Part+I.+Unit+Plan

=Part I. The Unit Plan =

Create a unit plan on identifying reliable sources online, i.e. a set of experiences, that facilitates transfer. What are the goals? What do we think are valuable experiences? How do we incorporate some gaming culture in the lesson? What would the classes/lessons look like? If we are up to the challenge, how do we show that learning and transfer occurred?


 The unit will focus on tuning the learner's attention and intention for critical evaluation of online reading The specific intentions we want players to adopt are: 1) to choose the best kind of resource for the kind of information needed (relevance) and 2) to choose the most reliable/believable resource from a set of choices

Valuable experiences for the learner:
__Determining Relevance__ get/seek advice from experts and peers choose the right type of resource for the kind of information needed and the kind of task check the type of site (i.e. .com, .gov., .org, wiki, blog, social network) notice important details without being distracted by extraneous information (pop- ups, advertising) __Determining Reliability__ get/seek advice from experts and peers examine, adopt and change perspectives check authorship, find out about an author examine search results on a page and pick out most reliable sources 

Assessment:
Formative assessment built into the game takes the form of feedback that guides the learner to take the "optimal path" through the environment [MFY: Actually, we should discuss how instead of 1 "optimal path" it is more like a family of paths that would lead to goal fulfillment, as differentiated from a array of paths that would not lead to the goal. There is rarely 1 right way to surf the net, but socially defined, there can be right and clearly wrong solutions, and some in between... I believe the premise of your assessment is flawed in assuming one optimal path or (if created by design) that this reflects any authentic validity in web surfing]. This is facilitated in several ways. There are opportunities at each task juncture for consultation with experts (cognitive apprenticeship), consequences of the choices and evaluations made provide feedback through visible changes in the environment (the kiwi gets a treat and grows, or its health improves with each "good" choice the player makes). Mini games provide game scores for correct evaluations.

Final assessment will be in the form of a blog, poster, or letter that the student will create to describe her adventure, explain how she made her choices, and make recommendations to others about finding information online.

Context:
We have decided to create a video game based on an anchored instruction model that takes the player through a generator set of learning experiences.

The anchor problem will have the player coming across an unusual animal (a kiwi) in a box in the road. Friends will join the main character player, so that up to three learners can play as a team. This will be an unfamiliar animal, so the first task will be figuring out what the animal is. Next, the players will need to decide whether to keep it for a pet, sell it, or get it back to it's natural habitat. This will require finding out more about the animal, its diet, habits, needs, endangered status, lifespan, etc. 

At each critical juncture, the players will be engaged in an activity where they will need to choose from different kinds of websites to find a solution to a problem/question.  They will be looking for the type of website that has the most relevant information.  For each type of website, there will be two or three websites offered as choices within that "genre", and they will need to determine which choice is best in terms of reliability. One of them will be the "optimal" choice, one a "so-so" choice, and one a downright misleading or useless choice.  They will earn rewards for optimal choice (like the animal gets a worm, makes a sound, grows, or somehow becomes happier). [MFY: at 1 point we discussed how instead of a range of choices from right to clearly wrong, the students be given 3 choices (advice) that are all equally flawed but in different ways that the students would have to detect and discuss. ]

There will be expert advice (cognitive apprenticeship) from an assortment of people with different perspectives to model thought processes on choosing relevant and reliable sites and to help them figure out what went wrong if they make a poor choice. There will be scaffolding at the "genre" selection part, as well as the website choosing part, that will be removed in an adaptive manner, depending on player performance [MFY: THis could become part of your assessment, namely how much scaffolding is required by each student, in the spirit of [|Feurestein's Instructmental Enrichment]]. As the player performs, the computer recognizes success and adapts accordingly, with more or less scaffolding. For example, there will be points where an expert jumps in even when the player didn’t ask for it, because it is a “teachable moment”.

Experts can also show up to disagree with each other. Another situated assessment will be built in to track where a player looks on the screen, and will log where he clicks once he is on the site. The eye tracking feature can provide immediate feedback to the player, in the form of unsolicited expert help, when he neglects to check one or more of the critical evaluation areas of a given website [the extension type of a website (.com, .org, etc.), "about us" to find out about the author, etc.] <span style="color: rgb(0, 128, 128);"> <span style="color: rgb(0, 0, 0);">There will also be a money earning feature, because the kiwi will need to be fed and/or transported, so the player can earn money along the way, and then spend it as she cares for the kiwi. Mini-games can be played at intervals to allow for earning money, or caring for the kiwi, etc. <span style="color: rgb(0, 0, 0);"> These mini games may be "unlocked" later in the game, as the player becomes more proficient at evaluating the relevance and trustworthiness of websites.

Description of the Game:

 * __Name of game__:** Crittered


 * __Goal of the game__**: Solve the critter "problem" by making good choices

<span style="color: rgb(0, 255, 0);"> What a bad night. The cat kept waking you up as it tried to find a comfortable place on your pillow. What is that awful noise? Could it be more annoying? What is that constant beeping? You finally realize that it’s your alarm clock going off on the other side of your room. Just a little more sleep would be nice. . . You pick up the nearest large object, which just happens to be your favorite new book, __The Encyclopedia of Immaturity__, and heave it toward the clock, hoping to knock it over and stop its horrible noise. THUD and CRACK. You turn on the light to see that you have missed the clock completely and instead, put a hole the size of a bowling ball in your wall. Not good. You jump up and shove your beanbag chair in front of the hole as you hear your mother calling. “What was that noise?” You tell her you dropped something, throw on the nearest clothes you can find, and dash down the stairs, hair uncombed. No time for breakfast, you sling on your backpack and grab a granola bar as you fly past your mother in the kitchen, trying not to think about the hole or look suspicious. She starts to say something like "Where are . . . ?", but you don't have time to listen - you will miss the bus. Then its out the door with sneakers untied as you begin the climb to the top of the hill to the bus stop. The backpack seems heavy as you try to walk a little faster than usual, remembering how your mom made you ride your bike to school after you missed the bus the last time. Besides, you don’t want to have to go home until you have a plan for “the hole”.
 * __The Backstory__**:

Halfway up the hill, you look at your watch and realize that the reason there is no one at the bus stop is because. . . it's Saturday! It’s just not going to be your day. Turning to head back down the hill towards home, you spot something on the ground on the other side of the road in the middle of a clump of tall weeds. You walk over to get a closer look and see that it is a peculiar looking small wooden crate. There appears to be something inside – and it’s moving! You pick it up just as a few of your friends from the neighborhood come walking up the hill toward you.

__**Game Play:**__

Clues on the box: - the word "ROTORU.." is printed on the outside of the box in large black letters, the last letter is unclear - There is a symbol of a fern like this:
 * First Task**: Figure out what kind of animal you have.

You decide to get some help. There are three people you decide to go talk to first. You will need to speak to all three of them before proceeding to the next step. The three people are: Each of these people give you ideas about how they would try to find out more about your critter using different online resources. After you hear from all the experts, you decide which person's advice to follow first and go look at the kind of website they recommend. <span style="color: rgb(0, 0, 255);"> Notes to the teacher: For this level of the game, there will be a lot of scaffolding. Each of the website types indicated by experts will be reliable, but will provide very different information. We want to tune the player’s perception to the invariants of each of these genres that they will encounter throughout the game. In other words, why would they use one type of source over another for a given purpose? The expert will suggest where to go for information, and tell how they know it is a reliable source. They will do this by reviewing two different websites in their genre with the player, pointing out what the player should look for. The librarian will recommend looking at .org or .gov sites The grandmother will recommend looking at Wikipedia The natural history museum employee will recommend doing a keyword search. This will lead to the most promising results for finding out what the animal is because there is a word clue "Rotorua". Once the player chooses this, they will find out what kind of creature they have.
 * 1) The town librarian
 * 2) Your grandmother
 * 3) The natural history museum employee

There will be an optional **Minigame** for you to play here. The Minigame will allow you to earn some money to take care of your creature. <span style="color: rgb(0, 0, 255);">Note to the teacher: The minigames are designed to provide practice with detecting reliability in websites and providing additional information about kiwis, where they are from, their history and associated legends, etc. The minigames can be replayed again and again and will be different each time.

You will continue on in the game until you will be suddenly be approached by three characters. They will tell you that you need to decide what to do with the kiwi. They offer the following choices: You will again hear from each of these three people. Each will present you with three kinds of websites to use to get information to help you make a decision about what to do. You will choose one of the options based on the information you find. <span style="color: rgb(0, 128, 128);"> <span style="color: rgb(0, 0, 255);">Notes to the teacher: The player will again be presented with three genres of Internet sources. This time, there will be a description of the reason someone might use this particular genre alongside the choice. This scaffolding could be removed as needed throughout the game, moving from explicit description, to a help button the player can use if he chooses to, to no reason at all. The mother will tell the player to use Wikipedia to find out what kiwis need and if they can live in captivity The rich financier <span style="color: rgb(0, 0, 255);"> will tell the player to use keyword search to look him up online The wildlife specialist will tell the player to check .gov or .org sites to find out if the bird is endangered or not Each of the three people will reveal three sites to choose from based on choosing the most reliable site. There will be scaffolding with this as needed, some provided by the expert, some provided by clicking or by feedback from the eye tracking mechanism.
 * Second Task**: What do I do?
 * 1) Your mother says you can keep the bird as a pet if you learn how to take care of it. You need to find out what this requires, including any laws or licenses that might concern exotic animals.
 * 2) A wildlife specialist says you should contact an appropriate wildlife agency in the country from which the kiwi came and find out how to return it. You need to find out whether kiwis are endangered.
 * 3) A rich financier, who has a private 300 acre wild refuge on his property wants you to sell the kiwi to him for $500. You need to find out if this person is who he says he is, and whether $500 is a good price for the kiwi.

After you hear from each person, they will show you three different sites. They will tell you to look for some features of reliability to figure out the best site for the information you need out of the three. You can click on the sites to get hints.

You will have some different choices for **Minigames** here. Minigames will work on these skills that were modeled by the experts above: <span style="color: rgb(0, 128, 128);"> You will make your choice about what to do with the kiwi and proceed to one of the following options.
 * Who published the page?
 * Images, Bias, Perspective
 * Investigate an author

<span style="color: rgb(0, 128, 128);"> <span style="color: rgb(0, 0, 0);">Now you will be presented with some kinds of websites to use. After you decide on a type of site, you will have three websites to choose from of this type. You need to choose the one site out of the three that helps you get the most reliable information possible using what you have learned throughout the game. You can click on a help button to phone one of the experts you heard from earlier in the game. You can also choose from FAQ questions for the experts or send a question that is not in the FAQ list by email to an outside expert. You can also chat with an outside expert.
 * Third Task**: Choose one of three based on previous choice:
 * 1) Keep the kiwi for a pet. You will now have to find out where you can get what you need to take care of the animal
 * 2) Return the animal to its natural habitat in New Zealand. You will need to find an appropriate wildlife agency to help you return the bird to its natural habitat and find out how to get the bird to the agency.
 * 3) Decide to sell the bird to the financier and use the money to repair the hole in the wall. Find someone to hire to fix the wall for $500 or less.

<span style="color: rgb(0, 0, 255);">Notes to teacher: Once a “genre” is selected, the player investigates and chooses the most reliable site from a set of three, one being the best possible choice, one being so-so, and the other presenting a complete misrepresentation (hoax site, advice from a total novice which is not based on research, etc.). This area, too, is structured to randomly select sites (after initial scaffolded choices early in the game). We could have several questions they could ask the expert (like a FAQ); in addition, there might be an area for the player to e-mail a different question to the expert, if what he wants to know isn’t listed in the FAQ. This could go to the classroom teacher, or a subject matter expert who has agreed to engage in the game, and they could reply as soon as possible to the players question. (could even be IM, if it was coordinated in real-time with the live expert). <span style="color: rgb(0, 0, 0);">

<span style="color: rgb(0, 0, 0);">A few more **Minigames** here: You can play a few games here that require you to: <span style="color: rgb(0, 0, 0);"> There will be subsequent tasks that will continue to hone the perception with increasingly more complex website to evaluate and mix sources. The experts will be available for assistance should the player require it. In advanced stages of the game the expert advice will come at a cost to the player in terms of resources and score.
 * <span style="color: rgb(0, 0, 0);">Make quick decisions about what kinds of sites to use for different sample questions
 * <span style="color: rgb(0, 0, 0);">Identify things that look suspicious on webpages
 * Subsequent Tasks**

Once you have finished the kiwi problem and the subsequent tasks, a summative assessment is displayed. The summative assessment will show your successes, failures, and contributions (if you played in a team), as well as, how much money you have earned and if you are a top scorer.

<span style="color: rgb(0, 0, 0);"> For your final project, you can choose to: Write a blog, make a poster or create a slideshow that will help future players get better scores in this game. Give advice on how to make the best choices, not on which sites to choose, because where the best sites are will change from game to game.
 * <span style="color: rgb(0, 0, 0);">CE Final Task **<span style="color: rgb(0, 0, 0);">:

After completing the final task the player will receive a badge of completion. The player would be able to play the game again with other critters and collect multiple badges of completion.

<span style="color: rgb(0, 128, 128);"><span style="color: rgb(0, 0, 255);">Notes to teacher: The final task provides an opportunity for the player to display what they have learned and gain authorship of the process. The final task also allows the player to participate as experts and foster discussion with other experts. This game is designed with the understanding that evaluation of online resources are never done in isolation, but in conjunction with a goal and a context. The goal and context are rarely confined to a single domain, but are often interdisciplinary. The goal and context are setup here with educational purposes in mind. Through the course of tasks the players are not only learning to evaluate <span style="color: rgb(0, 0, 255);"> to choose the best kind of resource for the kind of information needed (relevance) and to choose the most reliable/believable resource from a set of choices <span style="color: rgb(0, 128, 128);"><span style="color: rgb(0, 0, 255);">, but also about the animals they research, the environment concerning the animals, and micro-political situations involving the animals (poaching, breeding, protection).

<span style="color: rgb(0, 0, 0); background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">

 * Game Diagram**

Click here to see a flow chart of the game online in Bubbl.us: [|game flow chart] Note: You can grab on/click on to the page and drag the chart up, down, side to side to see the whole thing.<span style="color: rgb(0, 128, 128);"><span style="color: rgb(0, 0, 0);">

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