From the desk of Mr. Walters

A Short Rant on why WotC needs to enter the Educational Gamification Space I hate to beat a dead unicorn, but I just wanted to write a short (tumblr-sized, but who uses tumblr anymore?) post about the secondary education gamification space and why Wizards of the Coast should throw their hat in the ring.   A void in the space We all know that the elementary folks have Class Dojo , and until early 2019, the secondary folks had  Classcraft . At what I would consider the height of that service's popularity, they made themselves more elementary-friendly and, as a result, way less relevant in the secondary space . I don't know how they're doing as a company, but no one I know even talks about  Classcraft  anymore. You can read more about the changes  here  and  here . A player that's already in the game... Participation in tabletop cooperative role playing games like D&D has been shown to help us  develop social skills , prime our brains for ...

So, my last post focused on including girls in esports and my willingness to take a hard look at my own mistakes and failings. This post focuses on engaging boys in school through gamification and a company we all love's unwillingness to do the same...  on to glory! The success I decided to roll out Classcraft in all of my classes two years ago, and I have found it to be surprisingly effective. I've shared here in the past how not only do students take the health and experience of their characters very seriously, but they also strive to help their teams and classmates in general. One thing that continually surprised me was how much students crave XP (or experience points). Remember, what I do with Classcraft has had no effect on student grades whatsoever. Yet, I've been able to attach points loss / gain consequences to my behavioral and procedural expectations via XP and HP . While these points don't matter in terms of students' grades, they do matter a grea...

Engaging Middle School students is hard, even in the computer lab. In one of my recent posts, I mourned the loss of several great initiatives and tools that are no longer with us. As I looked over my contributions to the CSK8 (Computer Science K-8) community in this blog recently, I noted that a lot of what I was doing / promoting just two years ago, is completely antiquated now. On a positive note, though, it's 2019, and there are a lot of great new things to be excited about. As long as there are technology producers as well as consumers, computer class will remain very relevant, despite the prevalence of thin devices, such as iPads and ChromeBooks. Let's take a look at 10 things you should be including in your computer class in 2019 and a few honorable mentions for the good of the cause... Classroom Environment Today, I'd like to begin with Danielson's Domain 2, Classroom Environment, because sometimes the atmosphere we work in can profoundly affect the work i...

Back in 2010, when the concept of gamification was new to most of us, I remember trying to add game elements to my classroom. I remember being further inspired to do so my amazing TED talks from Dr. Jane Mcgonigal in 2010 and Gabe Zichermann in 2011. I remember discussing it with others in a group lead by Jeff Mummert . At that time, we felt like we were building gamification experiences out of duct tape and baler twine. Occasionally, we would discover a tool we could “splice” on to our classroom, but more often than not, our IT departments would block that tool almost as soon as we began using it. Most gamers today are a combination of player types. Today, we are blessed to have myriad gamification tools for education available. Some of my favorites are Classcraft , ARIS , and Edmodo’s Badges , but there are a lot more. All of them scratch a specific gamification itch. Some scratch many. None, in my opinion, cover all bases. The Premise I’d like to propose that the most suc...

Recently, I decided to roll out Classcraft in all of my Seventh Grade classes, and I have found it to be surprisingly effective. Not only do students take the health and experience of their characters very seriously, but they also strive to help their teams and classmates in general. One thing that surprised me was how much students crave XP (or experience points). What I do with Classcraft has no effect on student grades whatsoever. Yet, I can attach points loss / gain consequences to my behavioral and procedural expectations via  XP and HP . While these points don't matter in terms of students' grades, they do matter a great deal to students, who are ultimately more concerned with the game than their grade anyway. They get so excited about equipping their avatar with custom stuff, and many of them are becoming XP hungry. There are many students who are serious gamers and are used to being able to " grind " for XP in a game. In the way that I...

Okay, so I don't know Charlotte Danielson , and I cannot seriously make conjecture on her leisure activities, particularly in the realm of video games. With that out of the way, I wanted to explore some of the ways in which the use of simulations, games, gamification and game design relates to and can exemplify the four domains of Danielson's Framework for Teaching and learning . Today, I'd like to begin with Domain 2, Classroom Environment. In future posts on this topic, I plan to explore the other domains. For those of you who are being evaluated using the Danielson framework and who also happen to be doing gamification (with or without Classcraft), feel free to steal liberally from the language in this post for your professional "evidence folder". Gamification, Levelling up my Classroom environment with Classcraft I've been using Classcraft off and on since last year, but I'm just now really starting to get into a groove with this thing. ...

I’ve been blogging here about gamification for years. I’ve read and watched just about everything  Gabe Zichermann  and  Jane McGonigal  have said about human motivation and how games motivate us*. I've spoken at conferences, workshops, and in-service events about gamification. Despite all of that, I have not tried Classcraft until this school year. Classcraft  bills itself as a game-based approach to teaching, but it is basically a gamification tool (see my  Gamification / Game Based Learning / Game Design disambiguation here ). It was designed to encourage participation, good behavior, and collaboration and at first, seemed like the secondary version of Class Dojo. In some ways it is, but it does a lot more. Basically, Classcraft’s goal / premise is to help me manage, motivate and engage my students by transforming my classroom into a role-playing game, which should be right up my alley. Anyone who has spent any time reading my blog knows that I love...