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Introducing gamification to the middle school libraryKevin St JeanLSC 53007/25/2015 Like many modern parents, my introduction to Mojang’s Minecraft came as the result of a disagreement over screen time with one of my children. I recall my surprise when I learned this game with the simple graphics was so popular across so many demographics. According to , over 20,299,244 copies of the game have been sold as of July 2015. The game is available on a variety of platforms including Windows and Mac computers, video game consoles, tablets and phones. During the course of my student teaching I became aware of the educational aspects of the game. My cooperating teacher informed me she was thinking about starting a Minecraft club at the high school. Initially, I was surprised by the suggestion as I assumed the game was only popular among younger kids. However, as we explored Minecraft and I began to discover the game’s universal appeal. Simply placing some Minecraft books on the circulation counter was enough to uncover several new fans each day. Unfortunately, my student teaching experience ended before the club was started. However, the experience left me with the desire to learn more about the educational uses of Minecraft.To the uninitiated, the game is best described a 3D virtual Lego world. Players roam a virtual world made of blocks. These blocks can be used to build anything from small items such as tools to large scale replicas of cities. Players can customize the game by choosing to play game in either survival or creative mode. Survival mode contains some of the typical threats, (i.e. monsters), we expect in most video games which can end the player’s virtual life. Conversely, creative mode allows players to peacefully build and create uninhibited. Minecraft provides an option where players can host a server, or virtual world, where they can play the game in multi-player mode. Players can interact, via chat, and choose to either work together or to be adversaries. Minecraft players coined their own term, “griefing”, to describe when players destroy another’s creations in the multi-player game. The sheer popularity and creative nature of Minecraft encourages transliteracy of its fans. To expand their knowledge, players can search Wikis, blogs, Machinima, YouTube videos and assorted social media created by other players. The media created for and by players can serve as entertainment, D-I-Y tutorials, and other game-related messages which connect the global village of fans. Rhode Islander, Sean Fay Wolfe, a soon-to-be High School Graduate, recently signed a book deal with HarperCollins Publishing for his Minecraft-based book series "The Elementia Chronicles" (LaRoche, 2015). Minecraft has found its way into toys, clothing and ironically into Lego sets. Now that it’s in the past, I fondly recall my frantic search to locate the Minecraft Lego set, at a reasonable premium, in time for Christmas 2013. One of the unique features of Minecraft is the open-ended nature of the game. Minecraft players are actively involved in creating the story as opposed to merely participating in someone else’s story, as is the case with most video games. Furthermore, according to Maria Cipollene (as cited in Gallagher 2015), Minecraft is an open operating system. The open format of Minecraft makes it particularly well-suited to gamification. Common Sense Media (2015), defines gamification as “Using game design principles and mechanics to drive motivation and increase engagement in learning.” The sheer popularity of Minecraft demonstrates its prowess as a motivator. The open-ended nature of the game allows the educator to embed lessons as part of the “game”. Minecraft based lessons require students interact in both virtual and physical worlds. Due to their knowledge of the game, students often have the opportunity to serve as in-house experts and learn by teaching themselves and each other. Cipollone et al. (2014), published a case study where she worked with a math teacher on a Minecraft lesson embedded with area and proportion. The students were assigned to build scale model replicas of local and international monuments. The projects ranged from the Great Pyramid of Giza to a local park. In a Minecraft MineChat Episode (Gallagher, 2015), Cipollone details how the lesson engaged students and required to work together in both the physical and virtual worlds. The study serves as a great example of the trial and error involved in building scale models in the virtual world.PlanThe initial step in the implementation plan is to meet with the various stakeholders. The school administration, students and parent groups should be consulted. The goal of the meetings would be to educate and inform about the purpose of the project. All parties should understand that Minecraft is medium or tool for the educator to embed learning. These meetings would allow the librarian to gauge interest, explain the goals and answer questions about the Minecraft club. The IT specialist or department is also a key player in implementing the plan and evaluating the technological resources available to the library. In addition to identifying potential technology issues they could also become an ally to implementing the program. The final stakeholder to consult would be the public library. Many public libraries have Minecraft clubs or programming. Consulting the public library in the early stages could result in collaboration or consultation between the programs. Our integration of Minecraft is part of a two year initiative. The initial goal is to create an afterschool Minecraft club at a middle school. The educational goal of the club is to promote digital citizenship and technological literacy. The creation of the club will assist the librarian in identifying students with high-interest in Minecraft. This core group could be tapped for peer instruction, pre-building of lessons, and to serve as a focus group to test lessons. Once the club is established and the technological growing pains are mitigated the librarian can shift focus onto identifying teachers to collaborate on lessons. The proposed Minecraft club allows the librarian to exemplify the role as a technology leader by using a creative and highly motivating format to teach students about digital citizenship. Also, Minecraft is well suited for math and Science lessons which could provide the school librarian the opportunity to collaborate in areas other than ELA.The time line for the program is to meet with all of the stakeholders and evaluate the available resources by the end of the first quarter of the school year. Once we have secured the finances and authorization to continue our initiative we will measure our success by the following goals:Year 1: The Minecraft club will meet twice weekly and have all 30 slots filled.Year 2: The library media specialist will collaborate with at least one teacher from each grade on a lesson integrating Minecraft. BudgetThe minimum cost to implement a Minecraft club is a one-time fee of $581.00 for 30 student licenses. Each license is $18.00 and there is a one-time server license fee of $41.00. This option requires a dedicated computer in the classroom to act as the classroom server. For the less-tech savvy user, Minecraftedu recently added a hosted server option ($240.00 per year). The total cost for the proposed program is $821.00 for year one and $240 each year after. Sample Lessons- Digital Citizenship The multi-player environment of Minecraft is well-suited to teaching lessons on digital citizenship. Minecraft is about constructing and problem solving in a networked social world. Success is based on problem solving and cooperation. Learning by trial and error is the norm. Early in my son’s Minecraft career, he enjoyed playing Minecraft on a server with several classmates. One day, I noticed he had not been playing for several days. Upon inquiry, he reluctantly informed me that he had been banned from the server for griefing, (destroying another player’s creation). I found it was fascinating that this group of middle school had created their own system for regulating behavior on the server, complete with rules, penalties and appeals process. Although it’s possible for students to come to an understanding of digital citizenship in a multiplayer network, often modeling and intervention from an educator are required. Minecraftedu has controls for the educator, ranging from chat moderation and monitoring, to assigning plots and different privileges to players to minimize griefing. The Minecraftedu controls provide a simulation of an open-internet environment to explore digital citizenship issues within the control of the closed server and school environment. School librarian Valerie Hill (2015) recently published a case study detailing her use of Minecraft to teach digital citizenship. Hill tasked her 8th grade Minecraft club with creating a game to teach digital citizenship to 5th graders. Her students created a game where players could explore a landscape and eventually encounter questions which required a correct answer to proceed. Creative lessons such as this combine multiple new literacies (ex. computer, digital, information). Creating Visualizations and Digital Storytelling Students can use Minecraft for digital storytelling or to recreate various settings from a text. Students can and recreate significant scenes and plot events to further their understanding of a book. They could also use these recreations to give a presentation or make predictions on what might happen next, and then physically create those predictions in Minecraft. Teachers can have students create a world from scratch or import a pre-build world. Minecraftedu has launched a website for teachers containing a searchable database of pre-build worlds. The pre-build worlds can be downloaded by the educator and come with lesson suggestions. Programming The open operating system of Minecraft allows the savvy player to download “mods” or modifications to the game. These downloadable options alter the game by changing various features or the appearance of the game. The use of “mods” can be used to teach students about computer programming. Compercraftedu is a modification which enables students the ability to create and program robotic turtles in Minecraftedu. Students use either a visual editor or a written code editor to program the appearance and the movement of the turtles in the game. Works citedCipollone, M., Schifter, C. C., & Moffat, R. A. (2014). Minecraft as a Creative Tool:. International Journal of Game-Based Learning, 4(2), 1-14. doi:10.4018/ijgbl.2014040101ComputerCraftEdu. (n.d.). Retrieved July 24, 2015, from Glossary | Common Sense Media. (n.d.). Retrieved July 25, 2015, from , C. (2014, January 1). Minecraft Minechat Episode 20: Maria Cipollone & Rick Moffat. Retrieved from , V. (2015). Digital citizenship through game design in Minecraft. New Library World, 116(7/8), 369-382. doi:10.1108/nlw-09-2014-0112LaRoche, T. (2015, July 25). South Kingstown teen crafts fan fiction — and a 3-book deal. Retrieved from . (n.d.). Retrieved July 26, 2015, from World Library. (n.d.). Retrieved July 22, 2015, from ................
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