Class Realm, the new 6th grade RPG

[Alyeska]

Found a link to this story from Blaghag. The original source is Kotaku. The basic premise is a 6th grade teacher designed his own RPG specifically for his 6th grade class as a teaching tool. Experience points. Achievements. Random Encounters. And its working. Its an incredible read.

http://www.kotaku.com.au/2012/03/how-on ... to-an-mmo/

*excerpt*
Participation skyrocketed on the first day. I had students I never heard from volunteering to answer questions they didn’t even know the answer to. Students who normally wouldn’t even care were going out of their way to get XP from class participation. Every one of my students pushed themselves to focus during the day’s assignments and behave. One student, who earned a bronze level achievement, was even applauded by the entire class. It blew my mind. The amount of XP I was going to give out was undetermined, so I just let them come naturally. Share your maths answer with the class? XP for you. Let a classmate borrow your dry erase marker? XP for you!
*excerpt*

[Vehrec]

Wow. Be interesting to see a follow-up from the end of year. Get these kids writing, reading, learning more, all for points and pizza.

[mr friendly guy]

In my primary school one of the teachers awarded us points as well. However instead of going to the individual, it went to your team. Usually we were assigned to teams, IIRC the class was divided into 4 teams. The team with the most points ended up winning a prize at the end of term, usually some lollies.

Edit - I should note it wasn't anywhere as extensive as what the article described. We would get points for scoring well in games (which were themselves played to facilitate this score keeping), marks in major assignments, and even when the school made students pick up trash and weeds.

[LaCroix]

Pfft... A blatant Hogwarts ripoff, if you ask me...



I like it - wish my school were more like that...

[Simon_Jester]

Heh.

Where do you think Rowling got the idea from? People have been running schools on systems vaguely like "points for House Oogabooga" for a long time.

[Crateria]

That would have been an interesting year. Shame they didn't do that in my 6th grade.

[Skgoa]

I know someone who wrote an iPhone calendar/todo-list app that was essentially this. You type your "quests" in and get XP etc. for fulfilling them. It's a great idea. I put everything I have to do on little note cards (like you would use for studying vocabulary), it's like a real life quest log.

edit: And of course Khan Academy has to be mentioned. They are doing something similar at two schhools in California, I believe.

[Rabid]

I know someone who wrote an iPhone calendar/todo-list app that was essentially this. You type your "quests" in and get XP etc. for fulfilling them. It's a great idea. I put everything I have to do on little note cards (like you would use for studying vocabulary), it's like a real life quest log.

I want my own Pip-Boy goddamnit.


In some odd way it almost seems as if teaching is much more efficient when the children are invested in what you're trying to teach them. Strange...

[mr friendly guy]

Heh.

Where do you think Rowling got the idea from? People have been running schools on systems vaguely like "points for House Oogabooga" for a long time.

Indeed. One of my teachers in primary school did this, and that was in the late 1980s.