Friday, September 19, 2014

Gaming in Ed - TeacherCraft

Some notes from the Gaming in Education conference on Seann Dikker's presentation: TeacherCraft - Amazing teachers using Minecraft in the Classroom :

Games involve Play, which is a VOLUNTARY, explorative activity where the player has an internally compelling story or challenge. Once you make it a WHOLE classroom activity it's not a game anymore, but an assignment or task.

Minecraft is a blank slate - literally, it's like the old slates or nowadays paper. How does paper help in your classroom? Well, Minecraft can help in the same way.

Teachers see themselves as learning experience designers.

Good designers look for NEW WAYS TO ENGAGE rather than specifically best practice. Addressing a room of good designers you would expect them to all take the core concept, but express it in new and meaningful ways.

Teachers finding ideas in non-subject areas. Goes against the Highly Qualified teacher status.

Out of the 49 investigated teachers, 0% had gaming as a hobby or had a conference session that validated gaming as a teaching tool. The majority heard about it in various ways, but drew the validation from personal play (29%) or watching the kids play (42%). Leans toward PD with both teachers and students, or PD with actual use of the product.

Teachers need a place to test where failing is Ok. Relax, take it easy. Especially with students in a lunchtime or after school setting so that failure doesn't impact curriculum.

Sunday, September 14, 2014

GameLog 356-367

So much for starting a routine...

Need to add mobile games on here too as that's where more and more time is being spent.

March of War (50h) - F2P tactical strategy game that's quite polished for the F2P model. Dynamic world campaigns led by human faction leaders has made this more interesting than just the tactical strategy and rare units available on weekends work well on me too.

Marvel Heroes 2015 (48h) - F2P action MMO. Lots of little subsystems to get into, and enough loot explosion to mark it down for a LAN. Picked up the ultimate spidey costume for $30, but have found the free storm character to be more fun to play. Probably worth the investment overall but feels funny spending money on an aspect of the game that I don't play.

At the Gates (40h) - Closed alpha testing ..

Offworld Trading Company (25h)

Godus (20h)

Terraria (10h) - Still a fave for Cam, but getting into hard mode has made the early phase a little more boring.

Pixel Piracy (10h)

Hegemony gold (8h)

Invisible Inc. (7h)

Star Ruler 2 (5h) - Early access space RTS. Very different economy has me hooked at the moment trying to figure out a good build.

Blackguards (5h) - Picked up in a big sale and installed in a lull. Happy I picked up and played Banner Saga when this first came out as the static nature of the quest line is a little grating.

Mighty Quest for Epic Loot (5h) - Beta castle builder / raider in the same vein as notorious. Seemed to change the dungeon layout into a better model, but still feels like there's only 1 good solution.

Sunless Sea (4h)

Hack'n'slash (3h) - Arcadey Double-fine adventure game with the ability to change internal traits of the monsters you're fighting for a novel programming / puzzle / adventure.

Fallen Enchantress (3h) - Ben picked up the undead pack for some trade I'd long forgotten about. Plays a little differently but still too similar to what I remember FE to be like.

Firefall (2h)

Might & Magic: Duel of Champions (2h) - New Expansion.

Endless Legend (2h) Greig got interested in this one when he came down to visit. Got me back into it too. Waiting for it to be finally released though.

Dark Souls (2h) - Super frustrating attempting to play this on PC. 2nd go and same result

ToME (1h) - Another couple of chars to the RNG.

Racing Manager (1h)


The Bureau (.5h)