Play to learn… about your kids

My son has been described as “painfully shy” to the point where teachers in the past have wondered if he needed to be assessed for Aspergers. He prefers gaming to … well just about anything, and he no longer socialises with people his own age outside of school. MinerDad and I were concerned and talked about taking away his computer but there was no way to force him to be the teenager that society ‘expects’ him to be. Instead we did the opposite. We decided to give him the tools to continue playing and supported his creative outlet – creating gaming content, avatars, maps, images for websites and forums. We had played games together before, namely StarcraftII and console games, but immersing yourself in a creative 3D environment has proven to be a very different experience. It also gave us the opportunity to get to know our son.

What follows are a list of questions for you to ask yourself about your children. If you don’t know the answers to them, you may be able to learn more about your children the way we have – by playing games with them.

1. How does your child handle new environments?

We started playing on jokaydia’s Minecraft server together early last year (now known as the Massively Minecraft servers). We were invited by @jokay to participate in a trial where kids could play together with their parents. My son was the eldest at the time and it was interesting to see how he handled being on a new server with younger children. He’s played multiple games on numerous servers for years and it never occurred to me to look at how he introduces himself to these new play environments. I wondered if it would be different to the cautious way he involves himself in social situations in real life. He’s always been slow to warm to new people and he was always the kid that stood back and just watched before trying anything new. He wouldn’t attempt any task until he was confident that he could master it (including riding a bike, art/craft, reading)

Minecraft building was a skill he’d already developed when we started playing with @jokay. His 3D building skills had actually surpassed the game and it wasn’t long before he’d built an elaborate castle on the server. He taught me how to farm, how to defend myself and how to build the things I needed. He even built me a giant Mother’s Day “card” ingame.

Mother's Day 'Card' 2011

Yet despite these skills we found he was just as quiet in the gaming world as he is in real life. He didn’t actively interact with the other children – namely because of the age differences (he was 15, the other children were in the 4-6 yr old range). He played the game “properly” meaning he preferred to mine his own resources and build things from scratch. He didn’t like being given objects and thought that everyone should be mining their own. So we also discovered that our son likes to play by the rules and he’s HARDCORE.

Source: Uploaded by user via Barbara on Pinterest

2. Is your child a leader?

During our time on jokaydia he was given many opportunities to show leadership. I tried to encourage him to lead by example, to participate in the world development and discussed how the other children’s gameplay was progressing. As much as I wanted him to be an active participant in this community, he was happy playing his own way and he couldn’t comprehend why the other children weren’t learning to play “properly”. It wasn’t a lack of interest but a completely different mind-set and he was playing a rules-based game in an ad-hoc environment. After a while he gave up the server and his interests diversified.

A few months ago, to our surprise, we found he was suddenly very vocal on a Counter Strike game he was playing. He was using a mic and was giving (barking) instructions about a particular flavour of the game.

So why did he show no interest in any form of leadership on the Minecraft server (other than guiding us), but he was suddenly a real community leader in this other game? He even proudly boasted about being elected as an admin on this Counter Strike server (an election of 3 positions out of 55 applicants)
Here’s what we’ve concluded:

* The deep voice of confidence – We have seen a transformation and watched the ‘boy’ literally became a ‘teen’ overnight. I cannot emphasize enough how important AGE-APPROPRIATE games and gaming environments need to be. They need to support the individual child’s developmental needs – psychosocial/emotional as well as cognitive. Support and encouragement go a long way to help children with their confidence but sometimes all they need is time to mature.

* Long term community involvement – I was surprised when he told me that he’s been playing with the same group of people for over 5 years now. Five years!!! For a 16yr old that means from the age of 11!! We were naturally concerned about the people he’s played with, but he’s such a private person that he’s been careful to never share personal information. Some of these friends he plays with are in their early 20s now, and the younger kids joining the group are the same age he was when he started. The community grows and as the older ones take on more real life responsibilities they pass on the leadership roles to the teens. Community development takes time. Let your children and students play with others regularly so they can form friendships and take a role in the gaming environment.

3. How does your child think?

After a trip to the art gallery with his school last year, the topic of 3D visualization came up. He had been sculpting at school (manually, with a chisel) from a 2D image of a head. He was bored and couldn’t understand why they all had to do the same thing and “all the heads will look the same”. He wanted to chisel a creation of his own. As the conversation continued we confirmed something that we had suspected for some time – our son thinks in 3-dimensions. He didn’t realize that not everyone can see things the way he sees them, or create maps and models in 2-dimensions for a 3D environment. I started to read about spatial reasoning and intelligence.

So now I understand we have an artistic, 3-dimensional thinker with a love of computers and games. MinerDad is a little concerned that it means he’ll head towards an Arts Major, but I’m confident that we can steer him towards the gaming degree he wants to do.

Check out ‘Recognizing spatial intelligence’: http://www.scientificamerican.com/article.cfm?id=recognizing-spatial-intel

4. How does your child learn?

Seeing his gaming skills as an outlet for his spatial reasoning also led to learning about how our son actually learns. I’ve concluded that his struggles with mathematics is as much about attitude and self-confidence as it is about his reasoning. The current school environment provides much more individual tutoring and support (have I mentioned how great Montessori it?

Watching how he plays games and how he learns the ins-and-outs of a game environment has taught me how to teach him. Where possible I use a visual example and make it relevant to “something real”. He struggles with hypothetical concepts and will probably never understand complex (imaginary) numbers, and that’s ok. One thing that the Montessori philosophy (there’s that word again!) has helped us realise as parents, is that it’s ok if your kid doesn’t tick ALL the boxes. Just find out what boxes they naturally tick and build on from there.

Want a safe place to play with your kids?

Check out the Massively Minecraft world created by jokaydia and Massively Productive: http://www.massivelyminecraft.org/

Yellow Ducks

Once upon a time when you walked into a preschool, the wall would be covered in yellow ducks. Every child had painted the same duck cut-out with the same shade of yellow.

These ‘art and craft’ activities were considered best practice. The child was learning what a duck looked like! They could demonstrate their eye-hand coordination skills by tracing a duck shape and cutting along the line with scissors as well as cognitive abilities by identifying the colour yellow. We might even make three of them so that we can count them and learn that ducks ‘quack’.

At some point the education leaders decided to look back at what we know about learning styles, education theorists, systems and processes and decided that young children would not reach school-age without knowing what the colour yellow looks like. Colour, shapes, numbers … these are cognitive skills that a child learns through their play and their interactions with peers and adults. The power of scaffolding during teachable moments is incredible. “That’s a lovely shade of yellow you made mixing the yellow and white paint. What colour would you like to paint the beak?” is far more constructive than “Go and finish painting your duck, and don’t mix the paint!”.

Historically our education system has changed as society’s needs have changed.

The depression of the 1890s saw a demand for technical workers and training colleges were introduced. Since the 1950s changes in curriculum and examination methods have occurred every few years.  These changes are mainly due to new ways of thinking in Learning and Development (for example Bloom’s Taxonomy, de Bono’s Six Thinking Hats or Gardner’s multiple intelligence approach). Someone also decided that girls can be educated as much as boys.

Throughout the 1960s to 1990s the school system followed a strict hierarchical structure of pupils, teachers, principals, inspectors and various directors. The focus of the school system was on order, efficient operation through a hierarchy of authority and responsibility.

For the last decade our school system has (supposedly) been moving towards a Productive Pedagogy approach. Students are ideally “prepared for life outside of school through a range of programs that put learning into context, make it relevant and part of the culture of everyday school life” (NSW DET, 2002). Have we succeeded?

Is it time to re-evaluate our school system and look at other approaches?

A quote worth considering:

“Perhaps the clearest thing which emerges from these historical chapters is the fact that educational traditions are subject to considerable change.  They grow and multiply, they decline and are superseded, they are refined from time to time, and as a they pass on from generation to generation some are more tenacious than others in the new conditions within which they have to operate. … Each generation has to examine afresh its educational knowledge, to discard the outmoded features of it, and incorporate into its thinking the living tissue through which it can fashion objectives appropriate to its own circumstances.” (Connell et al, 1967)

My son has been attending a Montessori school since the last term of year 9 (junior high). I won’t go into the reasons for changing from a mainstream public school suffice to say he is happier and it is a wonderful environment for him.

They do not grade at Montessori. The compulsory school reports that we’ve received come with a little note that convey “We have to provide this report to meet government standards but be aware that it goes against our philosophy”. His teachers could have spent their time drilling Alex about not doing his homework or his poor maths results, but instead they focussed on how sensitive he is and how much empathy he displays and his moving speech on aged care that he delivered for English left the teacher in tears. The school could have a policy of ‘no computers in class’ but instead focus on how his computer skills are respected by the other children and how the younger children are in awe of what he can build with his 3D modelling, and as long as his computer is a tool for socialising, sharing and developing it’s welcomed in class. We could have chosen to confiscate his computer for not doing his homework or for being late to school but then he wouldn’t have discovered coding inside Minecraft.

“Do you know what cd stands for?” I asked him while I watched him programming a computer inside a game. He thought it was referencing a compact disc. I explained that it stands for ‘change directory’. He’d been switching directories and moving files while learning a programming language without realising it. He’s now creating an in-game wiki, where a user will be able to run his program inside Minecraft and get instructions on how to craft an object. He’s including stories and is planning on creating other games. Here’s a link to the ComputerCraft mod he discovered: http://www.minecraftforum.net/topic/892282-11-computercraft-121/

 

Let children decide what colour to paint their ducks.

 

—

* Connell, W.F. et al, 1967. The Foundations of Education 2^nd edition, Ian Novak Publishing Co. Sydney

* NSW Department of Education and Training. 2002, “Productive pedagogy” in Inform ARTICLES, March 2002.

Capture the Golden Apple!

This blog begins with a summary of our family game of Minecraft. Minecraft is sandbox game for players to build constructions out of cubes (think digital Lego). If you are not familiar with Minecraft you can watch a short 1 minute video introduction below:

We had our first family “capture the golden apple” game which was a variant of  a ‘capture the flag’ game. We would each build a castle, set up defences (traps included) and somewhere inside hide a chest with a golden apple in it. The aim of the game was to make it into someone’s castle and retrieve the apple.

The rules were fairly relaxed since it was our first attempt at creating a game inside the Minecraft world. ‘Ad hoc’ would probably be a better term to use and we had several discussions as the game progressed about what rules to implement. We’ll look at these in a moment.

How we played the game

First we set up a server that we could run in creative mode which gives players access to all the materials (blocks) in the game. Then MinerDad, the teenager and I set about to build a castle. My five-year-old stepson (who is developing his basic computer skills as he learns to play the game) set about to ‘help’ everyone with their buildings. He was extremely fond of TNT blocks.

After several hours of building, my partner gave us a time limit to complete what we were doing. Inside our castle somewhere we had to place a chest. Inside the chest we had to place a golden apple for other players to retrieve.

Then we switched off creative mode and put the game in survival mode so that we could take on the challenge. Each player could choose three items to help them with the mission. I chose iron armour, an iron pickaxe and a bucket of water.

The teenager, who has far superior building skills than either of the adults, created an elaborate castle fit with lava traps, hidden chests and spider pits.

Source: Uploaded by user via Barbara on Pinterest

Source: Uploaded by user via Barbara on Pinterest

Inside the castle. He taught me how to shoot arrows from behind a lava wall.

What did we learn?

It was more fun than expected! MinerDad was expecting us to work on our build for hours only to have the game be over in 15 minutes. That didn’t happen! We found that each of us had added traps, tricks or illusions that kept the other parties challenged.

Games needs boundaries. We have decided that next time we play we will set a few more rules. Namely:

* Time limit for building – We’ll try 2 hours next time and see if it’s enough time. An open ended game was too much for the 5yr old who started to lose interest. The adults also had responsibilities throughout the day (such as feeding and changing the baby) which meant that the teenager had a definite advantage with building time!

* After retrieving the ‘flag’ you return it to a neutral place – When MinerDad retrieved a golden apple the teenager said that it had to be returned to his towers chest, as in most ‘capture the flag’ games you’re required to return the flag back to your base. However this meant revealing the secret entrance into his tower! Next time, we’ll put a chest at the spawn point for people to return to with the golden apple to claim victory.

* We said no to violence – The teenager wanted the game to change from defensive and go on the offensive once someone had an apple, so that they could be attacked, killed and have their apple stolen from them. We talked about how this would change the nature of the game and would mean that players might sit and wait for an apple to be retrieved and steal one rather than attempt to capture their own.

A note to Teachers

There are many ways to adapt this experience for a classroom environment:

* Have students design their towers in groups

* Follow the design principles and steps by sketching ideas for traps and defences

* Have the students develop their own set of rules for the game (game design principles)

* Extend the game over a longer period by building in survival mode (where students need to cooperate to gather resources and survive the nightly monster attacks)

If you come up with any other ideas, please share them

You can view more images from our first Capture the Golden Apple game here: http://pinterest.com/minermum/gaming-with-the-kids/