Academic Request.....help me out?

[thetamlyone]

So, I haven't been around a lot lately, and I do miss you guys! Just looking over the forum makes me want to go home and play right now, but I'm at work, which brings me to my rather unusual request.

I'm teaching an article called "Scientific Habits of Mind in Virtual Worlds," which basically makes an argument for the kinds of reasoning skills, team-building skills, and so forth that people gain from playing online RPGs. Their test case in the article is WOW, but I'd love to show my students some of the discussions I've seen on these forums, especially if it involves a lot of logic, particularly mathematical calculations, or if it involves discussions of lore or party dynamics. I'm going to look on my own, but if you have favorite discussions I can share with them, I'd love to have them linked here. If you have something in your private messages that would be a FOIG and can't be posted here, you can PM them to me to share with my students. (They're high school students who are taking the course for freshman English college credit, by the way.)

Also, if you have comments about what you think you've learned from playing, I'd love to have that.

If you can find the time to help me out, thank you, thank you, thank you!!!!

See you IG soon, I hope!

[Shardthepious]

It might not help much, but for someone who is not a native english speaker, playing rpg is a great way to improve english second language in a way you won't learn at school. ( slang, different ways to build sentence, plus specific vocabulary)

So, that's what i learned from playing Avlis

[thetamlyone]

It might not help much, but for someone who is not a native english speaker, playing rpg is a great way to improve english second language in a way you won't learn at school. ( slang, different ways to build sentence, plus specific vocabulary)

So, that's what i learned from playing Avlis

Oooh, good point! Didn't think of that one!

[Tel]

I played Final Fantasy XI for a long time. There is quite a bit of data analysis that got done for that. The big part of the work there is getting through data errors over the years. They have build up some very specific formula or best-fit situations.

http://www.ffxiah.com/

I can't really say there's a good single source for the information on the site I haven't played in a while (I still read some of the threads years later).

[silverfields2]

Playing here has made me more aware of my non-verbal communication, something I was probably more aware of then most people anyway because of my interactions with Equines who use very little vocalizations and are super tuned in to body language because of thier social structure.

Playing this game is a lot like participatng in improve theater.

[Nighthawk4]

A few thoughts:

A lot of games these days are single player, very focused on specific goals. 'I want to complete this quest', 'I want to kill that Boss', etc.

In contrast, playing here is a different kind of game. I have fun taking part in an RP activity. I don't care what level I reach, nor what rewards I get. It is just fun to interract.


Also, there have been a number of occasions over the years when a group of characters were sitting around discussing some in game topic as if our lives depended on it. Only when I sat back and looked around the room was I able to realise just how much meaning we were all injecting into the game. Somewhere in various locations around the world, other people were staring at their screens doing the same.


Lastly, I recall a line from Tony Hancock's 'The Radio Ham' - friends all over the World. None in this country of course, but friends all over the World'


Thankyou Avlis for 13 wonderful years. Many more to come I hope

[Auriane]

I crave the interaction, the moment to play a role.
Like finding a place and there it is.. the conflict, the resolution and a story is born.

The people of Avlis are open to vivid stories and creating something profound and interesting.
For the most part, the characters show each other a kindness and support I have not seen before in a role playing game.
Not only is the role play unique, it is exciting and fulfilling.
To know we are from all over the world adds the spice of our creation.

Now let us find a good log and fire to talk of these things.

[amusedapathy]

It might not help much, but for someone who is not a native english speaker, playing rpg is a great way to improve english second language in a way you won't learn at school. ( slang, different ways to build sentence, plus specific vocabulary)

So, that's what i learned from playing Avlis

This.... is so true.... and if you want thetamlyone I can send you a half-way decent academic breakdown of using Avlis as a tool for second language acquisition from a linguistics perspective.

I also probably somewhere have a transcript of a gurky crafting lesson, which does have oodles of logic behind recipes deep in the depths of his gnomish accent.

AA

[SaraEF]

this thread is a year old and was bumped by a spam bot.

[thetamlyone]

this thread is a year old and was bumped by a spam bot.

True, but I'm still a teacher and still a devoted Avlis peep. And we still use the anthology that has that article in it. And best of all, it's still a fun discussion!

[Ronan]

*stabs spambot* Fixed.