-from "The Great Mouse Plot" by Roald Dahl
Over the years, I've increased the amount of choice my students have in terms of task, team, technique, and time. I've given back 20% of their "work week" for entirely self-directed, ungraded research projects, and I've made digital storytelling a pillar of my classroom. Student voices have flourished - there is some absolutely incredible student-created content on my YouTube channel to prove it. And yet...
Something has been missing. I won't say that I've been searching for a silver bullet for all of the challenges we face in education - because no such remedy exists. But there has been a missing element in my classroom, a missing piece of my professional practice and I've been searching for and hoping to find. And I think, maybe, I finally have it.
Last semester in my graduate program, a lot of my thinking about gamification was refined to a workable idea, a grand mashup of everything I've learned over the course of three classes that have dealt with gamified curriculum. My thoughts deal specifically with the value of quest-based learning and how I can integrate Minecraft into my curriculum. For my final project, I developed the vision for my classroom next year. I also began the practical work of building out the components I need in order to make it come alive.
Being a digital storyteller first and foremost, of course I chose to share my ideas via YouTube. Take a look:
I am so excited!