Session Title
EVO Minecraft MOOC 2022 (#EVOMC22)
Logo


Abstract
(50 words)
This session invites interested teachers to join us in playing Minecraft. Through meaningful play, we will learn all we can about playing Minecraft alone and together. We will learn and understand through play how Minecraft can be used effectively in language learning. We'll learn by doing and from one another.
Target audience
Join us if any of these ring true. You are ...
- A teacher with a gaming problem -
Are you a teacher who wants to learn how to gamify your students' learning environment but aren't quite sure how it works? With us you can experience how that works by immersing yourself in the participatory cultures surrounding the game of Minecraft, supported by EVO Minecraft MOOC community members.
- A gamer with a teaching problem -
Already a gamer with some ideas about how you would like to leverage your skill and your proclivities in your classroom? You've come to the right place.
- A teacher of gamers with a learning problem -
Do you think your students would like to play a game like Minecraft but you aren't sure how to make it fit your curriculum? Fortunately, your curriculum is somewhere in Minecraft already. Join us and we'll help you figure out how and where?
- Or join us if you just want to learn more about how to use meaningful games and the participatory cultures associated with such games with your students.
But keep in mind that you'll need to play Minecraft with us in order to enjoy the experiential benefits.
Session objectives
By the end of the session, participants will have:
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explored and played with Minecraft
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curated resources relevant to them relating to Minecraft
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shared their discoveries and what they have accomplished with other participants
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created spaces in Minecraft where desired learning outcomes can be promoted
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learned to build and survive in Minecraft
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expanded their personal learning networks by befriending colleagues who can help each other continue their exploration of Minecraft as an environment for staging and enhancing learning
Session participants will learn about Minecraft in the same way they would expect students to figure it out and adapt it to their own learning goals; that is, we will learn by playing and sharing what we discover. We will learn, as Joel Levin puts it, how to 'limit' the game; that is how to create spaces there where we can promote desired learning outcomes. We will point each other to resources (there are thousands of them, so we'll have to curate for one another). We can create YouTube channels for our work and create videos showing what we accomplish in Minecraft and how we might use the worlds we create with our students. We will learn from students and kids who join us, in a server space created just for us.
Syllabus
Weekly Content
Our 5-week syllabus is patterned on Dave Cormier’s 5 steps to success in MOOCs: orient, declare, network, cluster, focus, as explained here: https://youtu.be/r8avYQ5ZqM0
The image above is not a video player; it's a screenshot: http://screencast.com/t/9ltyAlkAmz
Week 1: Mon-Sun, Jan, 10-16, 2022
Time to get-acquainted and practice with session tools during the first week.
Orient - Participants come on board, figure out how this works, who we are, and why we are all here (we’ll all post to community spaces set up for this). We’ll view tutorials to learn the basics, meet in world in creative mode to help each other learn and practice.
Participants will have to invest $27 if they wish to join us in-world by purchasing a login to Minecraft from http://minecraft.net (the login credentials are a once in a life-time purchase, We've all had to do this, and all Minecraft software is freely downloadable; no proceeds are collected by or go to EVO or EVOMC MOOC moderators).
Week 2: Mon-Sun, Jan. 17-23, 2022
Declare - Still with us? Start your blog or wiki, post to our Facebook Group, and share your experiences with Minecraft, what you’ve learned so far, and how you intend to learn more. Tag your posts (relevant to this session) #evomc22
We’ll meet in-world where we can play in Minecraft, speak to each other using Discord (a separate online voice tool) and start crafting and building. We’ll learn how to create artifacts and experiment with YouTube videos from screen-captured Minecraft activities.
Week 3: Mon-Sun, Jan. 24-30, 2022
Network - Continue meeting in Minecraft and learning how to work with one another. Expand your horizons and contacts in Minecraft by meeting educators from, and in, other communities (including by means of a one-day professional conference on our EVOMC22 server).
Participants continue to blog and share builds and resources. We plan to record some of our activities and share and YouTube video embeds with one another. Wherever you play, you’ll need friends online to help sustain you in survival mode. Make friends in world and you'll be ready for it!
Week 4: Mon-Sun, Jan. 31 - Feb. 6, 2022
Cluster - Identify others in the MOOC with like goals and start working in subgroups within the MOOC. You’ll have to collaborate in order to stay alive in survival mode! Participants continue to blog and share builds and YouTube video embeds with one another, and more importantly, help each other out in-world and contribute to one another's learning and appreciation of the affordances of the game in education.
Week 5: Mon-Sun, Feb. 7-13, 2022
Wrap-up and session evaluations.
Focus - Participants share plans for carrying the work started here beyond the current EVO session and MOOC. Participants are welcome to participate in an end-of-session showcase event.
Media
How will you communicate with participants during the session?
Other technology tools:
Sponsor
TESOL CALL-IS
Join this session
Registration starts on Jan 2, 2022.
To join this EVO session:
- Fill in the registration form for 2022
https://forms.gle/9gja3QCxSEEM5mMBA
- Join this Facebook page: https://www.facebook.com/groups/evomc
- Join this Groups.io = https://groups.io/g/minecraftmooc/
- Follow instructions on our syllabus page:
http://missions4evomc.pbworks.com/
We accept join requests from educators (and sometimes their students and/or their children) whose profiles appear to link to identifiable people who could become potential colleagues as opposed to gamers apparently using pseudonyms, and whose reasons for joining us would likely be incompatible with our goals and passions, which relate to gamification in education, not just playing Minecraft for hedonistic reasons. As we are a community of practice interested in assisting each other in using Minecraft creatively and constructively with students, we might reject profiles that appear irrelevant to our goals or indicate no evidence of shared aspirations.
If you are a bona fide educator wishing to join us, and for some reason we reject your application to join us, please send an email to the primary contact given above, explaining why you feel you fit in with our community, and we'll sort it out.
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Moderators
Name (last, first)
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Email address
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Location (country of residence)
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Biodata (not more than 50 words)
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Photo |
Aaron Schwartz
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aschwar@gmail.com |
USA |
Aaron Schwartz teaches ESL courses as well as public speaking, writing and rhetoric, and computer assisted language learning (CALL) at Ohio University. He's a former chair of TESOL's CALL-IS, where he has been quite active with the Electronic Village. A moderator for Minecraft MOOC since 2016, he competently and graciously runs the EVO Minecraft Server. |
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Catrina Marie |
meowmaidstorytime@gmail.com
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USA |
Catrina Marie is her real name, but Mirea Artican is her alias from high school and while gaming nowadays. She goes by many names. They also include 'ate' in Filipino or older sister in English, 'tagatulong', which means guide or helper, and Meowmaid Storyteller or teacher for people who want to improve their English and Filipino/ Tagalog.
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And when she's not as busy studying for her grad school classes in SF State or working as a substitute, she is eager to go on more adventures both online and offline.
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Heike Philp |
heikephilp@gmail.com |
Belgium/ Germany |
Heike Philp is CEO of let's talk online sprl, and an immersive education specialist for language teaching and learning. She is co-initiator of EU funded LANCELOT (virtual classroom) and AVALON (virtual world) and the CAMELOT project (machinima for language teachers) and GUINEVERE (games in virtual worlds).
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She is founder of the Virtual Round Table Conference and co-owns EduNation in Second Life.
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Jane Chien and Mattie Tsai |
ychien@gmail.com |
Taiwan |
Jane Chien is an assistant professor of TEFL and has been on the faculty of Children’s English Education, National Taipei University of Education since 2005. Her research interests focus on Minecraft as a medium for English language learning and communication.
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Jeff Kuhn |
jkuhn72@gmail.com |
USA |
Jeff Kuhn is one of the original co-moderators and guiding lights of EVO Minecraft MOOC, having hosted our first Minecraft server in 2015. Currently he is the director of esports at Ohio University. An avid Minecraft player, Jeff has worked with teachers on using games in the classroom in the U.S., Peru, Brazil, and Venezuela.
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Vance Stevens
and Bobbi Stevens
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vancestev@gmail.com
and
bobbi_stevens@hotmail.com
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Malaysia
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Vance Stevens is an EFL teacher now retired in Penang, Malaysia. Founder of Webheads in Action, he has been an EVO coordinator since 2002. He is founder of the podcast series Learning2gether, and On the Internet editor for TESL-EJ where he and co-moderators have co-authored an article on Minecraft and Language Learning.
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Bobbi Stevens has taught young learners in Saudi Arabia, Oman, USA & UAE for over 30 years and has adapted to changes of styles and methods of teaching children over the years, especially as pertains to educational technology. She was a co-moderator of the original EVO Minecraft group in 2015 and looks forward to participating again this year.
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Moderators Ex-officio and Emeriti
Moderator ex-officio: Olivetree Grove manages our Discord server and assists with our Minecraft server.
Abdelmoneim, Maha
AKA Olivetree
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maha4learning@gmail.com
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Egypt |
As a learning and development consultant Olivetree has been using games and role playing for training since 1992. As a volunteer she’s been teaching English in real life and Virtual Worlds since 2008. In 2012 she became an online gamer to experience and experiment with those environments for teaching and learning.
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and with thanks for substantial support and assistance from emeritus moderators Dakotah Redstone, and Mircea Patrascu
Redstone, Dakotah |
dakotah.redstone@gmail.com |
USA |
Dakotah's real-world avatar was an Instructional Developer at a state university for 15 years, supporting faculty use of technology in the brick & mortar and online classrooms. His interests run the gamut from A to Z and go back to punched paper tape storage, pencil and paper role playing games, and painting on cave walls by torchlight. A phenomenal builder, Dakotah was a moderator of EVOMC18 and EVOMC19 and a frequent and contributing participant before that.
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Dak no longer wishes to moderate officially, but he appears consistently in our archives as an honorary, highly skilled, and much appreciated cat herder.
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Mircea Patrascu |
mircea.patrascu@gmail.com |
Romania |
Mircea Patrascu is an IT professional teaching kids to code during his free time. He loves to play Minecraft, but he also uses it as a learning environment for Scratch and JavaScript. He puts in frequent appearances on our EVOMC MOOC server and blogs the travels there of his intrepid counterpart MP.
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Acknowledgement
By allowing your name to be put forward as co-moderator of this session,
you acknowledge the following:
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I understand that first-time session moderators are required (returning moderators are encouraged) to participate in the 5-week Moderators' Development Session from October 18 until November 15, 2021.
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I am available to actively engage in the EVO session I have agreed to co-moderate between January 9 and February 14, 2021.
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I further understand that
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EVO sessions are free of advertising and commercial sponsorship.
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EVO sessions are free and open to all
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No academic credit may be given for participation.
I agree, Vance Stevens
I agree, Jane Chien & Mattie Tsai
I agree Heike Philp
I agree, Bobbi Stevens
I agree, Catrina Marie
I agree, Aaron Schwartz
I agree Jeff Kuhn
Primary Contact
Vance Stevens:
vancestev@gmail.com
Last updated February 5, 2022 - 02:00 UTC
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