Ideas+(Original+Page)

Note: I moved the final version to two pages, Part I (The Plan) and Part II (The Explanation). Greg added MiniGames page to work out the Tasks in detail. - [|kristinewgarden] 8 minutes ago

The Task: Part I. Ben's Task Create a unit plan on identifying reliable sources, i.e. 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 Learning Task - Ideas= Context: - Virtual world/game, anchored instruction- narrative, quests Okay, last night, Ben, Kristi, and I (Cindy) decided to anchor the problem with the player coming across an unusual animal in a box in the road (or whatever). This will be an unusual animal (more on that in a minute),**Wouldn't the first task be finding out what kind of animal this is?** and the first choice will be deciding to keep it for a pet, give it away, sell it, get it back to it's natural habitat. Each of these choices will then lead the player down different paths, where they will encounter problems related to their choice. At each turn, there will be opportunities to choose the type ("genre") of web source they will use to find a solution to their problem/question. Then, once they select this, there will be 3 (or some other number) of websites within that "genre", and they will need to determine which choice is best. We had discussed making one of them the "optimal" choice, then have a "so-so" choice, and a downright misleading or useless choice (that would likely lead to the destruction of their little creature). They will earn rewards for optimal choice (like the animal does tricks, or they earn treats for it or toys, or something...), and there will be expert advice (parents? friends?) to help them figure out what went wrong if they made a poor choice. We also discussed 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. Another situated assessment includes tracking where they look on the screen, as well as a log of where they click once they are on the site. Phew...I will put up a diagram ASAP, since some of us benefit from visual scaffolding. Kristi, Ben...please add in details I may have forgotten to add.

I took Zachary out to the bus this morning and asked for his help on our group homework (he was hooked :-) ). I told him we were designing a video game (totally sold!). I asked him to tell me about an unusual animal he knows about that others may not be familiar with, and that doesn't live in our climate. He thought a second and said, "Kiwi". He proceeded to tell me about this odd little bird, and I think it may have tons of potenital, plus a cute name--which always helps. Also...endangered (whole new area for them to investigate), from New Zealand (geography), legends written about it... with so much to learn about it...maybe identifying the animal should be first, and most scaffolded of the inquiries, because players who may have chosen to keep it as a pet or sell it at first may change their minds if they learn of its habitat and endangered status.

Then, I ran our first choice past him and asked what he would do if he came across one in a box out near the road: keep it for a pet, return it to it's natural habitat, sell it...(he broke in, very adamant) "Sell it! I would not sell it for $5!!!" What about $105? "No! Birds are priceless!" Okay, so what would you do? "Hmmm...I would keep i...I would put it back in its natural habitat" [Then the bus came, but he was definitely hooked into the idea right away....Kristi--how did your daughter react?] Big thumbs up on the idea from Alexa (5th grader), so we are two for two. She suggested that when the less optimal choice is made, the animal could growl or become angry (don't know what that looks like for a kiwi : ) ) and when the optimal choice is made the animal becomes "cuter" or more irresistible.

Two for two--I say we move ahead, and I like Alexa's idea about reactions from the pet.

Now, here comes serendipity...

As I went to Google kiwi, look at what I found!!!!! So, once we have the game designed and write our grant, maybe we've found our artist/designer! Check this out: []

Goals:
- tune attention and intention for critical evaluation of online reading - the specific intentions we want players to adopt will be 1) to choose the best kind of resource for the kind of information needed (relevance) and 2) to choose the most reliable/believable resource (I think we talked last night about only focusing on 1) the relevance, but reading the description above again, I think the 2nd type of choice could come in too - yes?)

Yes, I agree, both of the above objectives are addressed in what we discussed last night. - [|cbushey] Yesterday 1:09 pm  (does this work here? Did I sign my name or just make~'s?)

Assessment:
- provides feedback that guides the learner to take the "optimal path" through the environment

Description of the Game (for the player): (have a separate description of the learning task for the teacher?)
Name of game: Crittered?

Goal of the game:

The Backstory:

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?” and then “You are going to miss your bus – you must have overslept!” 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 give your mom a quick hug, trying not to think about the hole or look suspicious. Then its out the door with sneakers untied as you begin the climb to the top of the hill where you catch the bus. 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”.

Halfway up the hill, there’s a rumble, and then you see it. The bus is already loading kids. You break into a full run, yelling and waving your arms wildly for the bus to wait. But it’s no use. It just wasn’t meant to be. The bus roars off in a mocking way. No point in running any more. You need to catch your breath anyway. 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!


1. Background Story, and find the creature—already outlined elsewhere here on the wiki.

2. Expert Advice: How do I find out about this creature?

For this level of the game, we will have it so highly scaffolded, that each of the sources indicated by experts is reliable, but provides 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.

Maybe the player should go to each of these sources because each of them will provide the player with valuable information about the creature and give them experience with different genres (this will help them later as they determine purpose and choose sites to go to for information).  3. Could this be followed by a mini-game that assesses the player’s success at distinguishing the variance between these types of genres? Needs more details—maybe go back to Greg’s descriptions of mini-games.  4. Player comes to a decision, keep the kiwi, get it back to its natural habitat, or give it away or sell it. * indicates paths similar to the one I have outlined, but just didn’t repeat, for simplicity.

5. Once a player makes a choice, she will face a question.

6. The player will be presented with three genres of Internet sources. As we had discussed the other night, we can scaffold this by putting 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. Also, we can start the game with these genres being specifically chosen, to later in the game, where the computer randomly chooses three from a programmed set of many possibilities, as player proficiency increases.

7. Once a “genre” is selected, 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 complete misrepresentation (hoax site, advice from a total novice which is not based on research, etc.). This area, too, can be structured to randomly select sites (after initial scaffolded choices early in the game). Also, maybe here, we want to allow the player to “phone a friend”, meaning contact one of the experts presented early in the game if she has a question or wants guidance. 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).

Depending on the choices the player makes, the kiwi’s “health” score could increase or decrease. We might also want a $ area, because the kiwi will need to be fed and/or transported, so the player can earn $ along the way, and then spend them as he cares for the kiwi. Perhaps mini-games could be used at intervals to allow for earning $, or caring for the kiwi, etc….this is one area I would like to meet to discuss in greater detail.

After step #7, there could either be another mini-game, or the player could be faced with another question/problem that emerges out of the previous one (this seems to have greater fluency for me, but mini-games might also fit in—not sure).

Also, as we had discussed, this process is adaptive—as the player performs, the computer recognizes success and adapts accordingly, with more or less scaffolding. For example, maybe there would be points where an expert jumps in even when the player didn’t ask for it, because it is a “teachable moment”.

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