This is where we will craft our Multi-School Minecraft Server proposal document. I know we had a google doc set up for this but it seemed redundant to have a wiki, which we can all edit, linking to a google doc, which we can also edit. I've dumped the latest version (Dec 14, 2011) of the google doc here. How about we just update it in here? Let me know if you totally hate this idea.

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Multi School Minecraft Server Proposal

Notes and Thoughts

This document will be a storehouse and living document for our Multi School Minecraft Server proposal.  Please add, edit or whatever you want to this document. We’re aiming to have a finished proposal ready to present before the holiday break (Dec 23)

Dec 18 - Rethinking delivery date of proposal. How about we submit this after the holiday break. It'll give us more time to prepare it and it won't get lost in the pre-holiday madness. I'm thinking that most people are already on holiday now and submitting it just before the break means it won't get looked at until in the new year. Let's aim to have it ready to submit before the break, but actually deliver it after the break.Thoughts? (Liam sez)

Sections (add/remove as you see fit)

Overview

Quotes

[Di says - quote Dr. Chris’ recent tweet on video games as possibilities.]

[Liam sez] This one? It's a good one, but a bit negative - privacy of defeat? I think it's more about low stakes failure than hiding the shame of defeat. It's all about the "respawn" button!

[Di says - that's a pretty bad one, but whaddaya expect from him? PLEASE REMEMBER TO REMOVE THESE PARTS BEFORE SENDING. I'll try and find a better one.

ETA - Gah, my brain hurts from reading 2 months of Dr. Chris' tweets! I found two possibilities before giving up.]

"Hope is what drives improvement. And improving our schools and ultimately our students’ outcomes is what we’re all hoping – and striving – for."

Dr. Chris Spence, TDSB Director

TDSB_Chris Chris Spence

Do you match materials to students, learning needs, interests, and readiness levels by offering a variety of assignments and resources? (via Twitter, Dec. 21)

TDSB_Chris Chris Spence

Here's an interesting video from TEDxKids @ Brussels. Gabe Zichermann discusses gamification & education. http://ow.ly/7PrWF

(Twitter, Dec. 5) 

"Fear of failure is pertinent to boys and their construction of gender is one reason why video games are so popular, the privacy of defeat."

Dr. Chris Spence, Director of Education,  Toronto District School Board 

(Source: twitter.com) (http://tdsb.tumblr.com/post/1367702122/fear-of-failure-is-pertinent-to-boys-and-their ) << I don't like this one. Let's kill it.

I like this one from James Gee:

"Lots of young people pay lots of money to engage in an activity that is hard, long and complex. As an educator, I realized that this was just the problem our schools face: How do you get someone to learn something long, hard, and complex and yet enjoy it."

James Paul Gee. (2003) What Video Games Have to Teach Us About Learning and Literacy. Palgrave McMillan << I just read this one & loved it.

"Like all forms of technology, video games are cultural artifacts -albeit complex ones - that invite all sorts of study, discussion, and analysis in school. Some of this discussion is appropriately reserved for teh notable downsides of some video games but there are also lots of pedagogical lessons to be learned in addressing the potential of video games to entertain, inspire, and teach."

David Hutchison. (2007) Playing to Learn: Video Games in the Classroom. Teacher Ideas Press

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Overview (very rough)

It’s barely 9:15 in the morning and already two students have fallen down a mine shaft, one burst into flames when he swam through lava and another just killed his best friend with a pork chop. It’s going to be a messy morning but one packed with learning. This is learning with Minecraft.

Just over a year old, Minecraft is the independent “Lego style” building block game took the video game world by storm. Among the millions of players of Minecraft, were teachers from across the globe.

In addition to being engaging to play, Minecraft's open-ended sandbox style means it is packed with opportunities for strategic planning, critical thinking and experimentation. Already, educators from USA to Australia are using Minecraft to teach science, math and literacy skills to students ranging from Grade 1 to Grade 12.The TDSB Multi-School Minecraft Server project will create a single virtual game world, accessible to participating Minecraft Clubs across the TDSB, providing them a single, shared, safe, supervised, online space to play and learn together.

The mission of the Toronto District School Board is to enable all students to reach high levels of achievement and to acquire the knowledge, skills, and values they need to become responsible members of a democratic society. This school board has not shied away from using innovative programming and research-based best practices to achieve these goals. This proposal is a plan to engage our most reluctant students in a way that honours 21st century learning and the digital competencies students of today possess - we want to use video games, specifically Minecraft, to help our neediest students improve their literacy, numeracy, and social skills.

Project Timeline and Format

In January 2012, two TDSB schools (Agnes Macphail P.S. and Highland Heights Jr. P.S.) will develop their own Minecraft clubs, with a focus on building the skills of students underperforming in literacy, numeracy and social development. The clubs will meet regularly to play Minecraft and enage in learning activities, such as journal writing, mathematical investigations, online research and more.

While each club will run independently, the students and their characters, or avatars, will share a single virtual world, where they can meet, chat and work together to build their shared world.

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Using video games for educational goals is relatively new but not without precedent (cite Minecraft in Schools, WoW in Schools, different research) ...

Possible ideas: talk about value of video games in learning, goals of this project, etc. Significance - first of its kind in Canada, leading the way in educational innovation, etc.

Research
Quick overview of current research into video games and education (Gee, etc)

Judy Willis, a neurologist, explained in an article quoted by Edutopia (http://www.edutopia.org/blog/video-games-learning-student-engagement-judy-willis) that video games help build skills and adaptive responses. Like good teaching and learning practices, feedback on progress is ongoing and intrinsic rewards encourage students and the “hard fun” engages students. Challenges are individualized and achievable.

The vision document Together For Learning: School Libraries and the Emergence of the Learning Commons specifically mentions video games. This publication, supported financial by the Literacy and Numeracy Secretariat for Ontario’s Ministry of Education, states
    If learning is enjoyable and challenging, learners will do it enthusiastically.
    Think of a video game that players are keen to concentrate on for hours.
    They do it because it’s “hard fun”. Turning hard work into hard fun requires
    helping students relate their work to their own lives and the culture in which
    they live. (page 33)

Another Ministry of Education document that supports the use of video games is Me Read? No Way! …

Research on the inclusion of video games in educational situations continues to be a popular topic of investigation. Leo Cao’s study, “Serious Play: An exploratory multiple-case study on the emerging practice of appropriating digital games for academic learning” ...

Goals
List our goals for this project - engage underperforming students with a form of media they love: video games. Use this engagement to build success in areas of need (math, literacy, social skills, etc)
Multi school meet ups/challenges - kids meet to work together or compete in a challenge

Project Details
Explanation of the club - each school has a minecraft club that plays and works independently, but uses one shared space, virtual world, where they can work with members from other schools

Timeline

Just as the research on effective school library programs states that ...

When etc, : start in January and run until June?
After school: 1 day, 2 days a week? 3:30 - 4:30/ 5pm (what do you all think?)

Current Status and Needs
Secured server and bandwidth at no cost from EDGE Lab at Ryerson University
Need - dedicated support from TDSB IT for possible network issues and solutions, possibly a single “go to “ person we can contact to help us with this
Support from Principals, colleagues, students and Parents/Guardians

Bios
Quick teaching bios of the three of us to show how awesome we are.
EDGE Lab - quick bio of EDGE, goals etc.