Overnight, I thought about Steve Jenkinsens' discussion provoking MC experiment with the East India Company. It did indeed promote some interesting discussion about how other players were supposed to respond. But it occurred to me that there is also a much wider discussion that might be worth exploring. Namely, is MC as a virtual space too "nice?" To judge from what I've seen here, everyone in the community is tremendously friendly, generous, helpful, kind, sympathetic, supportive, etc.
But the real world isn't like that. I was reminded of a research article which looked how ESL/EFL textbooks handled various social actions such as invitations, requests, and so on. The author found that overwhelmingly invitations were accepted, requests were granted, opinions were agreed with. In short, the projected "culture" of the ESL/EFL textbook-world was a utopian world of harmony. But that's not the reality of actual life. Leaving aside the large issues of war, famine, etc., in our everyday lives, we all reject invitations, refuse requests, and disagree or more subtly disaffiliate. In aspects large and small, living in the real world involves conflict resolution. We are doing our ESL/EFL learners a disservice by not providing them with social and linguistic tools to manage these situations.
So, is the MC world too nice?
topokethingswithastick... my question would be “Too nice for what?”. I think how you answer is more about context/agenda, and the question probably really about something larger than Minecraft (maybe/also what Don was getting at). I def. endorse the idea of providing an environment that includes “greater challenge”, which probably fits into the category of “less nice”.
ReplyDelete“Are you having a pleasant day?” - “Yes, thank you.”
does not prepare one for when the “real” answer is... “Are you kidding me! Can’t you see these arrows sticking out of me? That’s MY barn that’s on fire! I’d explain it all to you in more deta...” SSSSSSS BOOM!
It's good to be surrounded with nice people! We are planting seeds of kindness, of offering help to others as a community of practice (especially for Mattie). When we are with kind, supportive, and generous friends, we are more likely to learn to be kind, supportive and generous. Although we might not learn how to handle being rejected (or ignored XD), we learn how to be kind. Just a thought. : )
ReplyDeleteJane Chien yes, my thinking is that the “not nice” elements don’t come from our behavior changing to “less nice”, but from making sure the environment is not “too easy”, that there is sufficient difficulty to provide challenge and motivate effort, enough discomfort to dissuade inaction, and some adversity to build community.
ReplyDeleteA: Who wants to help me build a barn for cows? B: ...um...a barn? I don't know. Do we really need a barn? Can't we just let the cows roam free? Wouldn't a fence do just as well? Anyway, I'm sorry, but I've really got a lot of other stuff to do. So...
ReplyDeleteJane, since the majority of members of this particular community seem to be involved in teaching young learners, it's not surprising that there is a "kinder, gentler" vibe. K-6 education is traditionally that way. But adults are regularly presented with situations where always agreeing, helping, supporting are not always the right thing to do. At work and in our social lives we need ways of "resisting" others.
ReplyDeleteDon Carroll I see what you are saying Don, and don’t disagree, but I don’t think it is a recipe for a successful approach in a “cooperative play” environment. I think what we are defining here is one of the key differences between a pvp vs a pve world... “where are the adversarial elements?” ( player-vs-player or player-vs-environment ). My perception is that ours has been primarily pve, with the idea that it was a better option for learning.
ReplyDeletehaving posted that, I can think of one application (anti-bullying) where pvp might be the more useful approach, as far as simulation, modeling of behaviors, immersion etc. ; so backing up a step or two to reconsider a position firmly on the fence (?)
Again, I'm coming at this as a language teacher and it's been my experience that successful task-based activities often (usually, always) require team members to disagree with their team mates. That's been an on-going problem for me in Japan where people are famously "polite" and have an almost pathological distaste for conflict. Games that work in other cultures, like the well-known "desert island" game where people need to agree on which 10 items to bring with them to an island, just don't work, because no one will ever disagree with anyone's suggestion. A: We should bring a TV. Everyone else: ((silently nods head or does nothing, then writes TV on list.))
ReplyDeletehahaha...I heard. And they'll secretly disagree, just not to your face. Mattie says he agrees with you that everyone is very nice on MC and mommy won't reject him harshly or stop him from doing things. In the real world, Mattie says "Mommy, can I play minecraft? Then Mommy will say: No! Mattie, go do your homework! Mommy, I finished my homework now. Can I play. Then Mommy will say: No, go take a shower first."
ReplyDeleteDon Carroll I must vehemently oppose your example, the response MUST always be... pro-barn-constructing. (ask anyone)
ReplyDeletehttps://lh3.googleusercontent.com/GkMdOiGeDf72WxakcTkQFuGJxGtozIlFC_OU_bLIXKasX-JZ4cJ2YJKRC6yqdud9odP2TBoLUH62oiSp3YqEasQfRd2MFIMQ2Xg=s0
ReplyDeleteHi Don Carroll - I'm passionate about games and the good they can do. Unfortunately, that passion is tempered by the persistent problem of toxicity in online communities around games. Although strides have been made in welcoming more diversity into games, much of the online discussion around games is controlled by those that fit the unfortunate stereotype of "angry white teenage male" gamer whose caustic language make it challenging for minorities, women, and really anyone of a differing lifestyle to feel welcome. So is MC "too nice"? Sadly it is not and there are many MC servers out there that trade in aggression and toxicity.
ReplyDeleteSo is our MC server too nice? Again, no - a welcoming online gaming community can never be too nice or too supportive. And ours is tireless work over the last four years by our moderating team. If we want more teachers to learn to use games, we have to create communities where they feel welcome. An aggressive, hostile server won't achieve our mission statement.
I do agree that MC can be used to teach sensitive subjects. Some fantastic work has been done using MC to tackle issues such as the refugee crisis and post-war community development. Tough subjects can be learned, but that takes planning and leading a discussion toward that stated goal versus just doing it. We have plenty of webinar spaces left to fill and I think a community round table, or specific members, speaking to teaching tough topics through MC could be a fantastic webinar.
Regarding Steve Jenkinson post. I think using Minecraft to teach about colonial history is worthy of a deep dive. Talking slave trading and village claiming so abruptly is what I found off putting. Notably, to do so under the East India name. Introducing slave trading onto our server, even if it is subjugation of what amounts to lines of computer code, bothers me. Granted we have had villagers turned into traders before, but never with such language. It struck a wrong cord for it to just be proclaimed on the G+ page and server for me; the results for others may vary.
Not being as nice on our server, which over the last four years has taken the gentler side of gaming to encourage teachers to embrace games, could undermine our mission.
Jeff, I understand and agree with everything you've said here. And I'm certainly not advocating for a more "combative" or "toxic" atmosphere. I'm just pointing out, from a language teacher's perspective, that being able to skillfully manage disaffiliating social action is crucial and we do a disservice to ESL/EFL learners, particularly adults, by ignoring those aspects of language.
ReplyDeleteJeff Kuhn the language of the post was done in RP mode as far as i was concerned. Its a reality of the British Empire that this was allowed. I'm British and I have no hang-ups about discussing the topic of slavery as believe in the discussion we avoid these deeply disturbing parts of human history being repeated due to ignorance [in much the same way the topic of the Holocaust is covered with older children]. The idea was to provoke discussion and think about uses of Minecraft. Caustic gamers aside I don't accept that the norm for our young people regardless of age, are platforms devoid of rules regulations or points of conflict. It is how we as teachers lay out the rules of discourse as facilitators for learning and how we manage behaviour that defines what is learnt.
ReplyDeleteTo add most multiplayer servers have a spawn area [which I know people are opposed to] with rules on conduct and consequences. Moderators actually observe players and police what goes on. Ok, this isn't always a 100% success rating but if you want young people to play on these servers there is no guarantee that everyone will be as friendly or nice. It is my experience playing alongside my son that players are a mixture of ages [and that doesn't also guarantee how people behave] some are friendly and others will completely ignore you in chat. The latter being something I have had to educate my son about as some of these communities tend to be extremely clicky and resent others joining 'their' server. By experiencing this my son grew in resilience!
'Off putting' Jeff ? Sorry welcome to the real world if you sugar coat everything you deliver, who are you preparing for leaving school??? Yes there are ways of delivering the topic to young people but as adults, I figured that as the follow up post suggested the posts were done in Role play.
The intention was to set up a trading post with the villagers to trade with whilst placing signs or points of interaction or links to videos or content relevant to the topic. When I logged in this morning there were blocks around the wall which meant mobs could get in - all bar 2 of the 10 villagers had disappeared - i presume by zombies - and I am now working on breeding them again. I wasn't intending to play pvp or encourage pvp but in much the same way Dakotah talks in Role play I was trying to encourage discussion. For this I make no apologies for encouraging discussion the intention was to see how effective it could be as a tool for learning.
I am sorry however that you have taken this so seriously and cannot see as an educator how discussion encourages the autonomous learner.
Regards
Iceman
Well argued, Iceman. I personally wasn't "offended" by the language of your "declaration." It seemed obvious to me that this was role-playing...and that's why I responded in kind with my best pirate voice and grammar. Rrrr, me matie! I don't teach these subjects myself, but I sure don't have any problem with presenting students with activities that push them out of their comfort zone.
ReplyDeleteThanks Don I gushed that from you're capt Jack sparrow comment. Undid steely some can't see beyond that. I was extending the rp Dakota introduced to its inevitable discussion points for older kids. Add there no confines regards where the community went I regarded this ad a worthwhile exercise ad it makes me uncomfortable that my ancestors found this acceptable. From discomfort and truth comes education and from ignorance grows hatred.
ReplyDeleteIt's your last paragraph Steve that worries me. Where you write "you have taken this so seriously and cannot see as an educator how discussion encourages the autonomous learner."
ReplyDeleteThe inference that I can't see the benefits of an honest discussion is troubling. I jumped into the conversation because I think it is worth having. If this side of the discussion isn't welcome, just let me know.
Hope you don't take my seriousness on this as a personal trait - I'm more fun than this wall of written text implies. Since earnest discussion was the name of the game that's what I did. I disagreed with the wording of an idea, not the person or the professional/personal experience behind it.
In regards to the deficiencies of ESL/EFL we all agree it does little to prepare students for authentic social interaction. It's why I have no faith in textbooks and advocate games in class. They provide those opportunities for negotiation and compromise that is lacking in textbooks written bland enough to occupy the largest market share.
Where I went wrong is I brought the wrong arguments to bear in the discussion. As the conversation shifted to teaching difficult subject matter in ESL/EFL my focused remained on game culture in general and this server in particular.
So as you say Steve, "Off putting' Jeff ? Sorry welcome to the real world if you sugar coat everything you deliver, who are you preparing for leaving school???".
I didn't consider I am preparing anyone for leaving school as I wasn't seeing this discussion through the lens of education. My position stemmed from being a moderator of the server and thinking about what happens on it and keeping it as inclusive as possible. I don't want anyone to ever feel unwelcome.
What this highlights is that there are many starting points for people. Sorry but still find it hard to accept you actually took the east India company post as being offensive. To have any discussion on the topic you have too be provocative. It was in no way supposed to be offensive to anyone but definitely a way that educators in the U.K WOULD approach it.
ReplyDeleteIt also highlights that there are expectations and unwritten rules but unless you are formalizing how these discussions take place, by that I mean role play or non role play format its very unclear too me how you can be offended by something which happened in world history and is being explored in an educational setting where the community had been given free license to explore what's available and what works.
ReplyDeleteSo that all said what am I not allowed to do/discuss maybe we start from there?
ReplyDeleteFrom the comments it seems clear that we're coming at this from several different directions. I signed up for this EVO MC session assuming (perhaps foolishly) that EVERYONE ELSE would also be ESL/EFL teachers exploring how to use MC to teach ESL/EFL. That turns out not to be the case at all. Overwhelmingly (it seems) most people here are either doing K-6 (or thereabouts) and/or ITC. If they are working with English at all it's in the "language arts" sense of doing general language development. Of course in the US that involves large numbers of students who speak some language other than English in the home. But it's not the same as teaching an ESL or EFL class.
ReplyDeleteThe general idea of "playing in MC" has potential, but perhaps mostly for young learners like Mattie and Emanuel. My university EFL students would need more language support and structure, similar to the MC project reported on in the article that Maha linked to. The problem that I had with what I read in that paper was that it did indeed seem like "old wine in new bottles" with traditional EFL content being repackaged in shiny new online technology.
I think there are also different ideas about what this EVO experience is supposed to be about. Again I came here thinking it would all be about being shown how to use MC for ESL (or maybe teaching in general). But that's not really what it does. It's more like a game space for participants to learn how the game works for themselves. (I have to say I find "Educators learning how to use Minecraft in teaching by teaching each other how to use Minecraft" to be somewhat circular.) It's fine if you conceptualize teaching as "play together." But that's not a good model for an adult EFL course. It would be fine as an out-of-class supplementary activity, on par with watching movies. BTW, I totally support the play-together model for younger learners. So-called "Eigo de asobo" (Let's play in English) activity days are popular in Japan, and I've lead a few myself with young learner groups...and encourage this approach to learning in my EFL methodology courses for future English teachers.
ReplyDeleteBTW, Steve, I want to make clear that I was not in any way involved in the "raid" on your trading outpost.
ReplyDeleteI had hoped people would see the rp posts for what they were. Also that by building a town centred around the topic of slavery it might allow signs ad links to other resources on the topic. I would also hope it was mobs and not people taking villagers or freeing them. I'm getting the same feeling that my idea of what I was getting involved in isn't quite what the server is about. I'm considering that maybe i might need to set-up a separate server for open discussion on such topics. Never wad my intention to offend but it seems the thinking behind the server opposes the idea of such topics being discussed in a frank way that poses pathways thinking about new activities and the use of mc as a tool.
ReplyDeleteWhat might be interesting is, if instead of "building structures," people engaged in "building mini-lesson worlds" -- as Steve was doing. That's really what I should be doing here. Can I build a micro-space that would allow students to learn specifically, for example, socially suitable forms of acceptance and rejection of invitations? I can't at the moment imagine any way that that could be done...that would actually be better in MC. But I suppose it's not impossible.
ReplyDeleteSteve's world-scenario seems like a completely appropriate experimental setup. It was never suppose to be part of the EVO culture. It was a serious attempt at creating just the sort of lesson world that teachers would have to create to teach specific topics with MC. This might be something that could be more the focus of future EVO sessions. There could be a "MC training area" but also a space were teachers practiced planning and then building MC lesson spaces. Other teachers could come by and visit those lesson spaces and learn and comment.
ReplyDeleteHey Steve and Don, I promise this will be my last intrusion on your conversation, but I don't want you to feel like your ideas are strongly opposed. We can see by the silence from the rest of the community on this that maybe it is just me who saw it differently.
ReplyDeleteHad I seen the post about the teaching idea and the context come first and then the role play post come second it would have made total sense to me - it would have provided me a context for why I was seeing a post about taking lands and enslaving people at the initial opening of the G+ page. That's all.
Don't feel my opinion and our ensuing differing of opinion as anything other than that. We have in the past had frank and open discussions on difficult issues in our community, but those always came with a contextual grounding first. Again, I just had no context for what I was seeing so it hit me differently.
I had a similar situation occur in a class I was teaching in which the subject matter in a game hit too close to home for a student. It was never something I intended or even though may happen. So yeah my initial gut reaction to your post was "What if an Indian teacher came to our page and that was the first thing they saw?" And again I'd like to stress I thought this as I did not see posts setting up a context.
I don't want this to be an obstacle to us having a great time on the server where you should absolutely feel welcome to create anything you'd like. My apologies if my posts made you think anything otherwise.
Actually Jeff most people that are regulars were aware of the experiment via discord. Still doesn't answer the reaction to enslaving and village grabs tbh. The server is more about younger pupils and less about teachers actually discovering ways of delivering topics which I thought was its intention. As a play thing excellent too meet the guys that talk in discord a good group of people but for me now it's become a play thing and not something I will be pursuing regards trying out teaching ideas. Anything I do will be for my own satisfaction that I'm able to build it/ organise it and I will desist from posting on the group and just maintain connections via discord worth the regulars when I'm online in the world.
ReplyDeleteHere's the thing, in an actually teaching situation, I would imagine that ONLY Steve's students would have access to the particular server that he would be running. So the scenario of the "Indian man" happening across it wouldn't happen. If it were me, I might plan it out something like this. Step 1: Spend the development time to create the micro-world in MC. I would remove any actual historical names and make it a generic situation where a powerful "dominant" class ruled over and enslaved and traded members of subject classes. Step 2: I would ask students to "visit" this world, look around, figure out how it works. participate however they wish (short of destruction) Step 3: Once they had all had a chance to be in this world for a while, I would have the students write an essay (like a diary) about what what they did in-world and what they saw and how they felt about it. Step 4: With the ideas of their essays fresh in their minds, have a discussion in class (not in MC and not via online docs) where the teacher could introduce topics such as "equality" "social classes" "ethnic groups" and "slavery" (in the broad sense of having complete and total control over another person). Step 5: Once all of this was done, the teacher can introduce examples and materials regarding specific historical cases of this happening. The East India Company. The horrors of Belgian imperial rule in the Congo (well that might be a bit to much for younger children), slavery in the US, enslaving of sub-Saharan refugees in Libya today.
ReplyDeleteSo in this sense the self-contained MC world would be a lead-in for the main elements of the lesson.