Day 3 Game Journal

I had little information about the game before I began playing the game. All I figured that the game was about was war in some sort from the name and what some of the characters looked like from the commercials. Some of the primary tasks for the game is to select a realm, explore the lands, running around and fighting all sorts of monsters, completing missions or quests, or to interact and talk with the computer and other players all in a third person setting. I spend most of my time running around trying to kill random monsters that are walking around the level. The tasks that the game gives you arent that tough so far and they actually make me engage more in the game instead of just running around just looking for things. I have only done maybe two task and it was by myself and not against any other players. My personality has nothing to do with the way I play or approach the game.

gaming school

I think that games should be a part of school. They interact with students and give them a task in which to accomplish. Sure not every game is great but it does get kids attention. I came froma small school where we ahd to share books sometimes. And the old way of riting on the chalkboard needs to be weeded out! Kids do not pay attention! Why should they when their phone does more to engage them than there teachers are that are paid tax dollars do. Gaming helps with hand eye coordination, thinking skills and it can be on a personal level instead of having kids competing. There can also be self esteem issues. School games can promote self esteem because the kids are more interested so they are more engaged and want to succeed. I find it to be a positive experence and think that as the funding becomes available it should be more widely used.

Day two Game Journal

The geographical world for World of Warcraft is huge. It might be the biggest world that I have played on for an online game. I didn't know where I was going half of the time I would just be running around the map trying to kill these birds or these prairie dogs and usually got killed by the dogs. I'm not sure where the map represents but it looks realistic with hills, trees, and mountains. The tone/mood for the game is pretty violent but the game is pretty cool. I am thinking about maybe buying the game just to explore and do things that I am sure you cant do in the free trial version. The music in the game represents action. It is like suspense music in movies. Yes the music enhances the game because it draws you into the game and makes you think about what is going to happen next in the game. You can interact with the game world a lot but I haven't really interacted with other people yet but I see that there is a message bar and a chat bar that maybe allows you to interact with other players. I definately don't feel at home in this game world because I never really play games like this ever so I feel kind of an outsider and it is alright because it still hasn't effected my experience so far with the game.

The Hero's Journey

Joseph Campbell popularized the subject of mythology with the PBS series The Power of Myth. The video you watched was the first in the series of films which explored mythology and it's meaning on our lives today. The Hero's Journey or the Monomyth is the form that Campbell came up with to explain hero stories from cultures worldwide.

If you take my course in Mythology we spend at least a month on hero stories because, whether we realize it or not they occupy an enormous part of our imagination and our literary culture. From the ancient Greeks to modern Hollywood films, the monomyth gives us a way of connecting the mundane to the spiritual.

Essentially the hero cycle is about passing into a new realm of experience in order to discover more about yourself an your world and then returning to your normal life with this new found experience/knowledge/gift to put it to use.

Modern video games really make use of this model to a great extent, complete with spiritual advisers and all. In fact the premise of many online games follows exactly the cycle given us by Campbell.

Usually thee is a bad guy who changes the balance of the world from creativity and productivity to desolation and sterility. Inmost games the player figures as the hero with humble origins who must leave his/her home full of comfort to travel into the unknown in order to restore he balance of powers to the world/town/universe.

My hope is that in contemplating Campbell's ideas regarding the monomyth that you may connect the mundane world of gaming to that of the spiritual adventure. While i won't assert that gaming is good for your soul, it can be a cathartic experience helping us to relieve tension, relax and channel our daily frustration in a positive way through engaging in quest.

All of us need to put ourselves in uncomfortable situations in order to discover things about our selves. For some of you the past few days may have amounted to as much as you introduced your selves to the world of online gaming. Part of this course, since it is humanities, is learning about yourself to some degree. While most of our reading and assignments deal with things outside of ourselves it is important to track our own reactions to our experiences as well. I hope this course helps you learn something about your self even if it is that you don't like online games. At least you can make a decision based on experience and sound reasoning instead of prejudice and ignorance. (not implying that you are either of those)

With that i give you Fridays reading assignment: Anthropologist Digs into WOW
and

Fear and Humiliation as Teaching Methods

Skool Daze

When i was a kid i never saw the point in doing my homework. I was too busy running around with my friends to spend any time as boring as math. While i did read quite a lot in my free time, school was completely separated from the world i knew and lived in. I got on the bus every morning and was transported to a world of boredom, and when i hit puberty awkwardness. Much of modern educational theory focuses on engaging students in activities that challenge their minds but engage their interest. You can't make in education, outside of Florida or Texas, without really working to be creative about student learning.

Personally i had never thought of video games as potential tools for learning but when presented with the information in the article we read for today in addition to some of the lesson plans from the WOWinSchool website i must concede that it shows promise.

Comedians know that a good joke depends on the context in which it is told. The situation is everything. Writers also know that what is appropriate for one audience will not be appropriate for another. Clearly video games have contextual value to teach and entertain depending on the context in which they are presented and used.

Any good lesson includes specific objectives. Take a look at the math lesson objectives and you find standards and objectives with a clear purpose. DPS is a common statistic that people use as part of almost any online game environment to compare the value of different weapons or items. The question of how DPS is calculated will eventually occur to anyone who plays these games long enough. A good lesson will satisfy that curiosity.

How much should you use these tools? It is clear that these tools cannot be overused. I can see this as a laboratory type activity that might run once a week over the entire school year.

Inevitably the questions of violence comes up in any discussion of video games and it may be made more poignant by their use in a classroom setting. Research shows that young kids and teenagers can differentiate between real and imagined violence and that playing games that include fighting does not lead to further violence. While this question continues to rage around the subject, it has a history of being used as a political tool to incite voter rage in rampant censorship of media which threatens our ability to make informed decisions.

While the censorship debate is a topic for another day it is a part of the bigger issue regarding stereotypes of game players and the culture which is slowly being debunked.

For tomorrow please review the video on the front page regarding the Hero's Journey and we'll discuss it in tomorrows forum post.

ethics/gaming

I believe that playing online games can create ethic communities. When people are online playing a game they don't criticize one another about how they look, or who they are. It's not about if you are popular, or wearing the right clothes. You see and play with one another, and help each other out. You play the same game, and you are willing to help others, and they help you. You get to see and understand a little better how gaming can be a little different than school life or other places.

Ethical Communities

With any type of community there will be those who behave in a manner that is not ethical. I believe that online communities do have a ethical basis, but that it's up to the members of the community to conduct themselves in that manner. I think that the same applies to "real" life as well. I think that you see benevolence in many cases online as you don't necessarily know the people who are benefiting from the service. I recently read an article that stated we are much more likely to offer $5.00 to a homeless person than we would be to our neighbors. The reasoning behind this we that we would be offending our neighbors on a personal level that we do not have that fear of offending the homeless person whom we probably will never see again.



In our reading the Ethics are pretty cut and dry so that everyone understands the "rules" to abide by. I think that this is similar to "real" life as well. I think that a major difference would be that in the "real" world we have a checks and balance that i think it would be difficult to have online. In the "real" world we have a penal code and law enforcement officials. In a sense I think it would be more difficult online to have the same sort of "law enforcement."