Minecraft as a model for gamification in teacher training

Minecraft as a model
for gamification
in teacher training
Vance Stevens
Khalifa Bin Zayed Air College, Al Ain UAE
Higher Colleges of Technlogy / CERT
Presented at XVIIth CALL Research Conference
Tarragona, Spain, July 6, 2015

All my slides are
open and online
No need to take notes, simply visit
http://slideshare.net/vances
Vance Stevens CALL Research
Conference Tarragona 2015

What is this about?
This presentation presents a model for gamification of
teacher professional development. As such it …
 Roots the model in the work of proponents of
connectivism
 Places it as the latest in a series of connectivist projects
moderated and facilitated by the author
 Shows why Minecraft is an appropriate vehicle for
understanding gamification in teacher professional
development; hence how to extend the concept to
teaching
 Explains how the project was conceived and
implemented
 Presents some quantitative and qualitative data
 Previews how the project will be continued in 2016

Connectivism
 Cormier, D. (2008). Rhizomatic education: Community as curriculum.
Innovate, 4(5). Reprinted with permission of the publisher and retrieved
from http://davecormier.com/edblog/2008/06/03/rhizomatic-education-
community-as-curriculum/
 Downes, S. (2012). Connectivism and connective knowledge: Essays
on meaning and learning networks. Stephen's Web: My eBook.
Retrieved from http://www.downes.ca/files/Connective_Knowledge-
19May2012.pdf
 Siemens, G. (2004). Connectivism: A learning theory for the digital age.
Elearningspace. Retrieved from
http://www.elearnspace.org/Articles/connectivism.htm
 Stevens, V. (2014). Connectivist Learning: Reaching Students through
Teacher Professional Development. in Son, J.-B. (Ed.). Computer-
assisted language learning: Learners, teachers and tools. APACALL
Book Series Volume 3. Newcastle upon Tyne, UK: Cambridge Scholars
Publishing. pp. 150-172. Late draft available here

iPadagogy workshop at ISTE
Connectivism at work
First part of workshop
shared in Google+
Hangout on Air
http://learning2gether.net/
2015/06/30/learning2geth
er-about-ipadagogy-live-
from-iste-philadelphia/
Mary Kay Polly presented
on her using of Minecraft
with middle school as part
of this workshop.

Mary Kay Polly - Minecraft
 Mary Kay Polly - students justified use of Minecraft in their class by
 spelling out curriculum goals
 having them explain how their use of Minecraft met those goals.
Corroborates claim that
it’s not whether it’s in
the curriculum; rather
the curriculum is in it.
http://iste2015ipadagogyabloominbetterwaytoteach.pbworks.com/w/page/92494272/
Game-based%20Learning%20and%20Minecraft%20-%20Mary%20Kay%20Polly

Andrew Beeston
https://www.flickr.com/photos/ants88/6664180307/
Photo credits: Katya
http://teacherblog.gamestarmechanic.com/page/2/
Minecraft is
extremely
popular at
ISTE.
Hundreds are
turned away
from
workshops.

Conference Tarragona 2015Openness
 1998 – Created and taught
Writing for Webheads
 2002 – Facilitated EVO
session Webheads in Action
 2003 to present –
Coordinator with Electronic
village Online
 2004 to 2010 – Moderated
Multiliteracies and
MultiMOOC EVO sessions
 2005, 2007, 2009 - WiAOC:
free, online, no funding
required ‘convergences’
Ongoing efforts
 2010 – Started
Learning2gether
http://learning2gether.net/
 2015 – Started EVO
Minecraft MOOC
 Currently, Webheads in
Action, Learning2gether,
Minecraft MOOC,and EVO
involvement going strong!
Networks have long been critical to my personal learning, and they are critical
to others I interact with. Open endeavors which I have facilitated include

Modeling for Students
The problem is
 who will guide teachers and trainees in this kind of learning?
 Guides must be themselves experienced in connecting through
networks in uncontrolled and exposed spaces.
 Fortunately our professional lives are tending in this direction
 Websites
 Webinars
 Tools and apps
 Concepts such as MOOCs
 Spaces like Second Life
 Yet another model might be Minecraft
 How do you find a community?
 How do you acquire experience?

The Minecraft Flip
We focused on Minecraft as a way of
 Gamifying the language learning experience
 Students taking charge of their learning
 Students teaching teachers about what they are interested in
 Improving learning enjoyment
 Bolstering student self-esteem
http://www.tesl-
ej.org/wordpress/issues/vol
ume18/ej70/ej70int/
http://learning2gether.net/2014/06/29/hangout-with-filip-and-marijana-
smolcec-on-the-eu-llp-comenius-project-and-learning-through-minecraft/

Finding communities in MC
The challenge for adults interested in Minecraft
 is finding a community that can help you
 Most communities for Minecraft are school children
 Teachers exclude people who might be predators
One solution
 Start your own community
 Invite educators to learn the game by being in the game
 Don’t let lack of expertise deter you
 Experts will emerge

EVO Minecraft MOOC
 If we are going to gamify our classrooms, don’t we have to experience
that by gamifying our own professional development?
 I proposed to moderate an EVO session to allow teachers to learn the
game as they would expect students to do
 I created
 A proposal
 A syllabus
 A Google+ Community
Pictured: Selfie of
Vance Stevens
and Jeff Kuhn at
TESOL 2015 Toronto

Engaging a community
 We attracted others
teaching / learning
languages with MC
 Two co-authors of an
article jointly written
with Filip and
Marijana Smolčec
 Two whom we cited
in the article: David
Dodgson and Jeff
Kuhn
Jeff set us up a
Minecraft server!
Filip could have done
this otherwise

Gamification and Badges
Elements of gamification
 Our syllabus –
pitched at teachers who would
 Gravitate to a learning experience
 where we would define our own outcomes
 which could not be guaranteed in advance
 We applied the Cormier notion of
Community as Curriculum
 The collective would steer the syllabus,
as in games
 We promised badges for accomplishing
specified goals

Community as Curriculum
 Dave Cormier argues
that his university
students
 Will be expected to
interact with peers in
open spaces; e.g.
 blogs
 conferences
 webinars where they
 Must expose
themselves to scrutiny
and challenge by
large interconnected
networks,
 Should therefore
experience working
openly while they are
students.
http://davecormier.com/edblog/2008/06/03/rhizomatic-education-community-as-curriculum/

Syllabus Logistics
In our online syllabus
 We put some materials
online
 Linked to Mojang and
YouTube videos
 Gave out the IP address
of our server
 Encouraged tagging and
aggravated at Tagboard
 We used scheduling
software to arrange
meetings in Minecraft
 Used Skype to talk each
other through our learning
in the game space

Gamification of Learning
We proved the concept by creating a gamified learning
environment where we learned about the game by being in the
game

Jeff was Batman
 Jeff, whose character is Batman, created a huge Batman
statue and set up a castle for us to explore
 He created train sets for us to play on. One rendition
encircled the castle.

Teachers as makers
in Creative Mode
 In creative mode
 unlimited inventories
 unlimited time
(non threatening -
no sudden death )

Kelly shared how
her kids taught her
about Minecraft

Educators interact socially
 When professionals meet in any space for the purpose of PD
we learn from one another
 Online maximizes the number of spaces we have for meeting in
 Minecraft and Skype
 Second Life
 Webinars
 Hangouts on Air

Teachers learn from kids
 Filip (age 11) built a McDonald’s
 Carlos from Spain (age 12) created a tower with an elevator
 Ian (teenager) built us a hotel shell

Filip’s rabbits
 Filip populated our spaces with herds of rabbits
 He showed us how to make bows and arrows and shoot
them for food
Image from inside
Jeff’s castle

Horsing around
 We rode horses
 We played with lighting
 We coped with rabbits
and zombies and spiders

Jeff and Aaron’s
explosive trap
Don’t Push Button

Survival Mode
Then it all turned sinister
Jeff and Filip set the server on survival mode
 Now a challenge to avoid the spiders and
zombies at night
 The greatest lesson - the power of
collaboration
 Jeff had created some shelters with doors
with signs outside inviting us in for the night.
 These were in mountainsides, so at night we
could dig our mines and look for resources
like iron for our pickaxes.
 In the daytime we would go outside and
 chop trees so we could make crafting tables
and on those, other tools and weapons for
getting food from the animals with whom we
shared our world.
Image credit: Caleb Roenigk, https://www.flickr.com/photos/crdot/6303551977

End Game Vance Stevens CALL Research

Statistics
Quantitative
 61 participants expressed
interest
 Estimated about 20 visited
server or passed through out
spaces in some form or other
 10 took active step of creating
entries in Google form
 6 earned badges
Qualitative
 Many joined us for various
aspects of the course, did not
persist, but contributed
significantly
 E.g. one teen from UAE, built a
hotel structure
 which I lightened up with lamps
 zombies would gather there at
night (but they are not dangerous
in creative mode).

Missions accomplished
View openly:
https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1bIrwrRqYdTjFTXbX7ZUrjQhwi6GZgJvYC
Mmzsbm7DJ8/edit?usp=sharing

Next time around
We have already formed a team for the next round of EVO
sessions Jan-Feb 2016. Now that we know the concept works,
we’d like to set some more data points and see if we can
quantify or qualify how it works and why.
This is Tamas Lorincz
who will join our
moderating team
next year
Vance took the picture
at TESOL Arabia 2015
In Dubai

Additional References
 Smolčec, M., Smolčec, F. and Stevens, V. (2014). Using Minecraft
for Learning English. TESL-EJ, 18(2),1-15. Retrieved from
http://www.tesl-ej.org/pdf/ej70/int.pdf.
 Kuhn, J. (2015). Meaningful Play – Making Professional
Development Fun. TESL-EJ, 15(4),1-8. Retrieved from http://tesl-
ej.org/pdf/ej72/int.pdf.
 This project was presented as part of a panel discussion at
TESOL 2015 Toronto http://tinyurl.com/vance2015pd
The session was recorded and archived here
http://learning2gether.net/2015/07/06/learning2gether-
with-vance-stevens-about-minecraft-as-a-model-for-
gamification-in-teacher-professional-development/

Minecraft as a model for gamification in teacher training

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