Ask WoW Insider: Help a teacher compete with WoW
by Mark Crump 
Apr 14th 2008 at 9:00AM
Welcome to today's edition of Ask WoW Insider, in which we publish your questions for dissection by the peanut gallery -- now with extra snark and commentary by one of our writers. This week a Swedish teacher writes in:Dear WoWI,
I am a teacher in Sweden, teaching kids aged thirteen to fourteen. I am also a WoW player, something that has both pros and cons when dealing with my students. Among my students a great deal of the boys are playing WoW and most of the time, not a day passes by without they not discussing the latest content, the coolest instance and the best gear. This is a huge dilemma, especially when most of the boys don't do anything else but talk about WoW.
In Sweden, teachers today have to compete with WoW in a frustrating way. We have huge problems with students who can't focus on school due to they playing too much. Since I am a WoW player myself, I have started to think about how I could use this in school, to get my students to actually learn something. I am teaching English and it is obvious that WoW players in this age, have developed their skills a lot and this is something good.
My questions are, if the readers of WoW Insider have any constructive ideas on:
1) how I can compete with WoW and gain my students focus and concentration on school work
2) how I can use WoW in my teaching to develop their language and communication skills
What I am doing now is both a desperate try to get things back to normal, but also something that has never been done here before. have figured that I will have to use my students' interests in my teaching in order to reach them. Considering I play WoW myself, that should be easily done. But I also get dead tired of listening to them chatting every single minute about Wow and never put any effort in school work.
So I need help, suggestions, ideas from other WoW players.
Back when I was a young-un, the big distraction for me was Dungeons and Dragons. We'd sit in the back of the room drawing up dungeons on graph paper. In addition to walking uphill in the snow, both ways, to school, the personal computer hadn't been invented, much less WoW-not that that's a bad thing; I look back on my time in school and am grateful MMOs didn't exist at all, or my barely 2.5 gpa back then would have seemed honors worthy.
I can't offer any advice on #1, so I'm hoping some other educators chime in on this one. In terms of #2, it's been my observation that most WoW players need language and communication development themselves, so good luck with that.
Anyone who's taught instead of
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Reader Comments (Page 1 of 3)
Septih Apr 14th 2008 9:15AM
Not a teacher, nor do i ever plan on being one, but something that springs to mind is trying to emulate some of the concepts in game, i.e. group work, solo work, whole class work and then splitting down group and class work down into roles, maybe if you can find a way of making these roles reflect healing, tanking and dps you'll get the wowers more interested, but i guess you have to be subtle about it as well as keep the others in the class that don't play interested too.
Durigen Apr 14th 2008 9:49AM
I am a teacher, and also one that plays WoW. So I might have some help for our poster.
I've run into the same thing, teaching at a school in New York. The game is so engrossing that it's hard to tear away, and provides perfect 'watercooler' talk for anyone that does know it. The problem is when that talk is taking place during your class.
I took some of the ideas behind WoW (level progression, character improvement, and basic economics) and used them to create a few games, which get the points across as well as give them something fun to do. I also instituted a Leveling system in class.
Students are given Credits (XP) based on their performance in class, both academically and behavioral. As they build up these points they progress up a chart (Level). At each level they get some new benefit in the classroom. For instance, the highest rank (10) students are allowed to come into the classroom during planning periods to hang out, watch TV (CNN or Discovery), and even use my computer to research WoW. The students that sometimes need a hand focusing, this tends to work greatly (particularly if you offer food at each level). For the students that don't need the help to focus, they don't need this system either and continue on as they were.
It seems it's all about bringing something interesting (WoW) into the classroom life. One of my friends, a Math Teacher plays also, and he has created a dungeon board on one blackboard. For every quiz, test, or project a student get's more than 80% on, the party moves forward. Some enemies require a 100% score on one test to pass onward. The goal at the end is a treasure chest, which means he brings in food, drink, and such for the class.
Badger Apr 14th 2008 10:09AM
Durigen,
Absolutely fracking brilliant! :-D
Chris Anthony Apr 14th 2008 10:32AM
Durigen, that's a really cool idea. It reminds me of the Good Behavior Game, which was developed in the late 60s and studied extensively in subsequent decades to attempt to reduce violence and inattention in classrooms. (Shep Kellam and his associates put together a 25-year follow-up cohort to study the long-term effects of the GBG; the results were amazing. I'd love to put something together to see what the effects of your game are - both in and out of WOW.)
Macdoug Apr 14th 2008 10:50AM
One of the things I've often thought of for myself is to treat neglected activities, i.e. exercise, keeping in touch with people, organizing my desk, etc. as areas for "leveling". Can't do 50 pushups? Create a level bar and chart progress day by day. Desk obnoxious? Have a "daily" quest to clean it and reward yourself. Same principle could be applied to students - and the concept of rewarding good behavior instead of punishing bad is a great technique as a teacher. (I'm a HS teacher myself, but in a girls' school so this sort of thing isn't as common... /cry).
Better yet, reward the "dailies" you have your students do, such as chores, homework, etc., but also include special rewards intermittently, a la Badges of Justice in the SSO satchels. Operant conditioning FTW!
mk Apr 14th 2008 10:54AM
@macdoug:
chorewars.com. not sure if it'll help you out in terms of motivating yourself, but i just joined this last week to try and motivate my housemates and i to do better by our house :P
math Apr 14th 2008 11:49AM
Just tell them that if they do their "daily"(ie. homework) you will send them gold in-game and a piece of green gear.
Nurowyn Apr 14th 2008 2:02PM
What about asking students to write back stories about their characters, or to discuss a memorable experience with their character? Or write a detailed "how-to" for some aspect of the game such that someone who has never played WoW would understand?
keepr Apr 14th 2008 9:21AM
Have the kids write their own content for WOW. Who knows maybe they can vote On he best content and send it in to Blizzard.
Kids have great imaginations and might come up with something that blizzard is looking for. In the meantime the kids get to move from a player role to a creator role which is what made "paper DND" an educational exercise.
astro Apr 14th 2008 9:22AM
Just talk about the history behind WoW? Like the "Know your Lore" articles on WOWI?
Just do a lesson about Ragnaros and Neferian, i bet the boys will love it. The upcoming problem might then be the girls starting to gossip about make-up and stuff like this ;)
Sorry for my bad english, greetings from Germany!
Apophis Apr 14th 2008 9:22AM
I don't know how the english lectures are done in sweden, but one possibility might be to read one of the Warcraft Novels?
We have read several books in school and discussed them back then.
I've read some of the novels in english, thought they were quite good. One can discusse them like other books, but the topic would draw attention from the students.
And talking about the lore isn't like talking about WoW (loot, content, pvp etc).
Let the students write as homework about an aspect of the novel like every other book discussion.
I for one would have been more motivated to do this for an warcraft book instead of the ones we had to read.
Mal Apr 14th 2008 9:38AM
You could always hold an exclamation point above your head when assigning homework. Also, I'm not sure how feasible this would be, but you could offer something like a pizza party if they do enough 'quests' and get to a new faction level.
Macdoug Apr 14th 2008 10:39AM
Seems to me the lore might present some direct parallels to Western mythology, from Beowulf to Greek Gods to any number of folk mythologies from various cultures. Noting the tie-ins, the divergences, and even creating "family trees" or genealogies based on both WoW and the "real" myths would be instructive and engaging. I know I'd like to understand the lore better, and this would be a good way to untangle it.
Geryon Apr 14th 2008 9:27AM
Simple in theory, although perhaps not in practice: Simply find the intersection of WoW and English.
More generally, one of the best ways to increase motivation and retention amongst students is obviously to teach them about things that they are interested in. English, at least in the US, offers some flexibility in this area (depending on the state/district). Try asking the students to write about something that interests them, being sure to communicate to the WoW players in the classroom that writing about WoW is certainly acceptable. They can be creative - writing the backstory to their main character, for example - or they can simply describe some aspect from the game.
I don't know what kind of pressures/requirements are placed upon you as a teacher in Sweden, but it seems as though it's worth a shot.
Pwnteacher Apr 14th 2008 9:28AM
http://i281.photobucket.com/albums/kk205/Pwnteacher/GMweapons.jpg
nuff said
Irian Apr 14th 2008 9:28AM
Learn what charas they are playing and gank them if they don't pay attention on lessons. :P
Badger Apr 14th 2008 9:31AM
You left out the part where the teacher has to make sure that the kids don't bring firearms to class the next day.
Bellmak Apr 14th 2008 9:32AM
Good questions, I am also a teacher and obviously a WoW player. I have wondered about this myself. In regards to number one, do the boys know you are a player too? That might be a way to gain trust and show them you understand their desires. Also, you can point out to them that there a is time and place for everything. Stress too that the people who made WoW had to spend many long hours learning, e.g., code, art, writing, etc, before they could even think of makin a game. Creative work is still work and just does not happen like magic.
In regards to number two, langauge skill use is good. You are right that the players to a large degree are forced to use English. I know many people from around the world now do to WoW but we always communicate in English (or nearly do so). Maybe give them a special project to meet and communicate with people in on line (not all your students can be WoW players). Find out what classes they play, roles they play etc. Use that to stress responsiblity to group, guild etc. Then tell them school is like a guild and they have a responsiblity to succeed bad grades etc are like death in WoW you let yourself down and if it is a run you let the team down.
Just some thoughts on my free period. One note of caution, if you tell them you play be sure to not tell them your characters' names and/or servers. The boundries of student and teacher must be firm, but you know that already. Have a great day and good luck.
Augger Apr 14th 2008 9:30AM
Have you seen some of the threads involving DPS , lots of math going on there.
Without even reading the novels as Apophis suggest they could do a report on the lore aspect as if it were another book of fiction they might use in Sweden, Lots of stuff they probably know without reading or research.
Badger Apr 14th 2008 9:29AM
I agree with both of the previous posters and their ideas on the incorporation of teamwork and the incentives of creative submissions to Blizzard.
I would also add, since this is a linguistic course that we're talking about, the values of creative writing (which I think was probably already hit on in Keepr's post). They could write stories entirely in the assigned language (e.g. English), set in Azeroth or similarly 'fantastic' settings with similar characters.
You could also encourage them to read similar material in English for practice in translation - you know, works like Tolkien, magazines like Games Workshop's 'White Dwarf,' articles on MMOs in 'PC Gamer,' etc. Then it's not entirely WOW-driven, but relevant enough to keep their interest.