Monday, July 26, 2010

World of Warcraft and Learning with Teens, Live on Thursday July 29th in Elluminate

Join me Thursday evening for a live and interactive FutureofEducation.com interview with Peggy Sheehy and Lucas Gillespie on student learning in Massively Multiplayer Online Roleplay Games (MMORPGs).

Date: Thursday, July 29th, 2010
Time: 5pm Pacific / 8pm Eastern / 12am (next day) GMT (international times here)
Duration: 1 hour
Location: In Elluminate. Log in at http://tr.im/futureofed. The Elluminate room will be open up to 30 minutes before the event if you want to come in early. To make sure that your computer is configured for Elluminate, please visit http://www.elluminate.com/support. Recordings of the session will be posted within a day of the event at the event page.
Event and Recording Page:  http://www.learncentral.org/event/86942

Many students today are engaged in what some have called a parallel curriculum.  This learning isn't taking place in desks or even in schools, but rather in virtual spaces called Massively Multiplayer Online Roleplay Games or MMORPG's.  These game-based worlds force players to tackle a variety of cognitive challenges that scale proportionately as their skill level and proficiency increases.  These persistent game worlds are also intensely social spaces, forcing players to work cooperatively in a variety of roles to advance in the game, fostering communication and even leadership skills.  These are the very "21st-Century Skills" that schools advocate but are often failing to produce.  What might it look like, though, if these games were brought into the classroom?  How does this look, logistically?  Are there solid curricular connections?  Join us for an interview with Lucas Gillispie and Peggy Sheehy, two pioneers who are doing just that with the popular MMORPG, World of Warcraft.

Lucas Gillispie has been an educator for more than a decade now, working as a high school science for ten years before taking a position as a district-level instructional technology coordinator for Pender County Schools in southeastern North Carolina.  Lucas holds a MS in Instructional Technology from the University of North Carolina Wilmington where he completed thesis work researching the effects of a 3D video game on middle school student’s achievement and attitude in mathematics.  His interests include gaming in education particularly the use of MMORPG’s (Massively Multiplayer Online Roleplay Games), mobile game-based learning, virtual training and simulations.  His current projects include the WoWinSchool Project, a collaborative effort to explore the impact of using World of Warcraft in both an after-school program and as part of the regular instructional program and iPod Games for Learning, a program that explores the use of game-based learning using the iPod Touch.  His presentations have been well-received at Games, Learning, and Society, Virtual Worlds Best Practices in Education, Games in Education, NCTIES, and NCDLA among others.

After a twenty-five year career as a professional vocalist, Peggy (Norton) Sheehy attended Empire State University and received a BS in Musical Performance and Education. She began teaching in 1997 at Mt. Sinai Elementary School in Mt. Sinai, New York., where the transition from the stage to the classroom was a natural one! During her tenure there she was a third-grade classroom teacher and also served as a district technology trainer.  After receiving her Master’s Degree in Educational Technology from Stony Brook University, she became an advocate for the authentic infusion of technology in education, and spent extensive time presenting her ideas and experience at technology conferences and workshops throughout the Northeast region. She received the Technology Teacher of the Year for two consecutive years from ASSET, (Association of Suffolk County Supervisors for Educational Technology)  where in 1999, 2000, 2001 she presented  "Tomorrow's Classroom Today".

In 2001, Peggy moved to Greenville, South Carolina where she taught fourth-grade at Stone Academy of Communication Arts.  It was there that she attended the University of South Carolina at Columbia to begin her MLIS, and moved into the field of library and information science. Ms. Sheehy is currently continuing her studies in the MLS program at Southern Connecticut State University.

In 2003, she returned to the New York area and now serves as Instructional Technology Facilitator and Media Specialist at Suffern Middle School.  Very active in the district’s teacher technology training program, she is a fierce advocate for the meaningful infusion of technology in education and in 2006 established the first presence for a middle school in the virtual world of Teen Second Life.  After experiencing profound success with the first group of 400 8th grade students, Ramapo Islands has now expanded to six complete sims to support 1400 students and their teachers.

In 2007 Peggy established MetaVersEd Consulting Ltd. to facilitate the proposal, design, acquisition, and implementation of educational environments in the virtual world of Teen Second Life. She believes that engagement, edutainment, and the authentic applications of 21st Century technology in education is paramount to preparing our students for success in the “flatter” world.

Peggy has been privileged to present her work at NECC 2007, 2008, and 2009 in Washington DC, and was a featured presenter at the NECC Leadership Symposium demonstrating how to translate the new NETS from paper to practice, NYSCATE, TECH FORUM, EDTECH, TECH EXPO, ISTE BEST PRACTICES, Alan November’s BLC Conference, as well as NSBA’s T&L in Seattle and COSN in Austin.  In addition, Peggy was a Keynote speaker at the SWCSS and the CLMS annual conferences.

At NECC 2009, she was awarded the prestigious “MAKING IT HAPPEN AWARD” and is proud to sport the coveted “PINK JACKET”  Peggy/Maggie Marat (her Second Life counterpart) was also privileged to introduce the opening Keynote Address at NECC 2009