The first lesson where students were allowed to join the Numeracy world finished about an hour ago. I am still trying to wrap my head around exactly what happened during the lesson, the recording will help with this, but one thing I am definitely sure of is that students were engaged. There were some teething issues with the install, but they were quickly fixed. Then there were some naming issues, which caused some students to be unable to collect their pay until they logged in with their 'proper' name.
Shane and Matt were on Skype for the hour or so students had access to the world, and their feedback on what they heard has been fantastic. An interesting point here is that the students were amazed that these people wanted to hear what they were doing. They have both given me some of their thoughts on things to adjust before next time, or at least in the near future, that will make it easier to manage, and perhaps free me up in class too. One great idea that I will most likely be offering to students next week, is an extra payment for being a 'helper' that goes around the room helping other students if they get stuck.
One student, already, killed a spider, went to the not yet implemented sales floor and wanted to sell his piece of string to get some extra cash. Now that is an entrepreneur in the making right there. Many students did exactly what I was hoping they would do, once they ran out of cash, or things to do in the numeracy world, they wanted to log into the creative world to make their houses. So what I am thinking of doing is putting that creative world as a MystCraft dimension in the Numeracy world, so that they can stay in the same log in, and head over and keep building. This will also make it easier for me to copy/paste their houses over when it is time to do so.
Another interesting thing that happened was students were helping defend each other from the monsters at night, one even learnt from their first death, went and bought a sword and then went back out to help out even more.
The discussions with students were quite interesting, one student was trying to buy 64 raw fish, so I went over, asked her if she really wanted to buy 64 raw fish, she said no, I only want one. So we headed to the right floor and went to buy one. Then I went on and asked if she wanted to buy a cooked fish for 4 stone, or an uncooked fish for 2 stone. She said, "Will I need to cook it?" my response was yeah you probably should. She then needed to add it to her budget, when she worked out she just paid $20 for one raw fish she went "20 DOLLARS!!! WHAT!!!!" Hopefully students will learn the value of thinking about their spending as time in world progresses.
So where to from here? Next up is to demo to students how the traders work, and how the bank currency swap works. I am planning on using the first part of each lesson to teach students particular in-game skills that they will need. Also I will be beginning to offer worksheets on percentages ready for them to apply for their home loan in the coming weeks.
Thanks for reading, there will be another post later today after the transcription/translation lesson is run this afternoon.
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