 2.0

Saturday, January 20, 2018 “Gamify It: PD and Classroom Challenge Activities”We are excited to welcome two exemplary elementary teachers, Jessie McKinley (music) and Stacy Aguilar (gifted 4th grade), as our special guest presenters in this week’s webinar! Jessie and Stacy are teachers in Camelview School, Madison Elementary School District in Phoenix, AZ. They have collaborated to implement a very creative concept using challenge activities that provide a model that is working in both professional learning for teachers and learning in the classroom for students. Join us to learn about this project and to hear their stories and experiences about gamifying these learning opportunities.Webinar description: Gamification has hit our school in an innovative way! Listen as two educator’s from Phoenix AZ describe how professional development for educators is building skills and community, and how it metamorphosed into a model for students to also achieve above and beyond what is taught in the regular lesson. We hope what we share will give inspiration to you to implement some gaming ideas to make education fun again! Jessie McKinley, K-4 General Music Educator at Madison Camelview 17+ years teaching (13 years at Madison Elementary SD #38) B.S. from St. Cloud State University M. ED. from Arizona State University in Elementary Education M. ED. from Grand Canyon University in Curriculum & Instruction: Technology Personal Tidbits Grew up in the Midwest (Illinois and Wisconsin) Love the arts, cooking, watching football, playing volleyball, and technology Favorite sports teams: Green Bay Packers, Arizona Cardinals, Phoenix Mercury, University of Wisconsin Badgers, Arizona State University Sun Devils Stacy Aguilar, 4th Grade Gifted Educator 16+ years teaching (all at Madison!) Bachelors in Elementary Education, University of Arizona Masters in Instruction and Curriculum, Arizona State University Personal Tidbits I am an Arizona native. My favorite things to do are: games nights with friends, going to movies, reading, and traveling. I have a dog named Toby. Remember to follow us on Twitter: #liveclass20 More information and session details are at http://live.classroom20.com. If you’re new to the Classroom 2.0 LIVE! show you might want to spend a few minutes viewing the screencast on the homepage to learn how we use Blackboard Collaborate, and navigate the site. Each show begins at 12pm EST (Time Zone Conversion)and may be accessed in Blackboard Collaborate directly using the following Classroom 2.0 LIVE! link at http://tinyurl.com/cr20live. All webinars are closed captioned. On the Classroom 2.0 LIVE! site (http://live.classroom20.com) you’ll find the recordings and Livebinder from our recent “9th Anniversary Celebration & Open Mic: Back to the Future Classroom 2.0 Style” session facilitated by Paula Naugle. Click on the Archives and Resources tab. Visit Classroom 2.0 at: http://www.classroom20.com/?xg_source=msg_mes_network