Introduction by Scott Pike
For as much as my family and I look forward to summer vacation, we can never seem to escape those summertime doldrums, the days or weeks that seem to languish without proper planning, funding, or motivation. Being pre-occupied with two Masters courses, I have been in less of a position than usual to keep my boys occupied, aside from an occasional trip to the pool.
However, when the CIP topics were finalized, and my group and I began the research for our literature review, I recognized the fortuitous chance to include my boys in a project that was right up our respective alleys. The chance to create a story using Minecraft allowed my boys to utilize technology they were comfortable with to engage in a multistep, multimodal creative process that they could be proud of. As well, I was gifted with the opportunity to see first hand how storytelling as a pedagogical tradition is emerging into the 21st century, capturing the imagination of Net Generation learners. What follows is a collection of my observations from working with my sons, set in the context of the information my group and I gathered for our literature review.
However, when the CIP topics were finalized, and my group and I began the research for our literature review, I recognized the fortuitous chance to include my boys in a project that was right up our respective alleys. The chance to create a story using Minecraft allowed my boys to utilize technology they were comfortable with to engage in a multistep, multimodal creative process that they could be proud of. As well, I was gifted with the opportunity to see first hand how storytelling as a pedagogical tradition is emerging into the 21st century, capturing the imagination of Net Generation learners. What follows is a collection of my observations from working with my sons, set in the context of the information my group and I gathered for our literature review.
But first… our adventure…
(Full credits and acknowledgements are included in the video description on the Youtube page at
www.youtube.com/watch?v=1ZF0UaIA89U
(Full credits and acknowledgements are included in the video description on the Youtube page at
www.youtube.com/watch?v=1ZF0UaIA89U
Engagement |
From our literature review, we found that allowing students to create narrative representations of their learning creates a favorable environment for student engagement. Students were found to be engaged in the content of their classes, as well as engaged in each other as part of a collaboration.
In working with my sons, I found this to be generally the case. Both boys were committed to completing the project and were devoted to their respective roles within the project, whether or not those roles actually entailed “playing Minecraft”. My younger son was determined to practice his lines and read them correctly, despite the need to record his dialogue multiple times, while my older son endured eighteen takes of repetitive motion capture gameplay that spanned over three hours. Between each take, he had to reset elements within the world we had created, sometimes taking up to twenty minutes to do so. However, it should be noted that the entire process was not as engaging for my older son. As a prerequisite to working with the Minecraft platform, my older son had to script the narrative for each of the four “episodes” of the story. This was met with considerable aversion, and his eventual scripts ended up being cursory and generalized. What was interesting though was that these attributes did not translate into the final work. While crafting elements of the setting and details of plot within the Minecraft platform, my older son was meticulous and patient, willing to research appropriate coding available for the game, and engage in multiple trial and error processes to achieve a desired result. Before this project, I was beginning to suspect that my son was lacking a resilience to tell a story properly. He seemed to have little patience for properly constructing and connecting words and sentences into substantial narratives. I now see it is the written medium he dislikes, not the general process of storytelling. As a final note on engagement, my boys have moved on from supervised storytelling using Minecraft, to independently creating microcontent videos using stop-motion animation available on their Nintendo 3DS. I had no idea you could do that. |
DraftingWorld BuildingScript recording |
Digital Literacy and Net Generation Learning
In watching my boys piece together their storytelling, I knew they are of the Net Generation. Some of Tapscott’s observations were readily apparent in them, especially the need for choice and customization of their imagined worlds and stories. It almost goes without saying that “fun” is a non-negotiable requirement, as the engagement shown in this project likely would not have come as easily in similar projects utilizing less technology. Collaboration appears to be important as well. I know this could be misconstrued as playful work or goofing off, but the number of times my boys would stop their work to show each other what they were working on suggested there was something more going on than horseplay.
The Minecraft project is the embodiment of multiliteracy learning, with many of the modes of meaning suggested by the New London Group (1995) being featured in our work: linguistic design, visual design, audio design, and spatial design. When considering my older son’s dislike for the rigour involved in organizing ideas, and translating and transcribing those ideas as words, I can see how students like him man not find as much success in storytelling practices that are monomodial.
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Lastly, this endeavor has been an example of traditional storytelling powered by Web 2.0 technology in the age of the Net Generation in that it provides an opportunity to share (in this case creative) content, that can be viewed, augmented, and reshared. Posting the video to Youtube allows for the story to join the ranks of the “rich media and content [that] has grown in quantity and diversity” (Alexander & Levine, 2008, p. 42). In addition, with the game itself serving as a MMO (Massive Multiplayer Online), the world my boys have created can be saved and shared, providing a place to meet and interact in an augmented space, as well as inspiring others to tell their own stories using the elements designed by them. In this sense, according to Alexander and Levine, “out of those manifold ways of writing and showing have emerged new ways for telling stories” (2008, p. 42).
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TPACK
The TPACK framework is a valuable tool that helps teachers develop the balance between their content knowledge, pedagogical practice, and how technology fits into both of those, and is a valuable lens for viewing both student and teacher engagement with digital storytelling tools. As I move forward from this experience towards considering a larger version of this project with some of my classes, I am compelled to consider the entire scope of the TPACK framework. While I am confident in marrying my pedagogy with content knowledge, working with the Minecraft platform and with Camtasia has reminded me that my understanding of and proficiency in any technology associated with my teaching is essential. My boys have helped my to see the seemingly endless intricacies of the game, and the varying levels of literacy required within it, from basic movement and actions to knowledge of appropriate coding commands required to manipulate elements of the world. Proficiency in Camtasia and, to a lesser extent, Youtube, is also required. In the end, in order to make this as smooth a learning experience as possible for my students, a serious commitment to investing in technological proficiency would be required.
Other Examples
In preparation for the CIP, I began to research the possibilities of the Minecraft: Education Edition for my future classes. I leave you with the link to discover for yourself, and highlight a few examples of how Minecraft is used to help students tell their own stories, as well as demonstrate their understanding of course specific content.