Kickstarter

Goals for School Year 2012-2013

We would like to create space at West Pender Middle School specifically for gaming.  This would be a safe haven where students can hang out, interact with each other, and support learning through gaming.  This space would be equipped with current gaming systems and games related to what they are learning in the classroom.  This lair would be specifically designed for group activity, club use after school, cool down spaces for students when emotions run high, and a multitude of other uses.  It will be a mash-up of bean-bag chair laden comfort carved out of a space that was once used to store school supplies.  

This new space will make students excited to come to West Pender to learn and will directly influence behavior and attendance.  Furthermore, we hope that video game based learning will spread throughout our community, effectively changing the paradigm for education!

Our shared goals of digital literacy and game-based learning have been discussed across the curriculum and we have aggregated a list of objectives that can best be met via our Lair.  We want this space to be an intentional learning lab, but one in which Standard Courses of Study become immediately relevant to students because they are tied to games.

Students

Our students live in a very rural community, surrounded and sustained by farmland. Lately our drought, both natural and economic, has deeply affected these students. Likewise, natural fires have devastated many yields of crops in our area. Families are getting less for their same salaries, if not faced with a job loss or two.

Our school is a tightly knit, small community-based school consisting of less than 230 students. As a result, their parent and community-based contributions are limited based on population and tax base. Nearly 90% of our students qualify for Title One monies. Many of the students at my school are raised in a framework of poverty where they have limited access to anything - let alone art supplies. These students NEED access to high-success  projects to invigorate and feed their love for school.

In Spring 2012, we experimented with a program called Minecraft in Schools.  Our students have created some incredible things within this gaming class!  All students involved in this class have reported being excited to come to school.  Sometimes they even get in trouble for running to class!  They have become rabid fans of the game while learning real time cooperation skills, biology, geology, circuitry, and a sandbox of creative strategies.  Can you imagine the possibilities if we expanded the notion of game-based education to subjects like science and math?!  Check out our video below of what we created this year:

Timeline

Early Fall 2012 - The Beginning

• An after school gaming lounge with a club meeting twice a week.
• Teachers will be able to reserve the lounge and materials for lessons involving the games.  In return, they must submit a lesson plan linked to Common Core or Essential Standards for record keeping.
• Students will be taught asset management and gaming systems.
• Students will be measured through pre-use and affectation surveys
• Positive behavior reward system - time spent in the gaming lounge on certain days.
• Counselor meetings hosted in gaming lounge.

Late Fall 2012 - The Middle

• Students will have many experiences linking games to Common Core and Essential Standards.
• Art students will begin creation of Warrior Gaming Lair t shirts. 

Spring 2013 - The End

• Attendance and Achievement data will be collected regarding times visited gaming lair, objectives covered, benchmark scores, and reading levels of individual students. 
• Data Analysis will be presented to the school and at NC TIES ( Technology in Education Conference)

Assessment -

One of the methods we will use to evaluate the impact of the Lair will be the teacher’s lesson plans that incorporate the use of game based learning.  We feel that this record of utilization and ideas that can be shared, along with student generated products and efficacy scores, would be a valuable addition to next year’s NCTIES conference.  Also,

• Student Use and Affectation surveys,
• Attendance Correlation Study focusing on targeted subgroups,
• Study Island and Benchmark score correlation check

For a more detailed matrix explaining each game as related to learner objectives, click here.

Budget

The flow of money into innovative, out-of-the box solutions to students' educational affections is often redirected into more immediate, necessary supplies.  Please be our oasis in the desert of educational funding.

To make this happen, we need:

• Xbox 360 with Kinect
• Xbox 360 controllers
• Just Dance 3 Video Game
• Portal and Portal 2 Video Game
• Guitar Hero World Tour Bundle
• Spore Hero
• Wii Console
• Wii Controllers and Nunchucks
• Playstation 3
• Playstation 3 Controllers
• Little Big Planet
• Madden 13
• 4 32" TVs
• Cardtable
• Appleletters, Bananagrams, Pairs in Pairs
• Munchkin
• Scrabble
• Boompod Gaming Chairs
• Locking Media Carts

Here's a more detailed look at the shopping list with descriptions and costs if you're interested.