World of Warcraft

This week our assignment was to play World of Warcraft for 6 -8 hours and then report on our experiences.  I watched the introductory video and began my quest.

I started the game as a gnome named ShortyLucy. Here is a picture of me:

I played as a gnome for about three hours and didn't have the best of luck.  I chose the normal realm and the United States as my realm category.  I was also in the gnome alliance.  I liked the idea of being able to choose the type of skin color, face, hair style, hair color and if I wanted to wear earrings or not. 

My role as a gnome was a a Mage.  A Mage is defined as damage light armor (cloth), deals frost, fire or Arcane magic damage.  Can polymorph enemies or freeze them to the ground.  Can teleport to cities and conjure food and water.  Mages are the iconic magic-users of Azeroth and learn their craft through intense research and study.  They make up for their light armor with a potent array of offensive and defensive spells.  Their primary stat is intellect.  

I must say I did good just trying to figure out where I was going and what I was supposed to do.  I figured out that I had to click on Nevin Twistwrench to receive my first quest.  It took me a few minutes to figure out how to do that.  Once I did, my first quest was to kill 6 Crazed Leper Gnomes.  I managed to kill 4 Crazed Leper Gnomes before I was killed the first time.  My spirit was sent to the graveyard and I had to find my dead body before I could be resurrected.  It took forever to find my dead body but once I did, I was revived and alive again.

  Here I am at the graveyard.

After I killed 6 Crazed Lepers, I couldn't figure out how to find Nevin Twistwrench.  I wandered around for about an hour.  I finally found him in the Old Dormitory 

My next quest was to report to Carvo Blastbolt in Gnomeregan and once I did I was informed that I had to rescue 6 survivors.  I figured out how to rescue the 6 survivors but then was informed that I had to decontaminate myself.  I tried and tried but could not figure out how to decontaminate myself.  I ended up as a Level 2 gnome.

At this point I was frustrated and decided to create a new character.  My new character was as a human and my class was a Paladin.  Here is a picture of my second character:

I named this character RompiStompi.

My role as a Paladin was Tank, Healer and Damage.  I have heavy armor (Mail/Plate and Shield) and am a righteous vanquisher of evil.  I deal Holy and malee damage and have a variety of defensive spells.  I use Mana and holy power as resources.  Paledins are self-sufficient and have many abilities targeted at death prevention.

My first quest as a Paladin was to kill Rockjaw Invaders.  I killed one of them and then was killed and sent to the graveyard again.

 Once I found my dead body, I was revived and brought back to life.  I killed 5 more Rockjaw Invaders and completed the quest.

My next quest was to heal 4 wounded mountaineer.  

 

I completed this quest relatively easy and moved onto my next quest, which was to collect 3 different kegs of beer for the troops.  I wandered around looking for beer and ended up in a cave.  Here is a picture of me hiding in the cave from a Rockjaw Invader:

When I attempted to find my way out of the cave, I was once again killed and sent to the graveyard.  I found my dead body again (I'm getting pretty good at this part) and proceeded to find the 3 different kegs of beer.  Here is a picture of one of them:

Here I am inside Anvilmar looking for the final keg of beer, which I was unable to find.

I ended up as a Level 3 Paladin and this completed my adventure in World of Warcraft.  

As a beginner to World of Warcraft, I found the game to be incredibly difficult due to my lack of knowledge about the game, but also when it came to thinking and problem solving as I tried to play the game.  There are so many different ways and choices to be made and I can see how this game may interest people of all ages.  

Personally, I did not like the game for a few reasons.  I think that my unfamiliarity with the game played a role in my frustration and overall experience.  I also didn't like having to kill things in order to advance in the game.  This game would probably be better suited for kids and teenagers as compared to adults.

ImagiLearning and Tranceformational Learning

For this week's assignment, I utilized the tranceformational learning principles and tried to weave them into my ImagiLearning environment.  The different principles are:

As you can see, each of these tranceformational principles (Authentic, Attention, Together, Emotion, Objectives, Immersion and Learning) are essential to the implementation of 21st century learning.  I feel that these principles are important to ensure that every student has a full grasp of what is trying to be taught in a virtual environment, and I believe that immersion is key to the overall learning experience.

Authentic
I think that each lesson should be as authentic as possible so that students will be able to believe what they are trying to learn.  

Attention
Attention is a two way street for both students and instructors as the students must pay attention to learn and the instructor has to pay special attention to the lesson that they are trying to teach so that it is understood by students.  

Together
Together is also for instructors and students so that everyone understands what is being taught and is on the same page. 

Emotion
There must be some amount of emotion involved with both teaching a lesson and receiving a lesson by the students.  I think that everyone must care about what they are trying to teach and students should care about what they learn.

Objectives
There must be an objective to both what is being taught and what is being learned.  If there is no objective in mind then it will not be beneficial to instructors or students.

Immersion
I believe that it is essential for both students and instructors to be immersed in what they are trying to learn in a traditional and virtual environment.

Learning
Learning is key in the overall success of what is being taught and what is being learned.  

My bird sanctuary
For this weeks assignment, I decided to create an environment where students could be immersed in the same environment that they are trying to learn about.  I utilized the grass template in the Holodeck system and then built the walls, bought plants, uploaded pictures of state birds and built stumps for a class to sit on and discuss what they had learned after each student has had a chance to step on the ImagiLearning platform.  I decided to create questions by giving the name of the state birds and then asking for students to pick the appropriate state that it represents.  

I created several notecards for the good and bad answers and put them into the ImagiLearning system.  Although I have made several attempts, I have been unsuccessful in getting the ImagiLearning system to work as it should.  I will make a few more attempts to see if I can get it working correctly.

Here are some pictures of my bird sanctuary and its contents:

I think that the ImagiLearning environment could be very useful to use in a virtual environment as the possibilities are endless as to how a lesson can be taught.

CED 553 - An Immersive Experience in a Virtual Learning Community

The Logic System

This activity requires the use of a modifiable platform to load questions in so that participants can answer questions that will lead them down different paths based on their choice. Here is a picture of what I used and I'm not sure if it is the correct platform:

For the first assignment I decided to try to teach 6-8th graders about the British Monarchy.  Although the content is minimal, it is a stepping stone that can lead to a larger database of questions. I decided to start with the different names of the families that have been in the British monarchy since it began in 1603 (The Stuarts, The Hanoverians,  Saxe-Coburg- Gotha and The House of Windsor).  The next level would consist of the number of kings and queens from each family, followed by specific details about each of the specific kings and queens in the four different families.  This would lead to branching off and the enabling of question creation based on the number of choices given. 

I decided that using five choices would be best as four would be good choices and one would be the bad choice.  Depending on the choice it would lead the learner to the next level of questions, which would be the number of kings and queens in four different families.  This would then take students to a the third level, which would lead them to specific information about each king and queen in the different families and then it would go from there.

I'm not sure if I went wrong with using too many choices but as I said, this is a first attempt.

I managed to put in the note cards for the good and bad choices for the different families into what I thought was the modifiable platform but could not get it to work.  I tried and tried to no avail.  Hopefully I will gain more insight into where I went wrong in our class meeting tonight and will discover where I went wrong and be able to correct it.