Thursday, April 25, 2013

Grief of Griefing the Griefer and the Solution.




The pain, anguish and disappointment after a griefing attack is palpable.  Most students would never think of damaging someone else’s work.  There are accidents and then there are a very small minority who will take great pleasure in doing it on purpose.

After extensive work on the parcor park a group of students were horrified as a ton of molten lava filled their tunnel destroying everything in its path.  Initially the cry “we have been griefed” went up and accusing eyes went across the room. The problem was no other teams of students were near the parcor team.  As the disappointment and angry cleared, common sense prevailed.  One of the team realized they had mined under a lava follow and the disaster had been cause by their own mining.

The Pig racers were not so lucky. After building a fence and herding thirty pigs into yard a particular student from another team knocked a hole in the fence and the pigs got away.  Once again there was a level of disappointment and angry but what was amazing was the resilience shown by the team.  As we the staff dealt with the Griefer, the students set about building a double fence to help with any other disasters and herded up the pigs again.

One of the most important outcomes from this process is watching the teams rise above the antisocial behavior of one individual and focus back on the task at hand and not on recriminations.


Tuesday, April 23, 2013

Help I’m lost!



This Minecraft class in was interesting from a number of perspectives including, the quality of teamwork observed, the willingness of students to step up and offer help to teachers in a time of need and the amount of work students can achieve when focused and working together with a common goal.
In the end ALL students worked really well but it took a while for us to get there.

To add to the challenges of the class, our Tech guy was away for the day so it was down to us to manage the troops (and all the shenanigans that go with it) for the lesson.

Initially we decided to allow the students to simply work on their group’s project as we were sure they would know what to do once they were in the world.
This was the case, to a degree.

Ready Set Go!
In order to get the class going and to maximise building time in Minecraft we spent recess time logging in and making sure that Minecraft was working. The thinking was that we could review what needed to be done as a group and then they could then jump in and get working.

Is Anybody Out There
Initially, the students were logged in and very excited to be in the Minecraft world but then it became obvious that some of the students couldn’t find each other.  At this stage the attraction of flying around aimlessly (though they said they were “Looking” for their team mates)was too alluring to ignore. As a result he majority of the class flew around and shot arrows at each other.
Given that the map we are using is significant in size being lost is understandable to a degree, BUT given that they started the lesson were where they finished last week makes one question the degree of “how lost” that really were.

The code that saved us(write this down)
At this stage Student O suggested that we could teleport students to each other if they were separated from the group. This was the perfect solution to our current challenging situation.
The code to teleport users is as follows,
/tp NAME_of_login_to_be_moved NAME_of_login_at_destination
in out case the code looked like this
/tpDovetonMC01 DovetonMC16
This code then moves user01 to be standing next to user16

Spent the next 15 min teleporting students to be in the correct location as students were literally all over the place. To add to the confusion, one student was logged in under a different, non-standard login name so could not be moved. We eventually worked out that this was not the student’s doing but probably done by a student during one of the many lunchtime Minecraft clubs that are currently being run.


Working beautifully
Once the students were together in their groups they worked together beautifully. It should be said that a couple of students tried to play the “Im lost again” card when it was noticed they were flying around and not with their group. After being teleported back a couple of times they then joined in with their team.

The quality of the team work and actual amount of progress achieved once the teams got up and running was remarkable with only 2 students not really engaging until an explicit task was given. In hindsight this should have been done more widely across the class  and we will address this next time.

Conclusion
Though the class started out not running as smoothly as planned, the amount of progress the class made on their projects once they were focused and the quality of the teamwork that was observed was remarkable.

Monday, April 22, 2013

Plan Term 2 Week 2 Session 8


Week 2

Session 8

Out of world

Full build session in world
In of world

Creative mode

Student Structure/Grouping - Teams

Focus is on completing construction of their structure to introduce to the year 3 students.

Structure as outlined in previous lesson plan. See Week 1 Session 7

Build! Build! Build!

Reflection Term 2 Week 1 Session 7


REFLECTIONS Session 7 week 1 term 2

A great session! We observed the student pairs as they managed to toggle between two pieces of software, Minecraft and Word.  All played their role without complaint, as either the student or teacher and were supportive of each other’s effort and also gave critical feedback to their partner. All focused and on task.

As teachers we made explicit the value, meaning and need for the task as a component of the future of the program. All students went full steam ahead and worked to get the job done.

Plan for Term 2 Week 1 Session 7


Term 2

Week 1

Session 7

Out of world

We will work in a rotation, one team at a time to edit revise and complete the components of the Minecraft dictionary that each team has worked on.

In world

 Single player

Creative mode

Explicit instruction points

Working in pair to produce a step by step plan to introduce Minecraft skill and tools to a Minecraft novice (year 3 student)

What are the key elements that they would need to know?

What verbal instructions will they need to give as their student will be they only hands on participant? They are not to touch the keyboard or screen, they can point and use hand gestures.

Sequence to Consider

Log in

Movement

Explore

Construct

Tools use and purpose

Each pair is to ensure they are using Minecraft specific vocab and terms and explaining this as they go either verbally or using the Minecraft dictionary they have been building.

The pair switches between the “novice” working in the Minecraft program and the “teacher” working on a word document to create step by step script to introduce the program to a novice.

End of session result – A word document, to evolve into a tutorial script that can be used at a later date with other students.

File creation.

Wednesday, April 17, 2013

A Simple Plan ?????

The server crashed, Nathan our tech was out and we were starting our next Minecraft session in ten minutes.

A quick rewrite of the plan and we designed a program which would allow the students to work in single player mode and achieve something.

We brought forward an idea.

Students worked in pairs.

One student taught the other student how to use Minecraft without touching the keyboard and mouse.

Students loved it and pushed each other to use words to describe what they were trying to teach.

This process is important because in approximately three weeks time the students will be teaching the Grade 3 students how to use the world which has been create for them.