I loved the WoW presentation! It really brought everything full circle. I feel like we've been only scratching the surface with WoW, questing and leveling up and not really connecting it to education. Yes, we touched the obvious ones, economics and writing about it, but the presentation brought in the social skills aspect. I was especially intrigued about the management style portion. The fact that you could use it as a workplace social area and for mentorship is really a great idea. I would disagree on one thing, however. I don't think it would be easy to get grants, I think it would be extremely difficult. I don't think anything but an economics class would be able to. The fact that the reading level is at 7th grade, and that the game is based on violence and adult themes are a terrible combination. For older students that would arguably be able to handle the violence, the world is not mature enough to be challenging for them socially, arguably, and where it would be socially appropriate, the violence would be too high. All in all I thought it was great presentation, obviously well rehearsed by good speakers, and it covered a broad range of topics.
I recorded the event for everyone to see, sorry the beginning was a little cut off, my trial was expired for the program I planned to use so I had to rush to download a new one. About a minute of the beginning was cut.
Here you go: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xGMIHNdXJtU&feature=youtube_gdata
I agree, the presenters did a wonderful job. I also felt that it was good closure to our WoW experience, and I learned about more uses that we had not discussed previously.
ReplyDeleteThroughout our time playing WoW, I've also wondered if any schools would actually approve of its use and devote money to its implementation. I see that some schools do, but I can't think of one school I've worked in that would overlook the violence of the game. The advocate and grant writer would need to be very convincing.