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Thursday, August 13, 2009

World of Warcraft, MMORPGs in school

At Peggy Sheehy's middle school in Suffern, N.Y., the introduction of World of Warcraft (WoW) is going like this: first it's the focus of an after-school club, then "others joining us will be implementing it with the 'at-risk' student population [and] the 'gifted' student group," followed by regular classes "for specific content-area projects," Sheehy, a teacher and media specialist, said in an interview at WoW.com. As a high-level player of this multiplayer online game (or MMORPG) and guild founder herself, she's been exploring what can be taught with the multiplayer online game because she has already done a lot of teaching of everything from literature to body image for a health class in and with the virtual world Teen Second Life, and she saw some new opportunities in WoW, for example the opportunity to increase student engagement by teaching within a graphically compelling virtual environment. When that happens, she says, even reading levels go up: "My kids, who are 13 years old, are reading on a sixth-grade or a fourth-grade level in school when tested, but ... if you test them with the same methodology that you would test reading a John Steinbeck novel in school ... on World of Warcraft content, all of a sudden their scores are higher." Here's a site, created by educators (a collaborative Web site called a "wiki," as in Wikipedia.org), that's dedicated to developing lesson plans and other instructional tools incorporating World of Warcraft - so far for teaching math, writing, social interaction, digital citizenship, online safety, and 21st-century skills. [See also "Play, Part 2: Violence in videogames" and "Homeschooling with World of Warcraft", and "Can World of Warcraft make you smarter?" at MSNBC (for more on the body-image project, see Sheehy's answer to Question No. 13 on this page at RezEd.org).]

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posted by Anne at 3:24 PM

3 Comments:

Blogger jackmo said...

"My kids, who are 13 years old, are reading on a sixth-grade or a fourth-grade level in school when tested, but ... if you test them with the same methodology that you would test reading a John Steinbeck novel in school ... on World of Warcraft content, all of a sudden their scores are higher."

oh wow that sounds like you really when to town with your 'testing'. Do you have any other vague and outrageous generalisations that you can use to justify feeding your WOW addiction while passing it off as 'teaching kids'.

So tell me, what study have you done into the long term behavioural habits that are formed through long instances of online gaming? Do you know how this affects kids socialising, the affect on motivation or what it teaches about persevering for your goals?

Have any of you MMO addicts even asked questions like;
* How does this affect kids social skills?
* What impact does the instant gratification nature of online gaming have long-term on kids health, motivation and time spent on other hobbies?
* How many hours per day do these kids spend 'learning' on WOW?
* wow reading level went up for WOW based content - WHAT AN ACHEIVEMENT!! - Ok, what correlation is there between the kids that spend the most time on wow and the grades for their other subjects?

I am a long-time gamer and have played more MMORPGS then you, I guarantee. Congratulations on enjoying yourself and if you want to delude yourself that WOW is good for learning go for it, but don't try and corrupt the education system with some outrageous - and UNFOUNDED - claims that WOW is beneficial in an educational sense.

What real data do you have to indicate that this is holistically beneficial to education?

AND

What research have you done into the possible negative impacts of playing WOW has in education?

If you cannot answer these two questions in depth then please STFU and GTFO NUB and go LFG for a new job cause I just PK'd you IRL.

7:28 PM  
Blogger Unknown said...

Check out this link to read about studies that showed that playing WOW actually encouraged scientific thinking.
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/26271240/

As my 7th grade son returned to school this week and talked about over crowded classes (budget cuts) with older teachers who are sometimes less than patient with middle school boys, I thought how wonderful it would be if one of his teachers incorporated something so innovative as developing lesson plans that incorporate WOW or other MMORPGs.

10:56 AM  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

jackmo Im sorry to debunk you in this matter but you are as far as you have shown to be at least, sedistic in you line of thinking because that was a comment that was made by some one els later posted on the enternet so the real persone you woule wish your hate upon woule not even know of your pethetic attempt to show how mad you are.

second there has been studies on both the negitive and possitive effects on MMORPGs and what you will find if you think about it is that most of the negitive is in that world of war craft was used in exess. then the possitives for this is usualy having to be shown as far as what they are doing. some one that is playing what they think to be a game is actualy learning eny thing. this style of learning has been proven with kids that are verry young, playing is a way of learning for toddlers. then the toddlers never even realise that they are learning. i dont think this gos away as you grow up you can still learn without knowing that you are learning somthing.

so all in all i just PKd you because in fact before posting somthing like this you should be able to come up with somthing to prove they are wrong. thus leading to were are your studies? what proof do you offer?

just to let you know you your self just god pwnd.

5:57 PM  

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