Landon Pirius, North Hennepin Community College, Minnesota and Gill Creel from Minneapolis Community and Techincal College, Minneapolis, Minnesota co authors of Reflections on play, pedagogy, and World of Warcraft, EDUCAUSE Quarterly, Volume 33, Number 3, 2010, talk about their experiences in teaching and learning in an online game environment.

Franticread [Ellen Forsyth]: Hello and welcome to this talk. My name is Ellen Forsyth and I work at the State Library of New South Wales. I would like to acknowledge all the traditional owners of the land.

It is great to see you here today.

Today we will hear from Landon K Pirius and Gill Creel , co authors of Reflections on play, pedagogy, and World of Warcraft, EDUCAUSE Quarterly, Volume 33, Number 3, 2010, will talk about their experiences in teaching and learning in an online game. I am really looking forward to what they have to discuss with us today. Over to you‚ Gill and Landon or rather Cualquier and Nodnal

Nodnal [Landon K Pirius]: Thank you very much. I'm very excited to be here today and I thank you for inviting us

Cualquier [Gill Creel]: hello all

Nodnal [Landon K Pirius]: When Ellen first contacted us last September, I thought July was a long way away, but now were are here. Gill and I have a few things we want to talk about today, but we are both really hoping to have a discussion as opposed to a lecuture. So please feel free to ask questions as we go

Cualquier [Gill Creel]: agreed

Nodnal [Landon K Pirius]: As I said before, my name is Landon Pirius. I am currently the Chief Student Affairs Officer at North Hennepin Community College in Minnesota. I also teach one class a year. The class that I've taught the last 3 years is a class that uses WoW to teach and learn

Cualquier [Gill Creel]: and I am an English teacher at Minneapolis Community and Technical College. I took Landon's class

Stefwynn [Mylee Joseph]: What ages are the students?

Cualquier [Gill Creel]: lol, well, I was 40 at the time

Nodnal [Landon K Pirius]: In 2007, I conducted my dissertation research looking at the possibility of using a virtual environment for intercultural training.

The ages range. Some were traditional age (18-25) and others were older. I had students, instructors, deans, and others who took the class. The first time I taught it, there were two students in their 50s

I have always been particularly interested in culture; how we learn it, how it plays out in society, etc. So I was very interested in how culture played out in the virtual world. That research led to the course I developed in 2009. The course was called Warcraft: Culture, Gender, and Identity, so it was an interdisciplinary course that covered topics in sociology, psychology, and anthropology

Illich: sounds really interesting :)

Cualquier [Gill Creel]: and I took the class because I had read James Paul Gee's book but had no idea how it really worked in the MMORPG environment

Nodnal [Landon K Pirius]: I've since taught the course in 2010 and 2011, each one modified based on the experiences from the previous course. A lot of the students who registered for it originally thought they would earn college credit for playing WoW, which of course is only part of the truth

Reyn√¢rdine: Have you had anyone come out from the res to talk about why the Tauren are as wrong as they are?

Nodnal [Landon K Pirius]: many were surprised when they realized the course had real academic content. This last time I taught the course (just finished in May), I had one student compare in game races with real world culture

Cualquier [Gill Creel]: I don't remember that part Rey :) seems unfair really

Nodnal [Landon K Pirius]: that was his final project for the course and it was a really interesting to read

Stefwynn [Mylee Joseph]: so even students underestimate WoW as a learning environment until they experienced it?

Illich: that seems to extend to a lot of online learning stef - still get students implying it's not as "real" as f2f

Illich: ...or gimmicky

Nodnal [Landon K Pirius]: my experience with any entertainment game (including WoW) is students play, but don't necessarily know they are learning anything.

Cualquier [Gill Creel]: other teachers and administrators are difficult to convince as well

Xeneelk: And the same with soc media etc - most students have a concept of what learning is and soc media/VWs/MMORPGs aren't it.

Illich: lot of conditioning from early education I think

Cualquier [Gill Creel]: good point, learning isn't supposed to be fun

Illich: rofl

Cualquier [Gill Creel]: or spelled correctly

Xeneelk: :D

Stefwynn [Mylee Joseph]: play is important to learning in the workplace as well (motivation, engagement)

Nodnal [Landon K Pirius]: Agreed Xeneelk. It took time each semester to get students to really see WoW as a learning tool, especially those who played the game before taking the course Play is something that that is often left out, but it has the potential to be a powerful learning tool

Illich: play can make an experience really engaging

Reyn√¢rdine: what was the gender ratio in your class?

Nodnal [Landon K Pirius]: One of the keys to using games to teach is a really active instructor. They need to guide the class and facilitate discussion

Gill, would you say the time you took it, the ratio was 3 men to 1 woman?

The second two I taught were about 3 to 1

Illich: is that ratio real world or the genders they adopted in the game?

Cualquier [Gill Creel]: yes I would agree to that, but I also wanted to say that gender was one of the things we studied and the PARC PlayOn study has lots of interesting info on gender in WoW

Nodnal [Landon K Pirius]: real world

Yes, we had 3 weeks focused on gender. How it is constructed, how it plays out virtually, etc

Stefwynn [Mylee Joseph]: If students had not anticipated "learning" in the WoW environment did that mean they were more or less likely to apply the learning to real world?

Cualquier [Gill Creel]: Landon had discussion assignments that were designed to translate the ideas learned in WoW to real world applications

Nodnal [Landon K Pirius]: Stefwynn, at first, absolutely. There were some who picked up right away, but others would take weeks. I would hear comments like, "I just don't get how this applies."

Cualquier [Gill Creel]: for example, we read about real world culture shock and compared what happens in WoW for those new to it

Nodnal [Landon K Pirius]: In addition to the discussion Gill mentioned, I also had weekly reflection journals. These were specifically designed for the learners to reflect on that week's discussion and activity and try to apply concepts to the real world

Cualquier [Gill Creel]: I certainly had symptoms

Illich: reflective journals would be important - good point

Xeneelk: WoW was huge culture shock when I first started :)

Illich: linguistically challenging too - just trying to make sense of the trade chat shorthand confused me for a long time

Cualquier [Gill Creel]: and students were able to read each other's journals as well if we were open to sharing-- some preferred to keep private and Landon allowed that

Stefwynn [Mylee Joseph]: I agree that as a newbie there is a culture shock in entering the WoW world, just basic things like making it to a seminar without being killed

Nodnal [Landon K Pirius]: I agree with that as well. What I really enjoyed was some of the discussion between those who just started playing for the course and those who had played for awhile. There were a lot of aha moments for WoW vets

Cualquier [Gill Creel]: Ill, as an English teacher, the language was fascinating to me

Ranganathan: fascinating turn to language...i always thought my beginning stages were a lot like a language acquisition phase

Illich: good example of peer learning and the new helping the experienced

Nodnal [Landon K Pirius]: I'm particularly interested in how other disciplines might use WoW and English or language is a great example

Cualquier [Gill Creel]: yes, and in my experience this led to the collective knowledge building within the class a la Wikipedia

Reyn√¢rdine: non English speaking guilds would be a start.

Cualquier [Gill Creel]: the class discussion boards were a trove of information

Illich: joining a server in a different part of the world too perhaps

Otherwise: I remember making friends with a Chinese farmer and having to type in pinyin to explain the difference between need and greed

Swayed: lol

Cualquier [Gill Creel]: little help: what's pinyin?

Reyn√¢rdine: encoding

Xeneelk: Chinese written in Roman script

Otherwise: pinyin is mandarin phonetics

Cualquier [Gill Creel]: ty

Reyn√¢rdine: ^

Nodnal [Landon K Pirius]: I think it would be fascinating to join another server from another region of the world and see if the culture of that server is different

Illich: for sure

Otherwise: farmers were particularly hated becos they didn't understand the concept

Cualquier [Gill Creel]: I just did, and you people are nuts!


Illich: lol

Otherwise: hah, they are on your server already, just have to look

Nodnal [Landon K Pirius]: doing a comparative study of how people work together and communicate to see if there are similarities and differences

Illich: ...and if nerd rage is the same across languages lol

Reyn√¢rdine: Yes it is Ill ;)

Swayed: I feel that there is also a difference in 'culture' between pvp pve rp severs

Nodnal [Landon K Pirius]: lol, agreed

Xeneelk: I find the Ally/Horde split fascinating - I remember being a bit shocked the first time a hordie helped me out.

Otherwise: definitely

Illich: totally

Nodnal [Landon K Pirius]: Swayed, yes, there is. One of my students wrote her final paper on that topic

Swayed: nice

Nodnal [Landon K Pirius]: she compared an RP server to a PVP one

Illich: ahh cool

Nodnal [Landon K Pirius]: Another student compared Horde vs. Alliance

Ranganathan: I ended up joining a filipino expat guild that had many diff ppl from diff parts of the globe

Nodnal [Landon K Pirius]: Topics were also more than cultural comparisons. Some students focused on sexual harassment, obesity, addiction, economics, etc Interesting Ranganathan!

Otherwise: Someone i knew through the game made a toon for begging. I thought the responses he got from that exercise was thoroughly entertaining

Swayed: I believe there used to be a guild of beggars

Cualquier [Gill Creel]: I'm also interested in how gaming might be used in classes outside of commercial games; I've been reading Jane McGonigal's "Reality is Broken" lately and thinking of building a game from scratch for an English course I teach.

Swayed: like using minecraft or from scratch scratch

Cualquier [Gill Creel]: It is already an online course and would lend itself to gaming motivators and techniques

Helynis: I teach project management at post graduate level. I've been thinking about whether I could use virtual environments to simulate management of projects. Do any of you have any ideas about how that might work?

Cualquier [Gill Creel]: From scratch scratch

Reyn√¢rdine: yes

Xeneelk: I'm currently doing something really similar to that in Moodle for staff PD - using game concepts & structures

Illich: seems like organising a raid would be a good example of project management helynis

Reyn√¢rdine: I wrote a lecture on that for GLLS helynis

Helynis: Could I get a copy of that please?

Xeneelk: Was it you Illich that tweeted at one point that walking down the corridor at work was like pvp?

Cualquier [Gill Creel]: nice

Stefwynn [Mylee Joseph]: Franticread [Ellen Forsyth] knows a fair bit about project managing from this series of talks ... managing guild and also cross over into real life coordination and communication

Illich: I don't think so, but I can see the similarity lol

Reyn√¢rdine: http://www.insomniaclibrarians.com/image/tid/98

Helynis: Great thanks for that and if I could hear more from Franticreed that would be good

Cualquier [Gill Creel]: I just don't think we can undersell the strength of game mechanics to alter education

Franticread [Ellen Forsyth]: happy to

Nodnal [Landon K Pirius]: I think there are many, many applications for virtual envionrments in teaching. I continue to chat with a mathematics instructor about the possibilities of using WoW for developmental math courses

Stefwynn [Mylee Joseph]: If the students in the course were self selecting ... can we automatically assume that everyone will be similarly motivated to learn via game mechanics? Will some people find the entry skills a bigger hurdle?

Franticread [Ellen Forsyth]: some of the work from WoW in schools seems to be working with maths

Nodnal [Landon K Pirius]: It is so amazing to me looking at websites like Elitist Jerks and seeing all the math and algebra that exists and how players use concepts to discuss DPS generation, etc

Cualquier [Gill Creel]: Stef, we all play games and always have; I think the game mechanics don't have to be as complicated as those in wow to achieve the motivation that's needed

Swayed: I’ll second that, it blows my mind

Nodnal [Landon K Pirius]: Gill, perhaps you can talk about the entry skills you needed to get started in the class

Cualquier [Gill Creel]: I was a total noob and old to boot!

Otherwise: define old...

Cualquier [Gill Creel]: I had not played video games since I left my atari at home to go to university

40 at the time

Reyn√¢rdine: pong ftw

Illich: I think one of the key factors is developing the capacity to see the learning in the game environment

Cualquier [Gill Creel]: I was very motivated to learn though because I had been reading about gaming before playing but the learning curve was huge for me-- especially in language as we mentioned earlier

Stefwynn [Mylee Joseph]: As a noob myself it took a few sessions to be able to focus on the learning aspects rather than "how do I move my arms and legs and where am I?"

Cualquier [Gill Creel]: but I was rather timid as well-- I was scared of the auction house for weeks

Xeneelk: I still am :D

Cualquier [Gill Creel]: I didn't want to anger my fellow players

Illich: I found it took me a while to recognise the deeper lessons in game play, rather than just those that you can reference in f2f as examples

Stefwynn [Mylee Joseph]: could you give an example of the deeper lessons?

Cualquier [Gill Creel]: And I think having that meta discussion with students is important to study the game as a cultural text as you play it

Nodnal [Landon K Pirius]: Agreed Illich. That is the trick. But as the instructor, it was fun to watch students one by one develop that capacity. I could really see their "aha" moments and see a change in how they wrote their reflection journals

Illich: well what we might call attributes, cooperation, effective debate and communication - things that you actually developed through playing and interacting with others

Xeneelk: That's the kind of thing I'd love to see staff develop

Reyn√¢rdine: do you break down your definitions on culture early on? You've been using the term to apply to different things.

Cualquier [Gill Creel]: I was say understanding how the "freedom to fail" functions in a game is a deeper understanding of it

Ranganathan: how about some "rougher" aspects of online game culture? like harrassment, bullying, xeno/homophobia, etc.?

Cualquier [Gill Creel]: lol We actually encouraged some of that in one activity

Nodnal [Landon K Pirius]: In the second week, we defined culture and how it was used for the class. I wanted to focus on what some call subjective culture. Roles, behaviors, values, norms, etc. Those things that are gained through experience and interaction

Cualquier [Gill Creel]: we went to a city and had to have a discussion in which we acted out gender stereotypes to see what responses we had

Xeneelk: I've found it interesting some of the stereotypes inherent in the toons themselves

Cualquier [Gill Creel]: indeed X

Ranganathan: like the dancing NEs? lol

Nodnal [Landon K Pirius]: the particular exercise gill referred to was a role play.

Xeneelk: I've also wondered if stereotypes are less apparent for horde toons, since they tend to be less humanoid

Cualquier [Gill Creel]: we had some folks pile on and give us grief

Reyn√¢rdine: *cough* Tauren *cough*

Cualquier [Gill Creel]: lol

Otherwise: horde has stereotypes too

Nodnal [Landon K Pirius]: I utilized role-plays throughout the course to have students try to slip into a role other than one there were used it. It was uncomfortable for some students, but certainly easier than roleplaying in the real world Role-play is such a powerful learning tool, but it makes a lot of people (including myself) anxious. So using WoW to do some role-playing was one way to help students learn concepts and stereotypes once one of them

Stefwynn [Mylee Joseph]: Sounds similar to the "at risk" students playing WoW in School and being able to try on new behaviours and skills in the game

Cualquier [Gill Creel]: very much so and for shy students to be unshy as well

Nodnal [Landon K Pirius]: yes, absolutely

Stefwynn [Mylee Joseph]: Did you find students naturally cooperated in game with the same people they did IRL or were there new partnerships and alliances?

Cualquier [Gill Creel]: another thing we are moving toward is trying to replace a course LMS with something like WoW, so it is not just a text to study and a lab to play in, but also the class platform

Nodnal [Landon K Pirius]: the key was to provide a safe learning space. Students were not required to role-play in trade channel. They could role play in guild or party chat. This allowed them to participate without having to face the brutal feedback from non-class players

Xeneelk: It's interesting how much of what we've just talked about keeps popping up in the trade chat :)

Illich: would be nice to be able to distribute user generated content for that, though I can't see that happening

Ranganathan: brutal is a good word 4 it

Cualquier [Gill Creel]: yes Illich, that would make it easier

Illich: I leave trade chat as the first order of business on any new toon lol

Cualquier [Gill Creel]: the guild can do some fo that but is limited

Illich: yeah, would have to tie in external site

Nodnal [Landon K Pirius]: I think the students cooperated quite well. The one issue I saw and continue to see is that veteran wow players would play in guild to do their weekly class activity and then went back to their regular server

Cualquier [Gill Creel]: but an external site that leverages some of the same ideas as the game-- almost as an add-on

Nodnal [Landon K Pirius]: Some students would play more in guild and they would develop good relationships. But others would only pop on for a few hours and then leave. That made it difficult

Illich: so there aren't opportunities for peer networks to develop you mean?

Cualquier [Gill Creel]: with its own achievements and levels and professions geared toward the class in question

: i can see that...happens in guilds too, esp when a player has lots of alts

Cualquier [Gill Creel]: I think the noobs played together more than the vets

Nodnal [Landon K Pirius]: Gill and I have talked a lot about how do you foster a traditional guild environment when players have their "mains" they want to play. The last time I taught the course, I imposed a leveling requirement

Stefwynn [Mylee Joseph]: that probably mirrors real life in many ways - going to a cooking class doesn't automatically extend into friendships and social activity

Reyn√¢rdine: whatyouputin=whatyougetout

Nodnal [Landon K Pirius]: yes, Stefwynn, exactly

Cualquier [Gill Creel]: forcing allegiance to the guild help too

Otherwise: can't play wow when I'm studying for exams :(

Cualquier [Gill Creel]: class management is hard f2f or online

Ranganathan: so having guild rules for the class helped?

Nodnal [Landon K Pirius]: the leveling requirements helped a little, but I simply said "X number of levels a week." I didn't have a max requirement. So some students powered to level 85 and others were at 20. SO they couldn't do instances together or pvp together, etc.

Otherwise: that would be a shame

Illich: would complicate it if some players had heirlooms/BOAs as well

Ranganathan: did any1 brave the other aspects of the game, like BGs, dungeons, etc?

Nodnal [Landon K Pirius]: Gill suggested having a max/min level requirement so everyone progresses at the same time, which would hopefully better foster collaboration

Cualquier [Gill Creel]: Ran--yes we did

Stefwynn [Mylee Joseph]: Would having max level requirements frustrate the vet players too much - demotivating them?

Cualquier [Gill Creel]: we ran low level dungeons together and it was some of the best parts of the class. Stef, you can give them other things to do like contribute to the guild or help other players

Ranganathan: interesting...since there are norms and conventions in parties/raids too

Nodnal [Landon K Pirius]: Stef, it could, but they could have another toon in the guild. They just had to have one that leveled at the same rate as everyone else so we could do activities together or as ill said....

Illich: so a class main basically

Helynis: I can see that doing dungeons as a team and reflecting on that would be really educational but that challenge I see is getting to students to realise the value

Cualquier [Gill Creel]: yes Ill

Otherwise: get them to go in without a tank or healer

Illich: lol, that would be a learning experience in itself :)

Otherwise: team dynamics

Cualquier [Gill Creel]: we talked about what we did wrong when we wiped-- cuz we did wipe

Nodnal [Landon K Pirius]: Yes Helynis. But I would focus the weekly discussions and reflection journals on that class activity so they could see (hopefully) the value

Stefwynn [Mylee Joseph]: a buddy / mentoring system with the noobs in the class would help both

Cualquier [Gill Creel]: good idea

Illich: good point

Cualquier [Gill Creel]: we are stealing that

Nodnal [Landon K Pirius]: Stef, yes. funny you mention it. I have two students from my last class who want to stay in the class guild until the next time. They are interested in "mentoring" the new class

Helynis: that's good feedback - them wanting to come back as mentors

Ranganathan: that's great...mentors are essential to leveling i think

Swayed: you could also set the leveling requirement to be based on dungeon levels and at the end of each period you do a group dungeon/raid

Nodnal [Landon K Pirius]: good idea swayed

Swayed: or build a dedicated group that has to progress at the same level and get them to design the group build

Cualquier [Gill Creel]: sorry to run folks, this has a been a great discussion, but I have to put my kids to bed. I'd love to chat more with anyone interested. I'm at gillcreel@gmail.com

Helynis: that's a good idea - they'd have to study it first or have people in the team that knew what to do

Franticread [Ellen Forsyth]: thanks so much Gill - this has been great, so any final questions for Landon

Lots of thanks from everyone to Gill and Landon


Ranganathan: can u talk a bit about getting other educators to buy into the idea, I can really see having to struggle with getting a class like this through the curriculum committee

Nodnal [Landon K Pirius]: great question Ranganathan The first time I brought it through curriculum, I had only one instructor really get upset. She was mad because she thought the course belonged in the speech department and that administrators shouldn't teach, but it wasn't a speech course and there was no rule about administrators teaching. All the other faculty thought it was great and wanted to see it taught. Now that I'm at another college, I'll be bringing it through curriculum here. I have a faculty member in philosophy who will help with the process. This college really wants faculty to lead curriculum development, which I am fine with. As long as I can teach it, I don't care how it is approved

Any other questions before I head out?

Otherwise: yes, how did the older students take to it? the 50 year olds

Nodnal [Landon K Pirius]: Both were educators, so they were very curious about the course, one was a college dean and the other was a math instructor. They were slow at first, but really got into it as the course moved along

Reynârdine: maths folks <3 wow

Nodnal [Landon K Pirius]: The "younger" students mentored them, which I thought was great

Reynârdine: econ, too

Otherwise: interesting, I'm thinking a class for the elders would be helpful

Nodnal [Landon K Pirius]: yes, econ. the economics of the AH, the economics of WoW in the real world (black market, gold seling, etc)
If others have questions, feel free to email me at piri0006@umn.edu. My main is also on Blackwater Raiders, named Nodnal. Feel free to stop by. it's an RP server though! and on the Americas, not Oceanic