6 weeks MOOC +1 + SpringB + 8 wks class.
WEEK TWELVE: 15 & 16 APR: gaming?
RETURN HERE FOR WEEK THIRTEEN SCHEDULES @ UMD! Click HERE for Davidson's MetaMOOC around which this course began. Community members are welcome and appreciated for either or both meeting times!
A one-time unique experimental course for undergraduates, graduate students, faculty, and all! Customizable for level, credit, schedule, forms of presence! Contact Katie King (katking@umd.edu) for details!
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•T 4-6:30 (WDS 2101C)
•W 1-3:30 (WDS 2101C + around the offices)This week both groups will be working on the topic area identified by the Wednesday group in their series of topics, readings, and project orientation for the rest of the term: this week focuses on Digital Media and Games for Learning.
Link to Katie's class last term on Games & Virtual Worlds HERE.
Week Twelve – Week of April 14, 2014: Digital Media/Gamification; MOOC Pedagogy
All read:
· selections from boyd 2014: It’s Complicated:
· “Grow a Game”: http://www.tiltfactor.org/growagame/
Grow a Game online: http://www.tiltfactor.org/wp_images/wordslots-mf-3.swf
Also:
· McGonigal 2011: Reality is Broken &/or TED talks: http://www.ted.com/talks/jane_mcgonigal_the_game_that_can_give_you_10_extra_years_of_life
· Not Your Mama’s Gamer: http://www.samanthablackmon.net/notyourmamasgamer/
· online materials from FemEdTech DOCC: http://femtechnet.newschool.edu/
THIS WEEK ON NOT YOUR MAMA'S GAMER!!
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What does Vered's feminist analysis from the nineties (embedded below) have to say about feminist learning, play, games, and virtual worlds today? What is different now? Which of these questions have been taken up? How are we thinking of these same issues today? What does Vered tell us about what we call making and coding today? How do your own histories of play, games, computers, feminisms, everyday life, technologies and media participate in such questions?
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When is a MOOC not a creature of evil? Can it be? What about the Harry Potter MOOC, created by fans?
http://www.hogwartsishere.com
Commentators? http://www.slate.com/blogs/browbeat/2014/04/14/hogwarts_is_here_is_like_a_mooc_for_harry_potter_fans_and_you_can_enroll.html
Harry Potter Fans Made a MOOC for Hogwarts, and You Can Enroll Now
© 2005 Warner Bros. Ent. Harry Potter Publishing Rights J.K.R.
As a 10-year-old reading Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s Stone, I had but one wish: that I, too, would soon receive an owl from Hogwarts, a letter of acceptance that could rescue me from my boring life as a Muggle. It wasn’t just Harry’s magical adventures that appealed to me. It was his schoolwork: Learning to turn beetles into buttons with Professor McGonagall and befriending hippogriffs with Hagridsounded like a definite step up from arithmetic and American history. (I even threw a Hogwarts-themed party in which my friends and I completed fictional assignments while my mom did her best impersonation of Professor Trelawney.)
Now a group of intrepid Harry Potter fans have made my childhood wish come true, creating a website called Hogwarts Is Here, where you can take free, online classes in the same subjects studied by Harry, Ron, and Hermione.
Now a group of intrepid Harry Potter fans have made my childhood wish come true, creating a website called Hogwarts Is Here, where you can take free, online classes in the same subjects studied by Harry, Ron, and Hermione.
The website works as a sort of cross between a MOOC (massive open online course) and an RPG (a role-playing game, like Dungeons & Dragons). You start by creating an account and choosing a house. (No sorting hat here, unfortunately.) I went with Ravenclaw, which seemed fitting for an optional intellectual endeavor. I wasn’t alone in that decision: Ravenclaw is the second most popular house (after Gryffindor, of course) and has the most house points (which you gain by completing assignments).
Once you enroll at the virtual Hogwarts, you can join a dorm, buy books from Flourish and Blotts, and even write for The Daily Owl. Though you might be drawn in by these social trappings, the curriculum itself is surprisingly rigorous. As a first year student, you are expected to complete seven courses: Charms, Potions, Defense Against the Dark Arts, Astronomy, Herbology, History of Magic, and Transfiguration. Every course consists of nine lessons, each of which involves a written introduction, some supplemental reading, and a number of assignments.
The exact nature of the assignments varies, but most of them are essays, and the volunteer instructors seem to take grading very seriously. One assignment for Transfiguration asked for 300 words exploring possible loopholes in one of the exceptions to Gamp’s Law—an expansion on a comment Hermione makes inHarry Potter and the Deathly Hallows about the five things that cannot be created with magic. My essay, which discussed how you might circumvent the law against creating money by transforming less valuable items into more valuable ones, received a C, thus proving wrong the kids who teased me for being such a Hermione.
I will admit, my essay was closer to 200 words than 300, and there may have been a couple of typos. But I read all the material I could find on Gamp’s Law, which involved poking around in a few of the site’s books without any real guidance from the syllabus, and attempted to craft a reasonable argument that touched on all the required issues. Given my apparent failure, you will likely need a lot of creativity and an encyclopedic knowledge of the wizarding world if you hope to pass your NEWTs.
You’ll also have to be patient: Since the website is just starting out, most of the courses and textbooks aren’t yet complete. But it’s growing with impressive speed; since I signed up a week ago, they’ve increased the number of lessons available for each course, uploaded the textbook A History of Magic, and added the ability to review assignments and appeal grade decisions. I’m not sure what will become of this odd hybrid—“This website is NOT endorsed, supported or associated, directly or indirectly, with Warner Bros,” the site announces on its homepage. But here’s hoping it’s allowed to come into its own before it’s shut down by the Ministry of Magic.
