Week 1 #evomc16

Week 1 #evomc16  


I have a name, and I am lurking in Minecraft.  So far, I am alone, in the creative mode, with two worlds.  In the first world, I dug myself into a cave, and I cannot figure out how to get out.  There is a tiny light in the ceiling where I must have gotten in.  This world is on hold until I learn more about the game.  In my second world, I am in a flat green terrain, with no trees in sight, but there are a lot of hopping green rectangles.  The whole thing freaked me out, and I logged out.  I'll return later when I have more time to mess around.

The articles we read this week were fascinating.  I enjoyed reading about Filip Smolcec learned English through the game and YouTube.  I am obsessed by a paragraph in Jeff Kuhn's article on  Minecraft Meaningful Play – Making Professional Development Fun:

"Video games have become a staple of popular culture for a large segment of the population but for kids in particular they are becoming the preferred source of entertainment. With this new entertainment comes new literacy skills as well. Kids will assume those around them have a knowledge about games and how they function in the same way older generations assume a literacy regarding books, movies and music. In the near future claiming you do not understand games will evoke a response similar to claiming you ‘don’t get music’."

This has happened several times when my ELL students opened up to me in enthusiastic, detailed English about Minecraft, and I didn't understand what they were saying.