Posts with tag schools

15 Minutes of Fame is WoW.com's look at World of Warcraft players of all shapes and sizes - from the renowned to the relatively anonymous, the remarkable to the player next door. Tip us off to players you'd like to hear more about.

Fun is a great motivator for learning – but you knew that, didn't you, World of Warcraft player? Think of all the math you've used poring over DPS charts and gear stats, all the reading you've done deciphering terse quest instructions ... the research you've put in to decode what you need to know and then where to find it ... the tactical analyses you've ground out figuring out how to get that last boss to fall ...

Peggy Sheehy and Lucas Gillispie came to our attention in the comments of a previous 15 Minutes of Fame about a player who teaches a college course inside the World of Warcraft. "My middle school will be starting with an after-school club (always the gateway)," wrote Peggy, "but others joining us will be implementing it with the 'at-risk' student population, the 'gifted' student group, as well as mainstream classes for specific content-area projects." This is no upstart project; Peggy established the first middle school on the Teen Grid in Second Life three years ago, while Lucas has established an online wiki where educators all over the world can collaborate on a standard-aligned curriculum for using WoW in the schools.

As Darkmaster Gandling would say, "School is in session!" 15 Minutes of Fame pulled up a chair to chat with Peggy and Lucas on using WoW as a platform for teaching.

We've heard about WoW in the news due to addiction and spousal trouble. When scientists chat about the game, they tend to be interested in the dynamics of virtual worlds. Constance Steinkuehler from the University of Wisconsin is approaching WoW and science in a different light.

Constance noticed a specific dynamic when she watched Lineage players approach raiding with a familiar method. They'd form a hypothesis about a boss, test it, gather evidence, and then reform their hypothesis based on that evidence. For those of you following along at home, that's basically the "Scientific Method."

Steinkuehler tested for the use of Scientific Method in WoW by going to the official forums, and studying 2,000 threads. According to the results, 86% of the threads were focused on analyzing the ruleset of the game. The implication is that those posts use some scientific method to understand WoW's rules. (I wonder if "Nerf Rogues!" was included as meaningful content.)

The purpose of this study seems to be to reverse our youth's growing scientific illiteracy by using video games to exemplify scientific pursuits. Since science is often about the method of obtaining facts, and not just facts themselves, teachers might be able to use games to help students "L2Science." Sounds solid to me, but I'm still not sold on the forums being a fertile ground of meaningful content.