Melanie,

Thanks for sharing. I chose a teacher specific affinity space as well and it was a bust. I now have a new direction to go in and will definitely be checking out Reddit as a resource for teachers. It was great to see that the members involved subscribed to the idea that teachers help teachers. Based on your interactions and commentary it looked like a great nurturing and supportive learning space. Your initial interaction was interesting in that you began participating by starting your own thread and then transitioned into responding and helping others with their queries. It makes perfect sense in this community, but seemed opposite compared to how many people began their interactions. Your correlations back to Gee and Hayes were interesting and focused on equality among members, production and consumption, and the way content was transformed. It’s great you found a site that you were able to apply directly and immediately to your profession. Great job!

Benjamin, nice use of Prezi for your presentation. It’s a great tool and perfect for this type of presentation. Your chosen AS contains a variety of resources, but revolves around a web based forum with a focus on deck design. For the most part, it seemed that the community was constructive and adhered to the idea of a nurturing affinity space.

Your participation in the site was diverse and explored different areas. The primary focus was deck building, but you also explored the spoiler section as well as the market area. This diversity in content and ability to interact with members on a real world level were strengths of the site. The opportunity for more real world communication on topics such as pricing and trading were interesting characteristics that a lot of sites don’t provide.

In addition to coinciding with several affinity space elements taken from Gee and Hayes, the connection revolving around Games and Learning that was emphasized was the venue and opportunity to share both tacit and explicit knowledge through the site’s various venues.

Thanks for sharing!

Mike, great job breaking down your affinity space and sharing your experience. I thought it was interesting that the expectation was to come to the table with a certain amount of experience/knowledge about the game prior to really getting involved. From your observations, the site is friendly and helpful, but it does function typically at a higher level. Due to your recent immersion into Terraria, much of your participation in the site was as a consumer. The strengths of the site include the credibility, as it is moderated by the game developers and is therefore an extension of the game. It is also a safe space with clearly mandated expectations for conduct. Three elements that relate back to Gee and Hayes are a shared passion, a shared space regardless of age, and a space where all members are equal. Thanks for sharing!

Good to hear that tutorials are still a constant even for new age technology.

It sounds like there is unlimited potential for this kind of technology across all content areas: sport simulations for PE, visting historical sites for World History, VR science labs, etc.

Sounds like an incredible experience. I'm curious in what capacity you can share the art. Do you need to have the VR set up to view someone's project?

I'm curious if there is a political agenda incorporated into these types of games.

This sounds a lot like the various Sims games. Perhaps Sim Protest is just over the horizon.

This is a new twist on video games that I haven't seen/heard of before.

Are there any real world lessons that can be gained from playing RCT?

Agreed! Roller coaster capital of the world! Might be biased though as I'm from Columbus.

I would be curious to learn more about the social interactions between colleagues and the roles assumed during the game. Did one person assume lead and expect everyone to follow or was it more democratic? My only experience with these types of games has been with friends and family where people assume congenial roles of equality.

Awesome choice, both for the lessons that can be learned about social interaction and their rising popularity.

I did one of these with my in-laws...random people might have been better :)

This is a very important skill as everyone at some point will need help, no matter how smart or advanced they are. Learning this early on in life can help a person avoid serious frustration later down the road.

Not being a serious gamer myself, I too find the myriad of tasks and challenges to be overwhelming in many games. So much so, that I often go back to my Nintendo NES when I need a good video game fix.

Sounds like a great addition to the introduction as it provides a give and take learning process as opposed to a predetermined tutorial.