#Fostering Kids ARG

[superdumbfan]

I made an in-universe blog of my ARG.

[pointvee]

ingo's thing is on the equivalent of poke instagram right? well,, insta has a live function.

people see him go live and immediately start wondering: is this ooc content? not likely. build up for an arg arc? possibly.

what. could. it. be.

it's approximately five minutes of a sneasel wandering around with ingo's phone before lady sneasler finds it, puts it in her basket, and then the stream ends.

i love this idea anon

theres a clip of this happening to some guys on insta (critical role ppl? im not sure) and i can just imagine while ingo's taking a nap on of the sneasels opens up the live function of pokeinsta (name pending) and it sounds like a thunderstorm or like a train but its just. ingo snoring. and the view count goes from 0 to 100k in a minute and only rises, while half the camera is covered by ingos sleeve and the other half is a blurry mess. but you still see and (kinda) hear sneasels playing around, and even a good shot of the sneasel who started it getting reallll close up. eventually lady sneasel figures one of her kids did something and you hear this CLACK CLACK CLACK as she wakes... someone up.

"lady sneasler?"

"Sneas! Snea ler sneas."

"ah. yes. let me-"

and the feed cuts out much to the disappointment of thousands.

(and the voice. is oh so familiar but what if its not? people sound different when they first wake, he knows that. but the clip circulates and makes its rounds, and emmet begins to foster a spark of hope in his heart)

[bones-sprouts]

Human Error series by teeth_eater - Alright, first up we have the Human Error series! This series uses the "humans are space orcs trope" in that Tommy is a human stowaway on an alien ship run by SBI. Hijinks and angst ensue. 

Questions for Ada series by SilverWing15 - Aka that one fic series in which Tommy is a werewolf who so happens to go through the foster system. He's placed into the SBI household and tries to keep his werewolf stuff a secret.

when the wolf comes home by ThatWeirdGuyInTheBushes - Clingy Duo oneshot of after the New L'Manberg explosion.

Dollhouse by Lacy_Star - Holy frick Cam can I not recommend this one enough. It's fic in which the premise is that Dream locks everyone inside Pandora's Vault so they can all be one big happy family again. It's absolutely chilling and lowkey horrifying in which some of the characters behave towards their new predicament. 10/10, leaves a pit of dread in your chest afterwards.

that's it, it's split (it won't recover) by Jk_Kat - Tommy is revived and gets addicted to being dead after seeing all the new changes to the server. Angsty but with a happy ending, I love it.

keep you warm and safe by always_an_anxious_mess - Bench Trio fluff + WingInnit = Very fluffy preening scene. 

dissonance by shrugofgod - Tubbo centric fic that can kinda act as a character study. Deals with him processing his trauma.

Adagio by eneli - Another one I absolutely adore. I enjoy most works by eneli in general, they're an amazing writer. But anyways, this fic is a modern setting AU with coming of age Tommy and his new friend Tubbo. Focuses a lot on Tommy's relationship with SBI and Tubbo. I must warn you however, if you choose to read the rest of eneli's fics you'll notice a certain trend with them (not bad, just ohohohoho).

As for another work by this author I recommend TommyInnit's unbeatable method of avoiding sudden death. Vigilante Tommy crack fic. So much crack. So much humor. Made me cackle several times while reading.

Saturday's at the Diner by justsummr - SBI foster family focused fic (surprise surprise, you can tell what fics I highly enjoy). Wilbur, Techno and Phil own a family diner in which Tommy starts visiting pretty often. Very heartwarming fic, I adore it.

where did my courage go (I think I left it under the rubble) by violet_sunflowers - Ah the vigilante fics I read. This is one of them and focuses on Vigilante Bench Trio + Superhero SBI (Phil, Wilbur and Techno). 

Saturday series by ScumbagSimon - Another vigilante fic series. The first book focuses on Vigilante Tommy and Bench Trio, in which Tommy gets into encounters with Villain Dream Team and Superhero SBI. The second book is more Ranboo centric with Villain BBH + Crimson.

Bee & Boo & Michael (and sometimes Tommy) series by Doodlebloo - Ah the series which I go to ignore canon. Heavily Bee Duo centric with lots of fluff and a bit of angst. 

Casualty and Consequence by skyestar7703 - The SMP is a hellhole Tommy, Tubbo, Ranboo and Purpled are the Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse. Literally.

On another note, definitely check out the Living in the Circular series by the same author. This one has certain DSMP characters going through multiple "loops" and basically serves as a fic in which they go into several pieces of media and AUs possible.

east of eden series by subwaywalls - Holy shit Cam. This is another one I can't recommend enough, the description is beautiful and this series left me with a bittersweet numb ache after reading it. One of those fics that made me cry. It's an SBI foster family fic in which Phil is the equivalent to a biblically accurate angel, and Wilbur, Techno, Tommy and Tubbo are different magical beings. 10/10, I love to reread it.

ad astra per aspera series by cacowhistle - From difficulty to the stars. It's a canon divergent fic set near exile time in which Bedrock Bros heal together and more characters join in on healing. I very much adore this series.

I was a kid in the village, doing alright, then I became a prince overnight by sircantus - Phil's a king, Techno and Wilbur are princes and Tommy's an orphan who gets adopted into the royal family. Hijinks galore.

Another fic by the same author I like is Change fate by being aggressively kind. Phil's an avian in a world where avians are rare, Techno, Wilbur and Tommy are the Minecraft equivalents of the Antichrist. Cue Phil having another way to stop the apocalypse without murdering the children.

Honeycomb by khaoticwoes - Tangled AU in which Tubbo is Rapunzel, Tommy is Flynn and Dream is Gothel. Tommy's just accidentally caused crime towards King Phil, and we also have Sapnap and George as criminal brothers to Tommy.

Stream Labs LIVE by A_Non_ymousWriter - AU in which there's an ARG surrounding genius teen scientist Tubbo that is very highly produced. Turns out this ARG isn't an ARG an everything is happening in a fantasy world parallel to the modern one. I recommend other works from this author as well.

We'll (Ender)walk this long road together by Ravivkit - Bee Duo centric fic in which Enderwalk Ranboo cares about Tubbo very much, but Ranboo is unaware and afraid of it. Cue lots of fluff but also some angst.

Those are my fic recs for now! I hope you enjoy them!

[redantsunderneath]

The À la Recherche du Temps Perdu of gamer you tube videos

One recent mild obsession of mine is a >10 hour review of Cyberpunk 2077 that came out this week from Action Button dot Net (Tim Rogers), who used to be fun to read about video games in the aughts and who started doing long-ish entertaining videos for Kotaku a while back, but who now is doing marathon videos for his own youtube channel. Cyberpunk playlist:

Channel:

This all started because my kids mentioned a couple of weeks ago that super long youtubes attempting to exhaustively talk about a game were becoming a subgenre. I watched some dude's almost 8 hour Morrowind video until I stopped, but found AB.net's channel after not thinking about him for a decade, watched the 3.5 hour Doom one, and really dug it. The other genre examples I tried seem to be trying to find everything in-game to talk about in order to detail obsess the subject into submission. Rogers is doing something different.

You can call it new journalism (which arrived about four decades late to videogames over a decade ago but whose all-about-my-experience weirdly is the opposite of the idea of look-at-the-text-only "new criticism" of ye olde era, though Tim is clearly criticism not journalism) but I think it is something more interesting than that. It is more like the project of an (Mendelson’s) encyclopedic novel, trying to make a Ulysses of the late millennial gamer experience. There is a world map in these things individually and collectively - I haven't finished but this "season" but it has the feeling of really inspecting one by one the rooms of a childhood home. Moby Dick kept coming to mind (guy whose favorite book is Moby Dick: "I'm getting some Moby Dick vibes off of this") because of the feeling of narrative exhaustion, of discursive burnout. This is a thing Homestuck, Cerebus, Claremont's X-Men, the Worm (?maybe, haven't gotten too far there) give you as well as the obvious literary reference points.

David Foster Wallace isn't a bad comparison as there's a kind of diaphoretic almost horseshoe bipolar energy that seems to risk burnout (the hospital story is very IJ). All six vids cover different aspects of his life/development and there is a sense that the Cyberpunk one needs to be watched last as a more meta unifyer of the others (who am I kidding, but also yeah, that scans). There is, as those things above and early 10's Kanye, a feeling of obsessives with well developed craft giving over to an unmediated creative possession that they then can't help but hone because they are so good at their form. A kind of madness or channeled crisis wrought into art.

You miss a significant number of jokes if you aren't ready to pause and read text, which is insane. The Cyberpunk one is interesting as a piece of ergodic text, or at least cybertext, where there is a hidden substructure beneath his appeal to do a "choose your own adventure," with a "good ending" in there. If you read the comments (yes, on you tube, I know) there are people identifying as "5-6 ers" - there is just a kind of formal play going on that feels like experimental exploitation of how you do this kind of stuff on line that isn't an arg adjacent thing. There is even what feels like an annular narrative, a piece of himself that one needs to risk the parasocial police to try to find (I have not gone deep enough, but there is a ghost of something there).

There is a more general point about "everything goes in there" literary efforts that attempt to stake out an identity through unconcious overlapping magesteria that encompasses something bigger in the 40,000' reflection. Don't get me wrong, this isn't there yet. It is entertaining, experimental, interesting, and formative of something to come. But the frame is still small. We get a little early struggle with mortality, tar baby melee with an artistic form, a lot of social commentary, some pseudo-postmodernist, post-marxist division, philosophy, just a pinch off existential angst, but not a proper gaze into the abyss, no boxing with "God." That's a lot to ask for and it's only just suffering as a point of comparison with great art in mature fields. but there's always a season two and whatever this will conjure up in new creators' minds. Maybe the headline should read "the Velvet Underground of gamer you tube videos," but I feel like there is something here that in its modest aims is more along the lines of War and Peace ("Aggro and AFK"?) than a Pewds thing.

[can-i-cant-i]

1-70, bc i'm gon distract u

*cracks knuckles* okay, lets do this.

1. Do you have a good relationship with your parents?

I would say they are all strained for different reasons. (I say all because i am including my mother, father, and step father)

2. Who did you last say "I love you" to?

My younger sister, earlier today.

3. Do you regret anything?

Lmao just about everything, dude.

4. Are you insecure?

Oh, always.

5. What is your relationship status?

Single as usual.

6. How do you want to die?

Painlessly

7. What did you last eat?

Sweet potato fries and a caramel milk shake.

8. Played any sports?

Yes a couple and I hated all of them, sports don't really agree with me. tae kwon do, soft ball, and swimming.

9. Do you bite your nails?

Nope.

10. When was your last physical fight.

I have never been in a physical fight and if i was i am fairly certain i would loose, but hey, who knows. Maybe I'd surprise myself.

11. Do you like someone?

Yup.

12. Have you ever stayed up 48 hours?

Yes, I was trying to see how long i could stay awake and I hated it.

13. Do you hate anyone at the moment?

Oh yes, I do.

14. Do you miss someone?

My grandma and grandpa that live in Florida.

15. Do you have any pets?

No, my land lord dosn't allow pets.

16. How are you feeling at the moment?

Tired, as always.

17. Ever made out in the bathroom?

I haven't made out in the first place.

18. Are you scared of spiders.

sometimes. It depends on the spider, really.

19. Would you go back in time if you were given the chance?

This kinda depends on what you mean by go back in time. Do you mean go back in time as in i age back to the time i was like, a younger version of myself (and if so, do i remember everything from this time or do i just forget and like, relive everything?? Or is it like in Doctor Who were present me goes back into a different time, not necessarily in a time where i existed, like the 1930's or something?

20. Where was the last place you snogged someone?

In my dreams (I know, sad but true.)

21.  What are your plans for the weekend.

This also depends. If you mean the actual weekend, then my plans are working. If you mean what i consider my weekend, then my plans are hanging out with my best friend.

22. Do you want to have kids? How many?

Well, i do want to have kids eventually. Two or three probably, but then again, I also want to foster kids as well, so maybe more if you count them.

23. Do you have piercings? How many?

My ears (just the regular one) and my nose, though i plan on getting the industrial done on my left ear as well.

24. What is/are/were your best subject(s)?

At this point, honestly, I don't remember. I am gonna go with chorus class.

25. Do you miss anyone from your past.

Yeah my dead pets.

26. What are you craving right now?

A love life.

27. Have you ever broken someone's heart?

Not to my knowledge.

28. Have you ever been cheated on.

Well, I have only had one relationship and it only lasted a month so no.

29. Have you made a boyfriend/girlfriend cry?

No.

30. What's irritating you right now.

Pretty much everything, but mostly my mental health.

31. Does somebody love you.

My family and friends. (at least i hope they do)

32. What is your favorite color?

It's a tie between purple and green.

33. Do you have trust issues?

Of course.

34. Who/what was your last dream about.

I really don't remember.

35. Who was the last person your cried in front of.

i can't remember this one either.

36. Do you give out second chances too easily?

Probably.

37. Is it easier for you to forgive or forget?

Forgive probably but i probably would rather just forget.

38. Is this the best year of your life?

Well, it surprisingly isn't the worst, but I wouldn't say its the best either. I'm not entirely sure I have a best year of my life. It's kinda all mostly been rubbish so far with some good points.

39. How old were you when you had your first kiss.

Still waiting on that, unfortunately.

40. Have you ever walked outside comepletely nakes.

Lmao, no.

(For some reason it goes straight from 40 to 51, sorry)51. Favorite food?

Pork chops with my aunt's macaroni salad.

52. Do you believe everything happens for a reason.

Sometimes.

53. What was the last thing you did before you went to bed last night?

Light a sandalwood incense.

54. Is cheating ever okay?

Do you mean in a relationship? if so, the answer is no.

55. Are you mean?

Sometimes i can be a little snappy but besides that, no.

56. How man people have you ever fist fought?

057. Do you believe in true love?

Yes, but i really have yet to see it for the most part.

58. favorite weather?

Thunder Storms.

59. Do you like the snow.

Up until Christmas, after that, no.

60. Do you want to get married.

I would like to, yes.

61. Is it cute when a boy/girl calls you baby?

Never been a huge fan of that nick name, though i have never been personally called it.

62. What makes you happy?

Being around my friends and family, Loki fanart and other things related to the marvel character, white chocolate kit kats and reading.

63 . Would you change your name?

Perhaps if i found the right name.

64. Would it be hard to kiss the last person you kissed?

Considering I haven't kissed anyone besides like, family members on the cheek, no.

65. Your best friend of the opposite sec likes you, what do you do?

Panic

66. Do you have a friend of the opposite sex that you can act your complete self around?

There really isnt anyone that i can act my complete true self around. everyone gets to see different parts. Some see very arge parts of me but i don't think anyone has seen it all truely.

67. Who was the last person of the opposite sex you talked to?

One of the people i share an apartment with.

68. Who's the last person you had a deep conversation with?

Either you or my apartment mate.

69. Do you believe in soul mates.

It's a beautiful idea that i'd like to get behind but I think i would have a hard time believing it.

70. Is there anyone you would die for?

Several people actually.

Ugh, finally finished, i hope you are happy

[zenith360]

I started and finished this amazing book. I gave it five stars. The characters are touching and the emotions really get back to you. I loved (almost) everything about this book. I never wanted it to end. (spoilers ahead)

The book was about this foster kid who has a bad track record. It shows how this slightly younger boy, Jack, lives and deals with him, and how they grow into a bonding relationship. The foster kid, whose name is Joseph, is a father....yes he has a kid, a girl named Jupiter. She is taken away from Joseph before the book starts and this really takes a toll on him. Finally he gets to see the foster mom of Jupiter and they stay in touch and send baby pictures. Pretty much everything goes well (HUGE SPOILER) until Joseph’s father shows up with a gun to take back Joseph and well......Joseph dies!! Like what the freak!!!! Did he have to die!! Like ARG! He could of had a life changing injury or something. And then Jack’s family adopts Jupiter. All in all 12/10

[bisoroblog]

How Schools Spark Excitement for Learning with Role Playing and Games

Michael Matera’s students don’t merely learn about medieval Europe, they live it. Albeit, with a few monsters and enchanted items thrown in the mix.

The Milwaukee teacher’s Grade 6 history class is an ongoing role-playing game called Realm of Nobles, where students join guilds, earn achievements, make trades and wage the occasional epic battle in an imaginary medieval kingdom. Matera has played the game for years, and maintains that the fusion of history, fantasy, narrative and role-play is an effective formula to engage students in learning.

“The excitement and the pride in their accomplishments are all through the roof. I love seeing kids gaining real-world skills, taking risks and learning from defeat in this gamified class,” said Matera, who wrote Explore Like a Pirate: Gamification and Game-Inspired Course Design to Engage, Enrich and Elevate Your Learners, a manual for teachers who aspire to design their classes as games.

A growing number of educators like Matera are remodeling their classes by fusing game elements to their instructional environments. But, does switching grades for experience points and homework for quests amount only to cosmetic surgery? Is school merely being “reskinned” with a new paint job without fundamentally altering the age-old classroom rituals?

The Rise of the EduLARP

The use of simulations and role-play in education is not a recent development. Model United Nations, historical re-enactments, mock trials and other types of dramatic simulations have been in the teacher toolbox for decades. What is new, however, is that the simulation is packaged as a game and sustained for an extended period, often spanning the entire school year.

This particular union of role-play, narrative, and game owes no small debt to Dungeons & Dragons, the classic role-playing game (RPG) that is enjoying a recent resurgence. D&D pioneered and popularized an array of RPG conventions that are now video game and tabletop staples, like experience points (XP), levels, loot, character classes and boss fights.

In the mid-’70s some eager D&D fans donned armor, weapons, gowns and cloaks, and transplanted RPG elements to the real world in the form of live-action role-play, or LARPs. Players stay in character as they interact and battle in elaborate adventures set in real-life forests and fields that evoke medieval fantasy. The popularity of LARPs in Scandinavia inspired a pair of Danish educators to open the Østerskov School that teaches with edularps. Today, edularps are found in schools in Sweden, Finland and Denmark, and even some U.S. schools have jumped into the fray.

Sanne Harder, a game designer and educator who worked at the Østerskov School, thinks that edularps are not only a fun way to learn, but also a better way to learn.

“When I choose to use role-play as a means of teaching, it is because it is an excellent way of organizing teaching, not because the hobby appeals to its fans,” wrote Harder. “In the 21st century, being a teacher is not about teaching pupils facts, it is about helping them internalize knowledge, skills, and competencies.”

Sarah Lynne Bowman and Anne Standiford conducted a 2016 mixed methods study of edularps at an L.A. charter school and found that they encouraged “greater motivation, engagement, interaction with peers, collaboration, and comprehension of material,” which is promising, but the area is new and the research nascent.

Choosing a Road to Victory

Edularps, and other class-as-game variants like alternate reality games (ARGs), pervasive games and gamified class, are popping up in schools, universities and even camps across North America. While the sword-and-sorcery motif remains prevalent, some educators have diversified into themes and settings that better fit their learning goals.

While still a high school science teacher, University of Connecticut assistant professor Stephen Slota designed a unit-length game to teach human reproduction and sexually transmitted diseases. “The students worked in teams of three to control a character avatar in a fictitious village, and their goal was to engage in an epidemiological study of the area by investigating locales and speaking to non-player characters as enacted by the instructor,” said Slota, who edited Exploding the Castle: Rethinking How Video Games & Game Mechanics Can Shape The Future Of Education, a collection of game-based learning essays.

Slota has since developed half a dozen class-as-games for subjects as far-flung as education technology, Latin, psychology and biology. Matera also sets one of his games during the Cold War, and the edularps at the Østerskov School involve a wide range of themes and settings.

The games tend to be flexible and students are able to alter the unfolding experience through the choices they make. This freedom to shape their circumstances and the accompanying sense of agency is a big part of what engages them in learning.

“I��ve found — both anecdotally and in my research — that freedom to push and pull at the game’s narrative and ruleset provides students with a sense of greater personal ownership, and therefore greater depth of knowledge about content than usually accompanies schoolwork,” said Slota.

Matera also stresses the importance of student agency, and feels that it marks a significant departure from typical classroom dynamics.

“Games have clear objects, but no one set path to that victory. This is where strategy comes into play. An RPG, as with many well-designed games, allows for the players to create their own path to victory,” said Matera. “This level of customization and personalization feels different than traditional school because it is different. Students have an opportunity to create their own experience within the game. They earn badges, items and power-ups that allow them to have a unique game characters. This leads to endless strategies, trades and allegiances to help successfully make it through the Realm.”

Houston-area teacher Kade Wells also personalizes his class by using a D&D-style character class system. He gives his students a basic personality test and, based on the results, assigns them one of four roles designed to support classroom management.

“Protectors keep the peace and manage group outbursts; Initiators get things ready and help to get materials, sharpen pencils and put things away; Diplomats help group members and facilitate all processes and are ultimately responsible for the group’s behavior; Sages keep the records, help with attendance, make sure that things are orderly and accounted for,” said Wells, who has found the class system empowers his students to self-regulate and take greater ownership of their environment.

There’s an App for That

Matera, Slota and Wells design their games from scratch, cannibalizing a pastiche of web applications, pen-and-paper elements, learning management systems, Google apps, spreadsheets and any other available tools that they can bend to their playful purposes. But teachers who don’t have the time, confidence or knowledge to dive into the DIY approach can turn to commercial software designed to help educators run their classes as games.

Rezzly’s 3D GameLab, the University of Michigan’s GradeCraft, NEXED’s Answerables and Classcraft are gameful learning management systems that have tapped into the class-as-game zeitgeist to help educators keep track of quests, levels, experience points, badges and other game features.

“They will do anything for XP [experience points] and GP [gold pieces] to level up their avatar,” said Carrie Casey, a Wisconsin middle-school science teacher who uses Classcraft. “I have seen some of my students who will not hand in work — work hard to get their work in for me so they get XP and do not disappoint their team.”

It has also helped Casey reach some challenging students: “I have connected to them through gaming where no other teacher has connected to them that year.”

Canadian teacher Justin Matheson says that his Grade 6 students loved the sword-and-sorcery motif, and he credits Classcraft’s video game qualities for fostering perseverance. “With video games, people get to a point where things become increasingly difficult and they experience repeated failure. Then, you are encouraged to try again and again, and to seek help through outside resources to find success. This is the most notable benefit that I have seen in my class. My students see difficulties as speed bumps instead of roadblocks.”

Grafting Dungeons & Dragons-style RPG elements to classrooms can have an effect that delves much deeper than mere optics. Games and classes are both systems that operate with rules. When the rules that typically govern the class are hacked by the rules of the game, a fundamental shift can take place. Games offer a valuable palette of functions and features that can be creatively repurposed to rewrite some of education’s more problematic operations. Educators who are not satisfied with business as usual can tap into the power of play and design the change they want to see.

How Schools Spark Excitement for Learning with Role Playing and Games published first on https://dlbusinessnow.tumblr.com/

[perfectzablog]

How Schools Spark Excitement for Learning with Role Playing and Games

Michael Matera’s students don’t merely learn about medieval Europe, they live it. Albeit, with a few monsters and enchanted items thrown in the mix.

The Milwaukee teacher’s Grade 6 history class is an ongoing role-playing game called Realm of Nobles, where students join guilds, earn achievements, make trades and wage the occasional epic battle in an imaginary medieval kingdom. Matera has played the game for years, and maintains that the fusion of history, fantasy, narrative and role-play is an effective formula to engage students in learning.

“The excitement and the pride in their accomplishments are all through the roof. I love seeing kids gaining real-world skills, taking risks and learning from defeat in this gamified class,” said Matera, who wrote Explore Like a Pirate: Gamification and Game-Inspired Course Design to Engage, Enrich and Elevate Your Learners, a manual for teachers who aspire to design their classes as games.

A growing number of educators like Matera are remodeling their classes by fusing game elements to their instructional environments. But, does switching grades for experience points and homework for quests amount only to cosmetic surgery? Is school merely being “reskinned” with a new paint job without fundamentally altering the age-old classroom rituals?

The Rise of the EduLARP

The use of simulations and role-play in education is not a recent development. Model United Nations, historical re-enactments, mock trials and other types of dramatic simulations have been in the teacher toolbox for decades. What is new, however, is that the simulation is packaged as a game and sustained for an extended period, often spanning the entire school year.

This particular union of role-play, narrative, and game owes no small debt to Dungeons & Dragons, the classic role-playing game (RPG) that is enjoying a recent resurgence. D&D pioneered and popularized an array of RPG conventions that are now video game and tabletop staples, like experience points (XP), levels, loot, character classes and boss fights.

In the mid-’70s some eager D&D fans donned armor, weapons, gowns and cloaks, and transplanted RPG elements to the real world in the form of live-action role-play, or LARPs. Players stay in character as they interact and battle in elaborate adventures set in real-life forests and fields that evoke medieval fantasy. The popularity of LARPs in Scandinavia inspired a pair of Danish educators to open the Østerskov School that teaches with edularps. Today, edularps are found in schools in Sweden, Finland and Denmark, and even some U.S. schools have jumped into the fray.

Sanne Harder, a game designer and educator who worked at the Østerskov School, thinks that edularps are not only a fun way to learn, but also a better way to learn.

“When I choose to use role-play as a means of teaching, it is because it is an excellent way of organizing teaching, not because the hobby appeals to its fans,” wrote Harder. “In the 21st century, being a teacher is not about teaching pupils facts, it is about helping them internalize knowledge, skills, and competencies.”

Sarah Lynne Bowman and Anne Standiford conducted a 2016 mixed methods study of edularps at an L.A. charter school and found that they encouraged “greater motivation, engagement, interaction with peers, collaboration, and comprehension of material,” which is promising, but the area is new and the research nascent.

Choosing a Road to Victory

Edularps, and other class-as-game variants like alternate reality games (ARGs), pervasive games and gamified class, are popping up in schools, universities and even camps across North America. While the sword-and-sorcery motif remains prevalent, some educators have diversified into themes and settings that better fit their learning goals.

While still a high school science teacher, University of Connecticut assistant professor Stephen Slota designed a unit-length game to teach human reproduction and sexually transmitted diseases. “The students worked in teams of three to control a character avatar in a fictitious village, and their goal was to engage in an epidemiological study of the area by investigating locales and speaking to non-player characters as enacted by the instructor,” said Slota, who edited Exploding the Castle: Rethinking How Video Games & Game Mechanics Can Shape The Future Of Education, a collection of game-based learning essays.

Slota has since developed half a dozen class-as-games for subjects as far-flung as education technology, Latin, psychology and biology. Matera also sets one of his games during the Cold War, and the edularps at the Østerskov School involve a wide range of themes and settings.

The games tend to be flexible and students are able to alter the unfolding experience through the choices they make. This freedom to shape their circumstances and the accompanying sense of agency is a big part of what engages them in learning.

“I’ve found — both anecdotally and in my research — that freedom to push and pull at the game’s narrative and ruleset provides students with a sense of greater personal ownership, and therefore greater depth of knowledge about content than usually accompanies schoolwork,” said Slota.

Matera also stresses the importance of student agency, and feels that it marks a significant departure from typical classroom dynamics.

“Games have clear objects, but no one set path to that victory. This is where strategy comes into play. An RPG, as with many well-designed games, allows for the players to create their own path to victory,” said Matera. “This level of customization and personalization feels different than traditional school because it is different. Students have an opportunity to create their own experience within the game. They earn badges, items and power-ups that allow them to have a unique game characters. This leads to endless strategies, trades and allegiances to help successfully make it through the Realm.”

Houston-area teacher Kade Wells also personalizes his class by using a D&D-style character class system. He gives his students a basic personality test and, based on the results, assigns them one of four roles designed to support classroom management.

“Protectors keep the peace and manage group outbursts; Initiators get things ready and help to get materials, sharpen pencils and put things away; Diplomats help group members and facilitate all processes and are ultimately responsible for the group’s behavior; Sages keep the records, help with attendance, make sure that things are orderly and accounted for,” said Wells, who has found the class system empowers his students to self-regulate and take greater ownership of their environment.

There’s an App for That

Matera, Slota and Wells design their games from scratch, cannibalizing a pastiche of web applications, pen-and-paper elements, learning management systems, Google apps, spreadsheets and any other available tools that they can bend to their playful purposes. But teachers who don’t have the time, confidence or knowledge to dive into the DIY approach can turn to commercial software designed to help educators run their classes as games.

Rezzly’s 3D GameLab, the University of Michigan’s GradeCraft, NEXED’s Answerables and Classcraft are gameful learning management systems that have tapped into the class-as-game zeitgeist to help educators keep track of quests, levels, experience points, badges and other game features.

“They will do anything for XP [experience points] and GP [gold pieces] to level up their avatar,” said Carrie Casey, a Wisconsin middle-school science teacher who uses Classcraft. “I have seen some of my students who will not hand in work — work hard to get their work in for me so they get XP and do not disappoint their team.”

It has also helped Casey reach some challenging students: “I have connected to them through gaming where no other teacher has connected to them that year.”

Canadian teacher Justin Matheson says that his Grade 6 students loved the sword-and-sorcery motif, and he credits Classcraft’s video game qualities for fostering perseverance. “With video games, people get to a point where things become increasingly difficult and they experience repeated failure. Then, you are encouraged to try again and again, and to seek help through outside resources to find success. This is the most notable benefit that I have seen in my class. My students see difficulties as speed bumps instead of roadblocks.”

Grafting Dungeons & Dragons-style RPG elements to classrooms can have an effect that delves much deeper than mere optics. Games and classes are both systems that operate with rules. When the rules that typically govern the class are hacked by the rules of the game, a fundamental shift can take place. Games offer a valuable palette of functions and features that can be creatively repurposed to rewrite some of education’s more problematic operations. Educators who are not satisfied with business as usual can tap into the power of play and design the change they want to see.

How Schools Spark Excitement for Learning with Role Playing and Games published first on https://greatpricecourse.tumblr.com/

[superdumbfan]

Despite the fact that I have not finish production on the first episode, the series might have to go on a very short hiatus.

The thing about this is that to create this series I was using a laptop given to me by my school. The thing is though I'm graduating on the 12th so I had to turn it in today. Now I have no computer to work on this project. So when it comes to art related to this project and the actual production of this project it will have to go on hiatus for a very short while.

Summer job lined up in place for me. So if everything goes smoothly hopefully you'll only take 2 weeks to get my check, buy a new computer, and continue production on this series. Though life can be unpredictable so I don't really know.

But just because I don't have a computer does not mean I'm not going to continue to work on this project. It just means for a while I'll have to work with notebooks instead of Google docs and I'll have to be using pen and paper instead of digital art. I don't know if any of this will be uploaded unless it's something really big I want to share. Mainly will be concept art for later on episodes since I've already got episode 1 through 3's scripts are already written out and I'm halfway through production of the first episode.

I don't know if I have a lot of fans of the series like at all but I want to apologize to those who are interested that I had to take a hiatus before I could even get the first official episode. Again hopefully this will be very short and just be a minor little bump in the production.

Thank you very much for your understanding. When production is started again I'll be more than happy to update those who are interested.

[superdumbfan]

When it comes to what I want to do with this tumblr, well I still do like making fan things like fan art and fanfiction I want to make my own original creations. I really want to make an ARG. I have been wanting to make this for a while but I couldn't settle on a story or theme I had way too many thoughts to comprehensively put into one but now I think I'm finally getting somewhere with this idea I'm going to start making and posting stuff completely around this idea and when I come up with the name for it I'll let you know.

And while I would hate to either write off of someone else's fame or even compare my own work to previous more popular works to give people an idea of what I'm working on I related very closely to chezzkids archive, welcome home, and the walten files. Again it just kind of follows the kind of ARG themeing and analog horror style but I just wanted to find an easy way to kind of tell you what I'm making without telling you the actual story of it cuz you know ARG you're supposed to find that yourself

[superdumbfan]

Prototype design of t-shirts. Merch design.

[superdumbfan]

Promo art for Fostering kids (1)

[superdumbfan]

So getting that computer is taking way longer than I expected.

Look I'm trying okay I sent in my resume a little while ago and for some reason they're taking super long to get me in and I can't buy any computer if I don't got money. I really do want to continue with my series! I'm just having a little bit of a rough time!! And I can't put out any teaser or promotional right now because I can't make it cuz I have no computer!!!!!!

[superdumbfan]

Sneak peek at episode 1!!

Here are some of the main characters for the series, not all but some.

[superdumbfan]

Promo art for Fostering Kids (3)

[superdumbfan]

Promo art for Fostering kids (2)