Did I do this?

Not sure if I did this either?

I'm not sure if I did this or not in my paper. I found it difficult to balance citing and throwing in my own ideas. My professor basically kept telling me to cite every one of my assertions.

This is what we are doing today!

Important to frame the EQ well so that students frame their own questions and inquiry on that.

Oh! That's what an essential question is! I thought it was a LT.

True story!

Hi Mike,

In viewing your affinity space it would seem that to really be an insider one must obtain a certain skill level before being considered a serious part of the community. Though there are sections for newbies and tutorials to help them get started, you stated many times that the majority of spaces on the forums require that a user have more than a base knowledge of the game to participate. Though it was not directly stated by you, this also seemed to be a limitation within the space as it limited your confidence in participating in the space often. I wonder what you would have liked to see more of as a newbie to make you feel welcome?

Despite this, it was nice to see that the community itself was well moderated and provided a safe zone for users to contribute. Your contributions to the space about being a newbie were well received by both the moderators and general users. I really enjoyed you sharing that there was an introduction forum for those who were brand new to the game. Even the fact that there were a group of “teacher” users that wanted to help made the space feel like a welcoming space. A quality attribute for such an involved game. Did you ever get to a place where you felt comfortable being a teacher to someone else in the space?

The three Gee and Hayes features that you shared summed up the space well. Having a common passion, not being segregated by age, and all skill levels can share the space were very evident throughout your walkthrough of the affinity space. You provided snapshots of posts by young and old users and new and experienced users, yet the common thread that weaved thema altogether were their evident passion for the game Terraria.

P.S. I really enjoyed the background music in your presentation. Were those scores from the game?

Hi Melanie,

So glad to see another classmate dive into Reddit, too. Also glad to hear that you had a positive experience with it. The title of your space makes it clear to know who the insiders are - math educators who are also Redditors. Overall your space seems very supportive to all experience levels of math teachers from your personal accounts of your time in the space. It seemed like a safe place to share lesson ideas, ask for help in developing a problem, lesson, or unit, and provide feedback to others seeking information.

At first, I, too, was confused about how a space such as this could help make the connection between games and learning. Your personal revelation helped me to see how a space devoted to math teaching could be considered a part of the game-based learning world. Games don’t necessarily mean educational games. Games can be anything in engaging in the classroom to help certain topics stick. Relating concepts to the outside world makes a game out of the process of learning as students are challenged to use the traits of good learning and gaming to engage with the complex topics.

It seems as though the strengths of your space were tied up within the three features from Gee and Hayes that you mentioned. The fact that your affinity space was not segregated by age allowed all to contribute on equal grounds. You yourself mentioned that you provided advice to another teacher on a topic and it was accepted by the users of the space as they didn’t know your age or teaching status to say otherwise. Everyone could also produce or consume as they wished. Sometimes you need to look at resources, sometimes you need to ask a question, and sometimes you need to provide feedback. All were acceptable in your space and occurred at different times in the space. Also information can be transformed in the space. You cited multiple instances of people using each other’s posts and feedback to modify their instruction or thinking around a task.

Nice job showcasing your space. Do you think you will continue to utilize the space after the conclusion of this project? Did you see any limitations with the space that you would like to change?

What other skills do you think this game has improved as a result of participation?

What kinds of things that you researched made playing this game better for you?

Is this a trait that resonated with your own discussion style?

What was it about the game that pulled you back that other games haven't done in the past?

How did this engage you and your group?

My gaming group and I found this boardgame to get too predictable after a few playthroughs. Because some elements are more valuable than others and individuals can pull too far ahead point-wise to catch up and certain strategies can be repeated consistently to score a win in this way, we found the replayability of this game to be low. What are your thoughts on this after playing through it?

I have found that modifying the rules a bit tends to make 2 player games more interesting. For instance, instead of picking up only one tile every time someone says "peel," you pick up 3. Or adding an additional element to the game like another word command such as "bananas." My mother and I came up with this rule for 2 player games to keep the game interesting. Our rule for "bananas" is that when someone completes a word with a difficult letter (Q,X,Y, or Z), you call out "bananas" and the opposite player must mix up their scrabble board and start again.

I find your use of this word humorous, considering your previous statment about liking to use words others tend not to know.

Why?

Wow, the gaming generation is getting old!

I wonder if this could work with dual monitors as well?

This is actually a feature now? If this were me, I'd be looking for how to tweak the code to turn this feature off. I already clean a ton in real life, no way I'm going to do it in my virtual life :)

Why? I'm just curious.

Maybe this is the point of having so few options provided in game. Maxis, by now, probably realizes they have such a large fan-base filled with creators and designers that they figure they don't have to do all the heavy lifting. It also leaves these indy designers some freedom to try new things and stay invested in the game beyond what the original creators provided.

Is this also a reflection of your own personal interests or was this trait something designed specifically for this fictional character?

Have you continued playing the game beyond this one instance? If so, what are your thoughts now?

Is this perhaps the point of this particular game? With as juvenile as the app image seems, it makes sense in my mind that this would be a game more for younger people to just play.

The image for this app looks so uninviting to me. I consider myself to be a more serious gamer - choosing things that have depth in story, at least 30 hours of gameplay, problem-solving, etc. These types of apps look more kiddish and generic to me when I see these type sof images. Kudos to you for having an open mind and giving it a try, because I don't think I would have.

What do you mean by this? This game came up on my recomendations list on Amazon lately and I am curious how some of these mechanics work :)

Was there any interaction between player's trees. For instance, overlapping of your tree with another or having to stay away from another's tree?

Do you view this as a flaw in the game instructions?

What was the tone of the conversation like when you engaged in these discussions? Were there times that you had to create your own "house rules" because the instructions were too vague?

Which one did you choose? Do you think this is a reflection of your personality, personal taste in home location, play style, or something else?

What made you want to create a character that resembled you? I remember that when I played this game I had two ways of creating characters. One way was to create myself exactly (or as close as I could) the way that I looked in real life without alterations and the other was to create characters that I made up and had no connection to my reality. The first way of playing allowed me to live out scenarios that may not ever get to happen to me in real life and the second way was to just have fun and create and live out a fictional story.

Do you think that practice alone will help you improve your strategy in this game? How could collaborative learning play into your increased understanding of the game?

I enjoy these types of games a lot, because even though you may not be winning the war, you still have the ability to win smaller battles. These smaller victories make me feel like I experienced some kind of victory despite not winning overall which keeps me coming back to the game again.

In games like this, I tend to exploit certain strategies repeatedly within the same game or over the course of several games in order to gain advantages over my opponent. Do you ever fall into similar traps with your thinking in these freer games?

Could this be intentional? Providing opportunities for exploration so that the user doesn't feel like they're just going through the motions when they're ready to start a mission?

What is it about the gaming environment that is keeping you playing the game while simultaneously wanting to up the challenge?

This brings me back to something I read in our readings this week about in school education decontextualizing skills and information for students. Instead of integrating skills as they are needed and going to be useful, skills are taught linearly and then applied at the end. Your example emphasizes this for me, as the manual wasn't very helpful until after getting your feet wet with the game and figuring out what it was that you needed to know from the manual.

So violent video games do the opposite of what video game attackers think - at least when they're played together or cooperatively that is.

This describes me in every game I've ever played! Yes, I get stressed, angry, and annoyed when I can't figure something out in a game. But...I am motivated to continue now or at a later time. Why? Because I have succeeded in the game before and I know I can again. It is a psychological fake-in (opposite a fake-out).

My principal talks about this ALL THE TIME! Growth mindset!

Fixed mindset versus growth mindset.

This is the gist of this entire page. Video games enhance or encourage these traits in children and most of these are transferable to real-world situations.

Tags

That's a lot of gaming! What are they classifying as video games?