2010 - Reflections on Play, Pedagogy, and "World of Warcraft"

Abstract

In an online class, it's not unusual to never see a teacher or classmates face-to-face. It's not unusual to interact with an instructor and classmates through discussion boards or e-mail and to get information through online documents and presentations rather than live lectures. In the spring of 2009 students in the online class "Warcraft: Culture, Gender, and Identity" at Inver Hills Community College did all of this. The video game "World of Warcraft" (WoW) was the text studied, the laboratory, and the classroom for the online course. The overarching goals of the course involved using the game's immersive environment, learning strategies, and culture to encourage and support student learning of the course content. This article shares the story of the learning quest--warts and all--as told by the authors, the instructor and a student, and through the voices of several other students. In the final reflections on their adventure, the authors also provide recommendations for continued use of online games for engaging students and helping them learn and retain course content. (Contains 4 figures and 17 endnotes.)

Education level Two Year Colleges
Title Reflections on Play, Pedagogy, and "World of Warcraft"
Author Pirius, Landon K.; Creel, Gill
Publication title EDUCAUSE Quarterly

Publisher EDUCAUSE. 4772 Walnut Street Suite 206; Boulder, CO 80301-2538.
Publisher e-mail info@educause.edu
ISSN 1528-5324
Source type Scholarly Journals
Peer reviewed Yes
Language of publication English
Document type 141 Reports - Descriptive, 080 Journal Articles
Subfile ERIC, Current Index to Journals in Education (CIJE)
Accession number EJ901490
ProQuest document ID 815958159
Document URL https://ezproxy.library.ewu.edu/login?url=http://search.proquest.com.ezproxy.library.ewu.edu/docview/815958159?accountid=7305
Last updated 2014-03-21
Database ProQuest Social Sciences Premium Collection