Internet Safety Week at the LRC

We are smack dab right in the middle of Internet Safety Week 2014. Online safety is a focus all year long, but Internet Safety Week takes it a step further. During this special week, students and staff engage in important conversations and work through special mini lessons designed to cover a broad range of concepts.

Internet Safety Week would not be complete without a special display in the LRC. This year the librarians took on the challenge of getting the Safer Internet Day theme across, "Let's create a better internet together". We decided to utilise the very popular online game Minecraft to do so. Many of our students are avid Minecrafters had plenty of advice to give about the display. They quickly became part of the team and played an important role as creative liaisons 

Here a a few images which show how this wonderful display turned out. You can view the entire album on the LRC Facebook page.

Minecraft Project Update-Fortresses and Castles

Where We Are
Our 7th grade students have been moving full speed ahead on their Minecraft projects. These projects involve teams of students, designing a fortress and castle, based on what they learned about such structures in 6th grade. They are using Minecraft to create the structures on the school server. We are one week away from testing them out in survival mode. Students are rushing to get supplies stocked up, ensure that their structures are well fortified, and are busy contriving and building traps for potential invaders. Needless to say there is a lot of strategic thinking going on!

What We Use We opted for Minecraft Edu which was a smart move as it allows the teacher control of a lot of what goes on in-world. Among the various options available are the abilities to freeze students, teleport them back and forth, mute their chat, bring them all in to the teacher, toggle between creative and survival mode and revoke student building as well as student creative mode. I am able to do all of this as well as work with them on our map.

Challenges
We came up against two major challenges when beginning this project. The first involved constant server crashes which occurred when the whole class was logged in. We solved that by initially partnering the students up and then bumping up the memory on the computer that hosts the server. This was a great solution and we have not crashed since!

The second challenge had to do with demonstrating respect for others. With over 100 students playing on one map, on the school server, it can tricky to monitor the goings on. For that reason Student building privileges are limited to class time and after school for one hour. That way i am able to pop in and visit while I monitor behaviour and chat. 

Respect for other people's work is vital in an online project,  just as it is in real life. Griefing and  "trolling", are not unheard of and some kids do partake in it when playing on different servers. I spoke with the students about this upon commencing the project and come back to it in each lesson. Unfortunately,  there have been a few cases of griefing and trolling during the project. You can imagine my surprise when I logged in yesterday only to find out that my own structure had also been greifed at one point! 

I have to admit that it was a bit disconcerting at first, but these incidents ended up providing the basis for teachable moments. The whole project is about learning to work together online. The issue having hit home provided us with the fodder for a relevant discussion about griefing and trolling . 

I have to say that the kids should be commended. They are are amazingly flexible and despite the setbacks many have experienced, they remain very positive and even come in to work after school. They are quick to fix any damage that occurs and and then they move on. Let's face it, many of them, especially the team leaders are experienced gamers and have dealt with these problems before. It is great to see how positive they are about it all.

Our team leaders are doing a fantastic job of running the builds. They organise their teams, direct construction, teach others how to create more advanced constructions, all while working on their own building jobs, designing defence contraptions and meeting with the teacher to discuss the progress and the parameters for testing day. 

I was able to capture some video footage in-world, while a few classes worked on their structures. Please have look at the video to see what they have done.

Using Minecraft

We have recently purchased licenses for Minecraft Edu and are about to set up our first server. This is a huge step for us as the 7th grades will be using Minecraft in ICT to plan and build fortresses in teams. We have a great many team leaders in the 7th grade who will be in charge of organising each build, leading the work and building the more complex structures and mechanisms. This is our first time trialing Minecraft at school. That said, a good half of the grade has rated their abilities as intermediate to expert. The remaining half are novices who will be learning on the job, with the support of their teacher, their team and our online lessons.

Students will use their understanding of Castles and Fortresses from their 6th grade work to organise the materials, and plans for the project. We will build in Creative mode most of the time, but test the structures in survival mode during the process and once the builds are complete. 

It is always heartwarming to see students selecting the right tool applying their ICT skills in other subjects. Our 8th grade students have been working on WW1 Trench projects in Humanities and two of them have recreated their interpretations using two very powerful digital tools, Minecraft and Sketchup.

I have included their work below.

SketchUp Trenches




Minecraft Trenches 

When Glitches Lead to Gain

                             http://www.islabit.com/6789/corriendo-world-of-warcraft-en-un-iphone.html    http://otrapartida.com/ya-a-la-venta-la-version-completa-de-minecraft/10776/


Each Monday our World of Warcraft group meets to discuss our readings, blog posts and work together in-world. Unfortunately yesterday afternoon, WoW was experiencing difficulties with user log-ins and after a few tries we gave up. The kids then resorted to their next favourite game, Minecraft and a discussion soon began. Some of the students had found out on Twitter that on the 18th (tomorrow) Minecraft might be allow online users to play the complete game for free. They were very excited about this, and since I don't play Minecraft and couldn't access my WoW account,   I decided to delve into it further. 

It turns out that many online services have planned activities, amongst these "blackouts" to protest SOPA. We weren't terribly familiar with what that was, so we dug further and found out that it is a piece of US legislation that is meant to protect against online piracy- called the Stop Online Piracy Act. There is a great deal of public opposition to SOPA and as a result many online services have planned a blackout. 

  

http://ml109.deviantart.com/art/STOP-SOPA-279366889

What is your Opinion on SOPA?

The kids, our learners of the remix generation, were genuinely interested in what SOPA was and why Wikipedia, Minecraft and many others were so unhappy with it that they would go to these measures. I don't think I have ever had 6th graders ask me to send them news reports before. Yesterday after a brief discussion, many of them requested that I forward on the information to them. 

The November LRC Newsletter is Out!

Please take a look at the November Newsletter to find out more about what is happening at the LRC. We hope you enjoy it and would love to hear back from you, so please feel free to leave us a comment or two below.

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