VSTE

Virginia Society for Technology in Education

Blog

VSTE Voices: Minecraft and Media Literacy

by

MInecraft and Media Literacy Header

VE PLN Member Beth O'Connell describes a Minecraft lesson plan she developed and taught around the concept of media literacy.

Cross Posted from Beth's blog

I’ve been working on getting Minecraft into our school for about a year now, ever since I discovered for myself how (surprisingly) immersive and thought-provoking it can be. When our school system got a grant for a school calendar study which resulted in a twice-yearly Intersession week between quarters, the opportunity arose. I used Knowclue Kidd’s (Marianne Malmstrom) idea for real estate ads in Minecraft to teach some media literacy concepts. The kids had a blast playing, and even learned a little about how advertising techniques are used.

Once the new calendar was approved, the teachers and staff members were given one hour to come up with a plan for their intersession class. Each of us would be teaching a half-day class for five days. We had to provide fun activities that linked to our state standards. In just that short period of time, we came up with some amazing ideas! This was my submission:

—————————————————————————————————

Intersession Title: Minecraft and Media Literacy

Grade Level: 7

Content(s) and Standard(s):

7.3 The student will understand the elements of media literacy. a) Identify persuasive/informative techniques used in nonprint media including television, radio, video, and Internet. b) Distinguish between fact and opinion, and between evidence and inference. c) Describe how word choice and visual images convey a viewpoint. d) Compare and contrast the techniques in auditory, visual, and written media messages. e) Craft and publish audience-specific media messages

Brief Description:

After learning about persuasive techniques in the media, students will build a house in Minecraft and create a video advertisement with machinima.

Are you tired of being manipulated by advertisers? Learn their tactics! Students will build a house in Minecraft and market it with a machinima real estate ad.

Detailed List of Materials Needed:

  • MinecraftEdu server and 25-30 licences (https://minecraftedu.com/purchase)

—————————————————————————————————

Getting MinecraftEdu installed and working felt like swimming upstream against a strong current. Our IT department was very willing and supportive, but had a lot of competing demands on their time. Eventually we hope to have MinecraftEdu hosted on a district server, but for this project I ran the server on my school-issued laptop. We used a 30-workstation computer lab, which I spent several hours configuring so the server IP address was already added when the students started the software. (The IT department set a fixed IP address for my laptop.)

We’re using the Canvas LMS (learning management system) this year in our district, so I spent some time creating a course with assignments and resources for this class. My class was scheduled for the last half of the school day, so I spent each morning getting ready for the class. For the first session, the students wrote a bulletin board post introducing themselves, and took a Minecraft Experience survey (created with Google Forms). At the beginning of the 3rd, 4th, and 5th days, they wrote a guided reflection piece, and they took another survey at the end of the class. Nothing was graded, but most of the students did a good job completing the assignments (despite some grumbling about having to wait to play.)

MInecraft and Media Literacy Canvas

We jumped right in at the beginning of the first day doing the MinecraftEdu Orientation. This build offers a lot for all levels, getting the completely inexperienced users started, and providing puzzles for the experienced players to figure out. The students were required to use their own real names, with no gamertags or numbers.

MinecraftEdu Orientation

After we played for an hour or so, I stopped them and had them log in to Canvas to do the survey and introduction. I started talking about media literacy by saying: “You’re being tricked! Every day, advertisers try to trick you into spending your money, or getting your parents to spend theirs. Have you noticed how this can happen? How do you feel about this?” The students seemed really unaware of this, in spite of the vast amount of media exposure that most kids have.

The next day I played some real estate ads that I found on YouTube (available on this playlist https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLSn_3qRXdgj1DKid15BFNrHVqfSsFxaWp), asking them to look at some elements of video media  (lighting, editing, sound, language used, what is featured, camera shots). We talked about features of houses, and generated lists of essential, advantageous, and luxury features that they might want to include. I played Knowclue’s machinima of her students’ Minecraft real estate ads to show what we were aiming for. Here’s what Knowclue said via email about her class’s process:

—————————————————————————————————

> I gave my 5th graders 3 class periods to build any single dwelling house they wanted on a single account. Since we are a 1:1 school I allowed kids to use mods as well if they had them on their personal computer. Didn’t feel that piece mattered for this project.
> We spent one class period looking at array of real estate commercials from our town that I had preselected. The commercials represented a range of house types from apartments to higher end homes. Before we watched the commercials we did a quick brainstorm to populate 3 categories:
> What is essential? (bathroom, kitchen, etc)
> What is an advantage? (garage, en suite bathrooms, etc)
> What would be a luxury? (theater, tennis courts, etc)
> Kids generate the list pretty quickly and we use it for a reference when we watch the videos.
> I asked the kids to watch each commercial carefully to identify the language used, the camera shots and what is featured.
> It’s a blast to dissect each commercial – kids pick this up really quickly, without much prompting. They LOVE identifying on the conventions to “sell” – I gave them very little instruction, mostly just prepared to ask questions. Sometimes I would ask them to identify what kinds of word/phrases they used and after kids generated the list, we would rematch the commercial. It’s a really fun class and you can get through quite a few examples after you generate the list of needs to luxury.
> I give them one class to construct the commercials for their house. I let them choose to use video or pictures, most choose pictures as that is pretty much represents the commercials they saw.
> 5 classes – pretty straight forward. Just so you know the 6th grade ran a simultaneous challenge on OpenSim. I met with 6th grade twice a week and gave them 6 periods to build since the learning curve was steeper.

—————————————————————————————————

I had set up a random world in Creative mode for them to use. They were to explore, find somewhere to build, and give me the coordinates. Some students finished their houses that day, while others were still exploring at the end of class. Several students asked if they could work with a partner, and I encouraged this. I was pleased to see some new alliances developing by the end of the week, between students who didn’t know each other previously.

Minecraft Collaboration

The students did reflections at the beginning of each class after that. The next day I showed them how to take screenshots in Minecraft, how to find their screenshots and transfer them to their storage drives, and how to make a machinima with their screenshots in Moviemaker. They followed the directions with varying degrees of completion. I was learning along with them, staying one step ahead.

We did have some trouble with griefing. A few players flew around to other people’s houses throwing eggs, which then hatched into a plague of chickens. A few people’s houses were partially destroyed, and the perpetrators would not come forward. However, the worst destruction was my fault–on the last day I accidentally saved the world as the previous day’s work, losing all of the building they had done that day. ARRGGHH!! The class as a whole was very willing to help each other out. The responses I got from the end-of-course survey showed that the students really enjoyed the class and thought it went well.

I’m not sure how much the students really learned about media literacy. At least now they’re aware that it’s a thing, and that advertisers use techniques to get them and their parents to spend money. We’re having another Intersession in the spring, and I’m thinking of focusing on civics and developing a community. We had trouble with Moviemaker: although the students saved their files, I couldn’t open them up to show them to the class, so we couldn’t do the sharing at the end. Instead, I opened the world in Survival mode (no PvP) so they could play. That was really satisfying, and the inexperienced players had a chance to try it out.

I learned a lot from teaching this course, and getting to know the students better. I would say that they all were successful–they have a new awareness of media, they developed problem-solving abilities, relationships and coping strategies, and they had a great time playing together. The end-of-course survey showed an overwhelmingly positive response. I’m looking forward to working with our students in Minecraft again.

Learning Together at the VSTE Conference

by

Attending the VSTE Conference is a great learning experience.

Attending with a team from your school or district can make that experience even better.

VSTE member Margaret Sisler came to the 2016 Conference in Virginia Beach with more than fifty of her colleagues and reflected on those three days in this post from last December.

Learning Together

Last week each school in our pyramid sent a team of educators (a mix of admin, teachers, tech coaches, and tech specialists) to the Virginia Society for Technology in Education (VSTE) annual conference.  This is our state conference, attended by over 1200 educators from all parts and regions of our state.  Presenters are educators, administrators, tech coaches, vendors and cover so many topics I couldn’t even list them all here!

I’ve been to VSTE many times and serve on the Outreach Committee.  I usually attend on my own and present a session or two.  Attending with a team was both awesome and sooo different than what I was used to!

Divide & Conquer: When I’ve attended on my own (or with a friend or two from another school), I’m usually very conflicted about what sessions to attend.  I was presenting 4 times this year, so that meant 4 sessions that I couldn’t attend and there were so many great offerings!  When there was a session I was super interested in, I asked if someone on my team could present.  It was incredible to work together this way because it meant we learned and gathered the resources from all of the sessions that anyone on our team attended.  We used a note-taking template that I got from my #TOSAchat friends.  I made a copy of the template for our team and we all added our notes to the template as we went.  My team took notes on one google slide deck.  Other teams from our pyramid took notes collaboratively in google as well and we all shared those notes.

Relationship Building: Being together with teachers, admin, tech coaches and tech specialists from my school and these 9 other schools allowed us to relax and really get to know each other and build connections.  THIS is what going to these conferences does for me.  I’ve now got this huge network of people that I can reach out to.  I KNOW that I don’t have the answers to every question, but I bet someone in this group does!!   We were also able to connect with folks from around the state who are deep in the work we are all doing.  It’s so interesting to hear this wider perspective.  We often get bogged down by the district way of doing it and this helps us to open that up view of things!

Read the rest of the post on Margaret's site, Edutechnically Speaking. VSTE thanks her for allowing us to share her experience with our members.

Margaret is an Instructional Technology Coach in Chantilly, Virginia.  She works in a large high school with over 3000 students and is passionate about building relationships with staff and students, engagement, Google Apps for Education and innovative teaching ideas! She is a former elementary teacher and has been a Tech Coach in both Elementary and High Schools. In addition to her blog, Margaret frequently shares her thoughts on Twitter: @TechyMargaret.

Registration for the 2017 VSTE Conference, December 3 - 5 in Roanoke, is filling fast. Plan now to join us.

If you write about learning and technology on your blog, related to the Conference or not, and would like to share one of your posts here at VSTE.org, we would love to hear from you.  Send us the link and your email address, and we will get back to you very quickly.

Playing in the Halls at the VSTE Conference

by

Most education conferences have a typical structure, with one or two keynote talks for all attendees and the bulk of the time devoted to hour long lecture/demo sessions of varying sizes. Tech education conferences also feature longer, hands-on sessions.

At the VSTE Conference, we've been trying to shake up that model to encourage our members to interact with each other throughout the three days.


In the past few years we have been setting activities out in the halls, inviting people to stop, participate, ask questions and play. Like playing with robots or making collaborative music. Stay as long as you like with no set time commitment.

At this year's conference in Roanoke, we are planning two areas in the conference hall for these kinds of informal, interactive activities. Look for them in the program, or just stop by and join the learning.

In addition, we will be adding something new in the form of mini-unconferences. In the style of an edcamp, these will be sessions where the topics will be decided by you and the format is about conversation, rather than presentation.

All of this and much, much more will be packed into three days of great learning and collaboration at the Hotel Roanoke, December 3 - 5. Registration is now open, and it includes options for one or two days if you are unable to join us for the full conference.

We look forward to seeing you at VSTE 2017!

 

VSTE Keynote and Spotlight Speakers

by

For the annual conference, we try to bring our members some of the most significant and influential voices in educational change. During the Sunday spotlight at VSTE 2016, we heard from Jaimie Casap, Google's Global Education Evangelist.

In his engaging and challenging talk, Jaimie discusses how our students will need to address global problems that we haven't even defined yet, and what we can do to help them learn the necessary skills to solve them.

Here is the video if you missed his talk, or if you would like to watch it again.

For VSTE 2017, our spotlight speaker will be Eric Sheninger, a Senior Fellow and Thought Leader on Digital Leadership with the International Center for Leadership in Education (ICLE). His work focuses on leading and learning in the digital age as a model for moving schools and districts forward. Sheninger is the author of the best selling book Digital Leadership.

At our Sunday spotlight we will hear from VSTE member Kim Wilkens, the founder of Tech-Girls, an organization with the mission of empowering girls to imagine and achieve their future in our tech-savvy world. Kim is the K-8 Computer Science Initiative Coordinator at St. Anne’s-Belfield School in Charlottesville.

Registration for VSTE 2017 is now open. Super Early Bird rates end soon, so make plans now to join us at the Hotel Roanoke, December 3-5.

One more reminder: the call for conference proposals closes in a little over a week, on September 15. Consider applying to be part of the conference.

We Need Your Session for VSTE 2017!

by

Our annual conference is just a little over three months away, and anyone who has attended this event in past years can tell you to expect three packed days of learning, interaction, and fun. But that experience doesn’t happen by itself and the conference committee is now gearing up to put all the arrangements in place.

Makey Makey MusicHowever, what really makes a great conference is not noted keynote speakers (although we do have them) or a big vendor floor (also part of VSTE) or parties (are you ready for some karaoke?). No, a great conference is due to educators like you.

Teachers, librarians, TRTs, and other talented people who are willing to share their experience and knowledge with the larger VSTE community. The vast majority of VSTE sessions feature educators from all over Virginia who are working to improve the use of technology in our classrooms. They are largely responsible for making sure everyone leaves the conference with heads full of great ideas and renewed energy to help students become superpowered learners.

All which means we need you to submit a proposal to present at the conference. Yes, you!

No matter how long you’ve been an educator, you have experiences that can benefit your colleagues. Maybe it's a project or activity that makes great use of tablets. Or a new approach to using Google Drive. Or a new approach to creating a maker space that students flock to.

Don’t assume what you’re doing is old news, that everyone already knows about it. Your special expertise could help other VSTE members become better educators, and in turn, benefit their students. And don’t be afraid to consider creating a presentation out of that far-out idea you have in the back of your head. You may just find a like-minded community to help you expand even farther out!

So, how do you submit a session proposal for the VSTE conference? It’s easy.

First, decide whether your presentation will be a traditional one-hour lecture/demonstration or a two-hour fifteen minute BYOD hands-on session.

Then sit down and write an outline, maybe working with a colleague who will be your co-presenter.

Define the important parts of your presentation. Just as you would for a student lesson or activity, be clear about what you want your audience to know and be able to do when you finish.

Finally, write a good title and description for the program. One that will both tell readers what they will learn and also sell the session to your potential audience. The description should include both the tools and ideas you will share, and the technology standards you will be addressing.

Be specific about your audience. There are presentations that apply to general audiences, but many sessions work better when you plan with a specific subject area and grade level in mind. VSTE serves many different constituent groups and we want to make sure we have sessions that target specific needs, as well as sessions that apply to all.

And try to find ways to weave our theme, “SuperEmpowering Kids & Learning”, into your session description and title. Think of fun ways to incorporate the theme into your session! Spandex, capes, and superhero masks are optional.

Now that you have your great idea and session proposal, submit it here. (You’ll also be asked for some basic information about yourself.)

But get it done by September 15. Because December 3rd is coming fast. The planning committee is looking forward to reading your great idea for a session and adding it to the 2017 VSTE Conference program.