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KIFF: Educating the gamers. Wizards and players of other games alike 8/12

Before we begin this week the lines between the Inside & Outside the Spiral are very blurred so this week the separations are gone.



The whole premise of Wizard101 is that you play as a wizard enrolled at the Ravenwood School of Magical Arts, however because Wizard101 is entirely story based it can't exactly be used as a virtual classroom.

There is a way to get around this, students and teachers could have W101 accounts provided for them. Students can use the True friend code feature to add their classmates and teachers and the teacher's wizard can stay at their castle and send PMs to the students' wizards requesting the wizards port over to the castle to have class.

the above scenario would take away from the magic from the game, there are MMOs that can be used for that purpose.

A MMO called Second Life is a non story based mmo with 3d graphics that creates a virtual world where anything can happen.

in an article presented in this week's learning module
A professor at University of North Carolina uses Second Life to immerse the students in real elizabethian plays.
Students use the chat to perform the plays. The teacher and students create avatars (like in any/all MMOs) that can go into a virtual globe theater and see what it was like first hand.

A plus side is that shy students who talking face to face is a hassle would probably feel better writing instead of speaking.
(Any student with Social Anxiety Disorder could understand why it's hard to talk face-to-face)

While The Spiral itself is not a hub of social media, the game can be used in an educational context with K12 students.

for example in a math class
Minci SkyWalker level 65 Storm is on a quest to defeat Fire Lion Ravagers and collect 8 parts of the guide's staff. If it takes 20 battles with 4 Fire Lion Ravagers each to get all 8 pieces, how much expierence will Minci get  if she uses an average of 25 pips per battle. Exp is 3x the number of pips used in battle. 


Using the same information above what percentage of Fire Lion Ravagers dropped a piece of the guide staff?


The answer to the first one is 1500, and the second one is 10%.


Overall online games force teachers to think of more creative ways to engage their students. Social media can assist the teacher in reaching the gaming student.
See ya' in the Spiral 

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