Multiplayer Week 1

Welcome to Week 1

Your guides on the side for this track will be Inevitable Instructors from the Inevitable Betrayal educators' guild.

We are in the type of MMO guild that Lee Sheldon modeled his methodology on. We hope to show you some examples of PvP, PvE, Boss Fights, Achievements, XP and Quests.

Please start by taking a look at the Track 1 introduction below.

If the video does not show, please visit https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=E3Z_cL5TiUI

Here is a link to slides in the video.

For this week, please read the introduction and pages 1- 92. 

There is no assessment of facts or figures so please read in as much depth as you want.

If this material is familiar you may find yourself glossing over portions - that's perfectly fine.

Don't be intimidated by the number of pages, the font is large and there is a lot of white space.

We do have a link to the webinar that Lee Sheldon, the author, did last week. It's optional and won't be the same discussion that we will be doing over Google Hangout.

Kristina created a group for us on Chore Wars, it's the "Metagame Guild."

If you are interested, it is an example of gamification that includes the making of a guild and avatar which is discussed in the Multiplayer Classroom. We'll use it as one example during the book club.

Go here to make a character or if you already have an account to join the guild.

Start by creating a character. If you set your Privacy to Everyone, your adventures will show up on the RSS feed on the Metagame Site (https://sites.google.com/site/metagamebookclub/march-2015/adventures).

Here's the link to the RSS feed Adventures page. We'll discuss this type of public achievement as a motivator during the book club. Kristina has created several easy quests, so if you haven't already introduced yourself in the Google + Community, please go in and do so! You'll see she's tying most of the quests to your participation there.

Reading for the week

The Multiplayer Classroom: Designing Coursework as a Game

Introduction xiv - xx

Pages 1 - 92

Synchronous Activity

Week 1 Hangout Discussion Recording

Hangout Slides

Matt Miller's Links

Gnimmargorp Introduction to Programming Class http://gnimmargorp.com/

Course Game website http://www.coursegame.com/

Mike Skocko's The Mac Lab with Game On wordpress plugin

Discussion Questions

1)What are the game elements used in Sheldon's Multiplayer Classroom and the case studies in this section? (Avatars, XP, levels, quests, crafting, PVP, PVE, boss raids, zones, guilds, roles within guilds, (PUGs, farming, quest-givers, lore-givers, game economy) To what degree are these elements just changing the terminology and to what degree are they changing the learning experience in a fundamental way?

2) What gamification platforms are you either using or looking at? Do you have your own?For our purposes, a gamification platform assigns XP and can include any of the following levels, badges, leaderboards, achievements and rewards. You may want to look at p. 31. Feel free to add to this list also. Feel free to give us links to go look at sites. P. 51 -52 reward system and also 54- 55, p. 64 – 65, p. 84 – 88, p. 98 – 99. ( I know that last are outside the reading but you should be fine).

3) Gamification, the good, the bad and the ugly. Trish opened the door so let’s walk through it? Can you give us examples of gamification gone wrong? Please discuss when either the intrinsic motivation or extrinsic motivation just isn’t there. To get you in the mood, Here’s a Google Hangout we did with Dr. Scott Nicholson on Meaningful Gamification . I’d also suggest this paper by him Exploring Gamification Techniques for Classroom Management. It is very honest report of what didn’t work and discuss what he used from the Multiplayer Classroom.

Optional Video

edWeb Webinar on March 18, 2015

The Multiplayer Classroom: Education in Play

Presented by Lee Sheldon, Associate Professor in the Games and Simulation Arts and Sciences program at Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute

recording link http://www.instantpresenter.com/edweb/EB55D9828246