Center4Edupunx
Bootstrapping Our Way Across the Curriculum

Edupunk is just a tag … bootstrapping is a life philosophy

Edupunk – this word seems to have been first uttered or posted by Jim Groom in May 2008.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Edupunk

Edupunk is really the DIY movement in teaching. Rather than relying on whatever learning management system their school subscribes to and e-paks from the publisher, edupunk educators go out to the blogosphere, the metaverse or into a MMORPG to find what will engage their students. It is an attitude about teaching that involves creativity, whimsy, Web 2.0 and a very limited budget (if you get a budget at all). So you DIY, you bootstrap, you use your strong and weak ties over the Internet to learn what others educators are doing. And most times you come up with something for your students that is engaging, challenging and creative.

It’s about the passion for educating and learning – doesn’t matter what it’s called edupunk, DIY, Web 2.0, bootstrapping or bricolage. You do it heart and soul and it shows.

Edupunk is just a word that seems to work for educators who have been DIYing it, bootstrapping and pushing education and learning to the bleeding edge.

Here’s a list of educators and educators’ organizations that tweet, blog, archive and curate education taking place in immersive 3D environments and games. This does feature many of the organizers of SITE CITY LIMITS, ARVEL SIG, and VWBPE.

Twitter

@siteconf        SITE conference
@bsuedtech   Boise State University EdTech
@arvelsig        AERA  Special Interest Group
@vwbpe          Virtual Worlds Best Practices in Education

Organization Blogs

SIG Arvel Ning http://arvelsig.ning.com
SITE http://siteblog.aace.org/
COSN:  RSS feed at bottom of page:  http://www.cosn.org/
SXSW:  RSS feed at bottom of page:  http://sxsw.com/

Educator Blogs

Online Educator  http://lisadawley.wordpress.com/
Lisa Dawley

Center4EduPunx  www.center4edupunx.org
Kae Novak, Chris Luchs, Karla Schorzman, Kate Hagerty and Rurik Nackerud

Immersive Technology 4 Learning http://immersivetechnology4learning.ning.com/
Gordon Holden, et al…

Virtual Outworlding http://virtualoutworlding.blogspot.com/
Selby Evans

EduRealms http://edurealms.com/
Lucas Gillispie

KnowClue Machinima Wiki http://knowclue.wikispaces.com/Machinima+Through+Multiple+Lenses
Marianne Malmstrom

GridJumper’s Blog http://gridjumper.net/
Tanya Smedley

Virtual Pioneers http://virtualpioneers.ning.com/
Andrew Wheelock

Dean Groom’s Blog http://deangroom.wordpress.com/
Dean Groom

Oh Virtual Learning! http://scottsecondlife.blogspot.com/
Scott Merrick

Cognitive Dissonance http://cognitivedissonance.guildportal.com

Ctrl + Alt + Teach http://www.ctrlaltteach.com/
Cat Flippen

South Alabama’s Educators in Second Life http://saeslgroup.wordpress.com/
Stasia Weston

Flickr Groups

SITE CITY LIMITS
VWBPE
CENTER4EduPunx

YouTube Channels

EdTech at Boise State Channel
csnelsonbsu
EduMachinima Fest

Pinterest
http://pinterest.com/

Center4EduPunx http://pinterest.com/edupunx/

Hashtags
#site2012
#siteconf
#vwbpe
#vwmooc

Educators using virtual worlds and MMORPGs (Massively Multiplayer Online Role-Playing Game) often use social media to document and curate their experiences. For the SITE conference there is even a Flickr group for  SITE CITY LIMITS that has started to do screenshots of the Cowboys v. Aliens area in Second Life.

Since 2004, the Edublog awards have been offering a community driven people’s choice awards for blogs, social media and social networks centered on education.

For the Edublog awards 2011 – here were the virtual worlds and MMORPG nominations:

Best edtech blog – GridJumper’s Blog http://gridjumper.net/

Best twitter hashtag – #slpeeps

Best use of media/video/podcast – Knowclue’s Virtual Worlds Best Practices in Education 2011http://knowclue.wikispaces.com/Machinima+Through+Multiple+Lenses

Best educational use of a wiki  – WoWinSchool http://wowinschool.pbworks.com/w/page/5268731/FrontPage

Best PD/unconference/webinar – Virtual Round Conference Table http://www.virtual-round-table.com/

Best educational use of a social network – Cognitive Dissonance http://cognitivedissonance.guildportal.com
This is the first time that a World of Warcraft guild has been nominated for a EduBlog award.

VWBPE: THE PROLOGUE
or Program Update
Virtual World Best Practices in Education Conference
March 15- 17, 2012

5 weeks and counting but there is still time…..

The CFP is still open until February 15, 2012. The Call for Proposals (papers, workshops, games, Machinima and posters) has been extended to midnight on February 15, 2012.  All that’s required is a 50 – 100 word abstract (full papers required for research stream) that indicates how your work illustrates best practices in education. For details please go to  http://www.vwbpe.org/calls/2012-call-for-proposals

Machinima ….the third wave http://blip.tv/beettv/allen-debevoise-5734859
as tweeted by @GridJumper

Machinima – more submissions please! http://www.vwbpe.org/calls/machinima
Machinima really is the gateway to show and document our work that is happening in virtual worlds and MMORPGs. Also, in light of SOPA/PIPA in the United States, ACTA in Europe  and similar regulation elsewhere, we would want to encourage discussion sessions in content and media creation that could take place during VWBPE.  To take a look at last year’s Machinima submissions, please go to http://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PL13B856672F473B4B&feature=plcp

Posters- Interactive Displays

The theme for this year is “Be Epic!” Posters are a way to showcase your group or research, highlight your activities, show a project, give out resources or even start a conversation with the community. So while you’re writing up the abstract – why not also -go to Virtual Education Journal (VEJ)’s  Virtual Worlds – Why Are We Here? google survey. goo.gl/Id3QR

Games

The Games stream this year is also looking to celebrate user created content. There are many opportunities to present and also to display what you have done. Want some ideas – look at http://center4edupunx.org/games-stream-at-vwbpe

MOOC

MOOC? http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Massive_open_online_course We are doing a post-conference MOOC – A Tour of Virtual Worlds, Education and Games. We’ll have the portal and sign-up available on March 1st. We still have time and room for volunteers so if you are interested in helping build a MOOC please sign up at http://bit.ly/qNmbjP

OpenSim

Actively seeking proposals from OpenSim grids. Especially interested in someone willing to do a presentation for people who have never been on OpenSim grid. This could include one or all of the following hypergates, sim on a stick and/or the affordances of OpenSim for educators.

Also looking for an OpenSim coordinator to help in programs and OpenSim bloggers/reporters for the conference. http://bit.ly/qNmbjP

Social Media

Here’s the social media that programs will be posting to

#vwbpe
twitter @vwbpe
On Flickr we have “VWBPE” group
LinkedIn – virtual worlds best practices group
and our very good friend – Thinkerer Melville’s Blog Virtual Outworlding http://virtualoutworlding.blogspot.com/

Kavon Zenovka
VWBPE Program Committee
Virtual Worlds, Games and Education MOOC
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zNwtfVg6RH4

Virtual Worlds Best Practices in Education www.vwbpe.org is an indie grass-roots community conference.

To encourage the production of user created games and the growth of a community of educators, researchers, and students who use and create games and simulations, VWBPE has a Games and Simulation stream.

Presentations that encompass the following are encouraged:

Digital Game- Based Learning
Haptics
Augmented Reality
MMORPGs
Role-play
World of Warcraft
League of Legends
EVE Online
Minecraft
SWTOR
Glitch

As well as Poster Displays that show the following:

Mini-Game
Short quick play digital games that are designed for multiple iterations. An example would be a puzzle, board game, or quick quiz show all contained in a virtual world.

Game within a Game
Short game contained within another digital game. An example would be a user created questline in City of Heroes or World of Warcraft. This could also be an adventure or competition within  Minecraft.

Role-play
Games that require players to login to a specific virtual location and actively play key roles or characters during the game while others are also acting out roles. These may include a free flowing extemporaneous style that does not necessarily need to have a win/lose conclusion.

Simulation
Games that model specific situations virtually that the player may face in real life. Examples would include business meetings, ordering food in a restaurant, flying a plane, or operating on a patient.

Guild Structure/Badges/Pointification
This category focuses on the use of various digital tools for motivating the player to continue play and/or  received feedback on progress.

Other
This category can include any game or simulation that does not fit the categories above. This may be a NPIRL ( Not Possible in Real Life) scenario that is played as a game or simulation, a scenario created from a novel, historical recreation or anything else that involves play.

If you are doing games – you may also be doing Machinima. Please also consider submitted a video for the Machinima Fest http://www.vwbpe.org/calls/machinima

VWBPE is a free online conference, organized and run by volunteers. While most activities will happen in the virtual world, Second Life, presentations and field trips can be scheduled for other parts of the metaverse and MMORPGs – contact the Program committee – proposals@vwbpe.org for any questions or more information.

To submit proposals, please go to: http://conf.vwbpe.org

EDUPunxers have been working hard and working in collaboration with the SITE Second Life Task Force.  For the past two months, we have been building and planning events for the virtual portion of the Society for Information Technology and Teacher Education conference.

For the very first time, SITE http://site.aace.org/conf/ will have virtual presentations in Second Life. EdTech island and CAVE will be holding these presentations on their auditorium – exact sessions/dates and times to be announced.

But what we do have dates and times on are the pre-conference events. SITE  CITY LIMITS will have a number of activities running from February 4- March 9th. Lists of events available here. http://bit.ly/sitecitylimits

We’ve sent up at Flickr group at http://www.flickr.com/groups/1860777@N25/
Follow us and conference activities with #siteconf  and #site2012

Please join us at some of the events we are helping with:

Friday February 11, 7 – 8 PM PT, Caledon Tour with Aevalle Galacia (VWBPE Virtual Worlds Exploration Stream Lead) Tour begins at Stagecoach area on EdTech Island
SLURL:  http://slurl.com/secondlife/EdTech%20/194/177/24/

Friday, March 2, 6:00-7:30 pm PT New Resident Orientation and Shopping Tour with VWBPE Social Committee. Tour begins at Stagecoach area on EdTech Island SLurl: http://slurl.com/secondlife/EdTech%20/194/177/24/

Sunday, March 4, 6-7:30 PM PT:  SITE Conference Kick-off party in SL (Hoedown).
EdTech Island: http://slurl.com/secondlife/EdTech/110/132/24/

January 20 & 21st

EduPunxers will be attending the Virtual Pioneer Conference

Look for us at the VWBPE display
http://maps.secondlife.com/secondlife/EduIsland%209/19/75/22

It all starts at 4pm SLT on Friday with keynote speaker David Klevan (SL- Eubie Doobie) from the US Memorial Holocaust- Kristalnacht Exhibit in Second Life.
In Real Life David is a Museum Educator at the US MM Holocaust Museum in Washington D.C.

You can attend in Second Life or watch it on livestream http://www.livestream.com/virtualpioneers

To follow on twitter look for the hashtag #vpcon12

While some conferences claim to by run by volunteers but have organizational backing – this one really does. We know because EduPunxs are doing the work here and we are doing because there is no other educational conference that covers virtual worlds, user created content and games the way this one does. This is a combination of bleeding edge educators,  educational researcher who know the audience will get what they are talking about and  people attending who get the value of deeper learning and immersion.  This is a call to show us epic – we know you’re out there and we know epic when we see and hear it. So come show us – Epic Win or Epic Fail – it doesn’t matter it’s all about the quest!

Based on community request, the Virtual Worlds Best Practices in Education (VWBPE) is reopening the call for proposals.

CFP http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zNwtfVg6RH4

The Virtual Worlds Best Practices in Education is a grass-roots community conference; it is YOUR conference, and your chance to share your experiences with the rest of your community. We have already received some excellent submissions but we would like more!

The Call for Proposals (papers, workshops, games, Machinima and posters) has been extended to midnight 15th February, 2012.  All that’s required is a 50 – 100 word abstract (full papers  required for research stream) that indicates how your work illustrates best practices in education. http://www.vwbpe.org/calls/2012-call-for-proposals

Describes how your work might be applied to a particular or multiple sectors of education, i.e. K-12, large universities, community colleges, adult education, etc. Tell us how you learn and teach. Tell us your stories of what works well and what can be done better. Where does learning happen for you?  Who do you teach? How to you engage learners? Why is learning within the virtual important to you? What is the key learning you want to share with others?

We do want to especially encourage submissions for the Machinima Fest http://www.vwbpe.org/calls/machinima, Poster Event http://www.vwbpe.org/blog/posters-cfp and the Games and Simulation Event http://www.vwbpe.org/blog/games-and-simulations-cpf-technical-details
.
Other topics that this year are encouraged for submission include:

Open Sim projects
Haptics
Augmented Reality
MMORPGs
Role-play
Minecraft
SWTOR

The VWBPE is a free conference, organized and run by volunteers from K-12, colleges and universities from around the world.  While most activities will happen in Second Life, presentations and field trips can be scheduled for other parts of the metaverse – contact Kavon and her team at proposals@vwbpe.org for more information.

What is a Tank?

A tank in an MMORPG is basically a character who wears the heaviest armor and their job is to be the center of aggression for whatever is to be tanked. The idea is to be annoying enough to the target that they forget about the rest of the party and focus on beating said tank into mush. This allows the rest of the party to kill the target with minimal damage. You can tank in quest chains, dungeons, or in pvp battlegrounds. The concept is the same annoy the target with special attacks or just being a general nuisance (pvp) to the enemy.

So how to annoy, well in WoW there is the concept of aggression or “aggro”. This is simply the monster’s hate meter. The monster targets the character with the most aggro. Aggro is generated by damage, taunts, healing, and walking into the monster’s radius of attack. Tanking can be done by anyone… a certain mage comes to mind. However the best classes at it are Warrior, Paladin, and Druid, due to the Warrior and Paladin being able to wear heavy armor and carry a shield and the Druid’s Bear form.

Since 2004, the Edublog awards have been offering a community driven people’s choice awards for blogs, social media and social networks centered on education.  This year, social media nominations focused on education in virtual worlds was encouraged.

EduPunxers are involved with Cognitive Dissonance which is one of the nominees for Best Educational Use of a Social Network. This is the first time that a World of Warcraft guild has been nominated for a EduBlog award. Being part of this guild has been where we started to see our work on Play as Professional Development and also World of Warcraft, Cognitive Surplus and Theorycraft.

Below are the virtual world nominations on the shortlist for the Edublog awards.

Best edtech blog – GridJumper’s Blog http://gridjumper.net/

Best twitter hashtag – #slpeeps

Best use of media/video/podcast – Knowclue’s Virtual Worlds Best Practices in Education 2011 http://knowclue.wikispaces.com/Machinima+Through+Multiple+Lenses

Best educational use of a wiki  – WoWinSchool http://wowinschool.pbworks.com/w/page/5268731/FrontPage

Best PD/unconference/webinar – Virtual Round Conference Table http://www.virtual-round-table.com/

Best educational use of a social network – Cognitive Dissonance http://cognitivedissonance.guildportal.com

Voting is open until December 13^th at 1159 pm EST.  The winners will be announced at Edublog Award Ceremony on December 14, 2011. For more information please go to http://edublogawards.com/

Research Topic EduPunxers ( Abacus, Kavon and our collaborator – Demention Resident) are currently working on.

We started to talk about it at the Virtual Worlds UnSymposium

World of Warcraft, Cognitive Surplus and Theorycraft. This was our first public discussion on how MMORPG players are using their cognitive surplus to assess statistics, create program applications and learn mangagement strategies. It really is looking like data-driven decisions in most guilds, raids, arenas and battle grounds.