"Avatars" in game-design are personas that game-players take on as they immerse themselves in the game. Game-players play the game with this 'fictitious' persona. This persona, normally called a 'player character', can be a warrior, a scientist, a superhero, a spy, an animal, etc. Hiding behind this persona allows the game-player to behave differently than how they would normally behave in real life. They are taking on a role of a character that is usually bigger and greater than themselves. This anonymity, and the license to act 'bigger-than-life" gives them freedom to defeat foes, do heroic acts, fulfill quests, etc. The persona allows them to take greater risks, explore and approach problems that they would not face in real life. For the language classroom, what if a language learner has the ability to hide behind a mask and/or persona? Would the language learner be willing to take risks if his real identity was hidden? To what degree of risk-and more importantly, the increase of associated benefits would a language learner have in if she were operating under this protection?

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My first session to attend at the Philadelphia TESOL Conference was on using 'Gamification' to design language lessons. I was really interested in hearing what the speaker had to say. Games and gaming at home and in the mobile space is taking off, and I wanted to hear what clever people had to say. I sat in the front, I got my notes out, I had my coffee nearby within arm's reach. It was 7:32 am (4 o'clock in the morning CA time) and there was no speaker.

No problem.

I would just get up and go to my alternate session. I said something to the guy next to me and we both agreed that the speaker was a no-show.

I gather my stuff and walk out. As I am going down the hall I overhear two guys talking about 'gamification' coming towards me and towards the 'speaker-less' session. I politely interrupt them and inform that the guy didn't show up. There was disappointment on their faces.

I then suggested out-of-the-blue that we should just get together and chat about the topic. We should not wasted the opportunity. We walk back in and still there's no one there. I then went crazy...

I got up and introduced myself to the 40-50 attendees still waiting for the speaker. "I'm not the speaker for this talk," I said, "but if you want, I can facilitate a discussion on gamification, since you are all here vested in this topic."

There was agreement. So, I get my iPad out, use my VGA converter, and open a note-taking application. The large screen responded beautifully!

I asked folks the audience to start sharing. I told them that I'll take notes that would be projected on the screen. And who ever spoke, I would put their contact information in the notes next to their comments. I told the audience that if they wanted a copy of the notes, I would post them online later in the day, and they could email me for the link.

Let the gamification "speaker-less session" begin!

It was a truly amazing hour and a half. People shared their thoughts, concerns and resources. Others would answer their questions, clarify, and share their insights. All I did was take notes, give a few comments, moderate discussions and thank the impromptu contributors. I kept on thinking to myself: 'This is so rich! I am truly engaging with their like-minded educators. I am helping others with concepts, I am not wasting my time!'

I wished at that moment, when we were wrapping up our talk, that more sessions would be like this. A genuine mutual sharing of ideas and practices. We identified unanswered questions that we would need to find answers for. We resourced each other. We encouraged each other and felt that we were not alone.

It really does remind me of how lucky I am. My favorite place at work at UCI is our little kitchen area. I learned so much just chatting with my colleagues. These short (not always short) conversations were again the mutual sharing of ideas, and questions. There was that same feeling of camaraderie.

Why aren't conferences more like this? I really don't think that the rest of the sessions that I plan to attend are going to be as uniquely special as my first one.

The link to the 'Speaker-less Session' is on my blog: http://tefl.posterous.com
Scroll down and look for the Gamification Jam-Session posts (there are 14 individual posts!).

Roger

Sean Dikkers, guest blogger for the site Dangerously Irrelevant (http://dangerouslyirrelevant.org/2012/02/are-teacher-preparation-programs-dan..., is conducting a 4-part blog post on the 'irrelevancy of teacher training programs'.

"Many studies seek to inform practice by examining experts in a field. In this post, I want to share some of the preliminary findings in the 21st Century Teaching Project (21CTP) - a study of teacher professional development trajectories toward the integration of new media technology."

He further posits this question: "So what does this say to educational leadership? Do we want more 21st century teachers? The most innovative teachers are drawing on experiences and skill sets they developed outside of education."

The link below talks of MIT's bold new educational currency.

http://chronicle.com/article/MIT-Mints-a-Valuable-New-Form/130410/ (Source:

RT @briankotts: MIT Mints a Valuable New Form of Academic Currency bit.ly/xr1LpL /via @chronicle #highered

— markwarschauer (@markwarschauer) January 31, 2012

Roger

There's this outfit in the UK called Learning Without Frontiers: Learning, Innovation & Society. Learning Without Frontiers "is a global platform for disruptive thinkers, innovators and practitioners to share knowledge, ideas and experiences about new learning." They had a number of notable speakers: Ray Kurzwiel, Sir Ken Robinson, Noam Chomsky just to name a few. Chomsky spoke yesterday on technology. The following is an excerpt from a Wired article by Katie Scott. My thanks to DML central for alerting me to this article. "The MIT professor stated that technology can be compared to a hammer. "It doesn't care if you use it to build a house or crush someone's skull. The Web is valuable if you know what you're looking for, if you have a framework of understanding. But you always have to be willing to question whether your framework is the right one." He compared simply browsing the web for information to pointing a student at the library knowing they had no idea what they were looking for. "Exploring the internet can just be picking up random factoids that don't mean anything", he said. "The person who won the Nobel prize in biology isn't the person who read the most journals. It was the person who knew what to look for," he added." I want to be clear how this helped me articulate my hopes for the Teacher-training program I have been involved in these past six months. The JTEs (Japanese English Teachers) that came here to our International Programs at UC Irvine Extension might have expected to attend just a bunch of lectures. But that was not my goal. My goal was not to fill their heads with static knowledge- "reading the most journals" as Chomsky pointed out The goal was to help them know what to do when they went back to Japan...when they go back into the classroom.