Virtual Worlds & Games UnSymposium

This is year 10 for the Edublog Awards! As an advocate for game based learning, that’s the arena where most of my nominations live, I’ve pulled from massively multi-player online games and virtual worlds.

Best individual blog
Gridjumper’s Blog http://gridjumper.net/

Best group blog
Inevitable Betrayal/Inevitable Instructors Google + Community
http://bit.ly/betrayalgoogle

Best class blog
Techy Owls Blog http://techyowls.weebly.com/techy-owls-blog.html

Best ed tech blog
Tube Teaching with Chareen Snelson
http://tubeteaching.blogspot.com/

Best teacher blog
Trish Cloud with Techy Owls Grand Oak Technology
http://techyowls.weebly.com/

Best library/librarian blog
Kristine Thonnes ‘ Electrons and Ink http://electronsandink.blogspot.com/

Most influential blog post of the year
“Night Predators” and Minecraft from Lotus Greene
http://educatinglotus.wordpress.com/2013/10/25/night-predators-and-minecraft/

Best individual tweeter
@ aevalle_galicia https://twitter.com/aevalle_galicia

Best twitter hashtag
#gamemooc

Best free web tool
Hangouts on air

Best mobile app
WoW Mobile Armory http://us.battle.net/wow/en/shop/mobile-armory/

Best educational use of audio/video/visual/podcast
Inevitable Instructors Series
http://inevitablebetrayal.shivtr.com/pages/weekendwebinars

Best educational wiki
CMS Minecraft Club Wiki http://cmsminecraftclub.cmswiki.wikispaces.net/

Best open PD/unconference/webinar series
EduMachinima Fest http://sigve.weebly.com/edumachinima.html

Best educational use of a social network
Inevitable Betrayal Educator’s Gaming Guild’s educational use of all of these networks:

• Inevitable Betrayal Guild on Sisters of Elune server in World of Warcraft

• Inevitable Betrayal Google + Community http://bit.ly/betrayalgoogle

• Inevitable Betrayal flickr http://www.flickr.com/groups/inevitable/

• Inevitable Betrayal guild site http://inevitablebetrayal.shivtr.com/

• Inevitable Instructors Series over Google Hangout on Air http://inevitablebetrayal.shivtr.com/pages/weekendwebinars

• Inevitable Instructors Playlist over YouTube http://bit.ly/inevitableinstructors

• Inevitable Betrayal Playlist http://bit.ly/193MPjq
  
• “This Land” Minecraft server http://inevitablebetrayal.shivtr.com/pages/thisland

Fall 2013 Virtual Education Journal (VEJ) “Out Of This World”
Submissions Due December 1, 2013

Please submit articles about the work you are doing in second life, minecraft, or any virtual world/online game. We want to share the exciting work that educators and students are doing as they explore new and exciting methods of teaching and learning in 3-D virtual environments. We are always interested in stories about the strategies you are using in virtual environments for your own professional learning and to help your students learn. Most of all we want to celebrate the joys of learning through the stories you share in this Fall 2013 issue of VEJ.

We look forward to having you share your stories and pictures with the rest of us in this next issue of VEJ! Be sure to put hyperlinks to urls and slurls in your article/story along with lots of pictures. We would prefer pictures in png (but we can use jpeg and other formats) with the highest resolution/highest DPI possible. Be sure to include your name (both sl and rl). Your job title and contact information is optional.

Thank you for your help! Be sure to ask your friends and colleagues to tell us their story, too!

SUBMISSION DEADLINE is December 1, 2013.
Send questions and submissions to rvojtek@edovation.com and be sure to put VEJ in the subject line.

The UnSymposium will be in December this year!

Friday December 6 and Saturday Decemeber 7

For now, we’re looking at the Minecraft and More!

If you have any questions, please contact Kae at gamesmooc@gmail.com

The UnSymposium is evolving! Here’s what we have so far…
Most of the sessions will be livestreamed over the Games MOOC YouTube Channel
Sessions will take place in Second Life, TERAOnline and World of Warcraft

Friday November 2
5 pm – 8 pm SLT (which is PT)

5 pm MMORPGs, Machinima. MOOC & the Metaverse: The Future of Learning in Games
Livestream http://www.youtube.com/gamesmooc

6 – 630 pm Tour and Livestream of TERAOnline
Symposiarch:Vasili Giannoutsos (SL: Bluebarker LowTide)
Livestream www.youtube.com/gamesmooc

630 – 8 pm Horde Halloween Tour by Inevitable Betrayal Educators
US Server, Sisters of Elune, Horde start outside of Orgrimmar.
Livestream www.youtube.com/gamesmooc

Saturday November 3
1 pm – 6 pm SLT (which is PT)

1 pm Future Directions Discussion Group
Rosie Vojtek, editor of VEJ (Virtual Education Journal)
with Gordon Holden, Andrew Wheelock, Marianne Malmstrom and Rober Vojtek.
Front Range in Second Life
Livestream www.youtube.com/gamesmooc

2 pm  Anne Frank MOOC with Andrew Wheelock (SL: Spiff Whitfield)

3 pm To Badge or Not To Badge……
Games Based Learning MOOC Badge Designers
Vasili Giannoutsos, Kae Novak, Tanya Martin, & Chris Luchs
Daily Badger – Stasia Weston
Front Range in Second Life
Livestream http://www.youtube.com/gamesmooc

4 pm Zombie and Games with Therese Ellis
Google Hangout at www.youtube.com/gamesmooc

5 pm Pirate Ball and Mayhem
Front Range in Second Life

Zombies…..

Ninjas….

And Pirates….

No it’s not the Apocalypse. But, it will be disruptive.

There will be rogue teachers.

Games, Virtual Worlds.

MMORPGs and Machinima

MOOCs, OOCs, Badges & Gamification

Think of this disruption ….Play as Professional Development

So come join for the Third Annual UnSymposium

Friday November 2 & Saturday 3, 2012

The Virtual Worlds and Games UnSymposium in its third year is a grassroot community organized yearly event. The theme this year is disruption and we couldn’t think of a better way to pull that theme off than ninjas, zombies and pirates. Disruption in education in whatever shape or form has been a daily topic of discussion in the popular press.

To further show how things including professional development are changing, we will have a discussion with Andrew Wheelock (SL Spiff Whitfield) on the Anne Frank MOOC.

The EduMachinima Fest is organizing the Fiero Film Festival on Friday Evening. The Fiero Film Festival is a viewing of educator, student and community made Machinima. Special emphasis will be on epic successes and epic failures.

We’ll also be exploring badges and discussing the Mozilla Open Badge Initiative. We are in the process of developing the “Marauder” or Pirate badge for those educators demonstrating mastery in edupunk, fiero and epic educational delivery.

The UnSymposium closes with a Pirates’ Ball – you’ve seen the movies, we all know how those end!

If you’d like to register early feel free ….

We will be contacting you with more information!

Zombie invasion! intro – ie BRIEF etymology and history of zombification and zombies in popular culture b. informal introduction to Zombies, necromancers, and liches c. why are the undead so interesting? A couple of reasons why we gravitate to zombie stories with 2+ game representations of each of the above 3 subgroupings of the undead.

Discussion of the 6+ selected games

Suggestions of ways you can integrate zombies and play into your classroom and open discussion e. Plants v. zombies freebee giveaway (yay popcap for making this freeness available right when we need it!… http://www.stopzombiemouth.com/)

The last two years, we haven’t had a design theme but for this year – we had a request. In fact we have had a few requests. So this year will be pirate, zombie and ninja!

We will also be expanding this to the tours we are doing in World of Warcraft and also in Second Life. ( Yes – we’re working on the pirate and the zombie!)

If you’d like to volunteer for the event or have questions please im Kavon Zenovka in Second Life.