World of Warcraft Goes to School, Part II

I was happy to plug Lucas Gillespie’s WoW in Schools wiki a few weeks ago, designed to offer a collaboration point for lesson materials centered on World of Warcraft. Since then, publicity for the effort has multiplied, and recently WoW staff became interested. They interviewed Gillespie and co- educational conspirator Peggy Sheehy, who helped start a guild aimed at educators, among many other things. (Love the guild’s name: Cognitive Dissonance.)

Some really good info here for teachers interested in starting a program for at risk and/or gifted kids. Typically, Sheehy and Gillespie said, this sort of program begins in an after school environment. Sheehy indicated kids who test at lower reading levels perform higher in a gaming context.

Other items of interest: Both indicated the highest levels of professional decorum must be maintained when playing online with kids, especially after hours. Said Sheehy: “We would not be embarrassed if the school board saw our chats or heard our discourse.”

Another striking tidbit was the enthusiasm of fellow educators. Again, from Sheehy:

I was just standing around the main office in my school one day, talking to my principal who’s a great guy and we have a nice relationship. I turned to him and I said, “Hey, you’re a gamer, aren’t you, Brian?” And he just kinda looked at me and said “Yeahhh … Why?” And I said, “I just leveled up! I just got to level 40 last night in World of Warcraft,” and he just kind of smiled. And then every once in a while, I’d make these comments to him, until one day I said “Level 70,” and he said, ” … you do know that I have like four level 80 ‘toons?”

Then I started hounding him to join the guild — and he did. So now there’s a whole new dynamic, because now when I go into a 10-man raid, the first thing I do is say, “Ok, I gotta make sure that my principal doesn’t die.” Now, when I talk to the kids at school, I’ll have my iPhone out and have Chest open or something and be looking at my armor, and the kids’ll say, “Let’s see Mr. Fox’s armor!” And then I get an e-mail from him saying, “I just had three kids come into the office and tell me I had to get more purples on my Hunter.”

Read the full transcript here.


Tags:

categories Game Discussion, MMORPGs, Serious Games, World of Warcraft | John Rice | datetime July 29, 2009 3:39 pm

3 Comments

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  • By Mike Logan, August 1, 2009 @ 7:43 pm

    Just tagging along here. I gotta say this is pretty cool though. Ok, I gotta make sure that my principal doesn’t die.” lol

  • By Barnes, August 29, 2009 @ 7:01 pm

    do you play wow ? maybe we could join forces :)

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