I've been reading Lee Sheldon's The Multiplayer Classroom: Designing Coursework as a Game and I am so excited to begin implementation of a game-based environment in my Tech Lit classes. As I tend to jump into things head first, I am making an attempt at reigning myself in - a little. The next unit my students will be working on is a Road Trip project in 8th grade. I've started a spreadsheet to chart potential XPs (points) making sure the important learning objectives receive the most points. The back end of this is a bit arduous - mostly because I keep adding things and rethinking how it will play out with my students.
The basic objective of the game is to plan a 10 day road trip starting from our school/town. The students need to travel no more than 10 hours a day, stay within a budget - I'm thinking $1000 - $2000 budgeting for food, gas, lodging, and document/journaling their adventure. I will also have daily point awards such as - find a state or national park to stop and have a picnic and a short hike today, - find a national landmark along your travels today etc. I'll also be giving additional awards for progress along the way - farthest point traveled by day 3, best food posts, most stops along the way etc.
I will do mini-lessons as we go along each day including - Internet Searching, Research Techniques, Spreadsheets used for Budgets etc.
We won't start this unit for a couple of weeks (I have students every other day and we're in the middle of a computer hardware unit currently.) so I'd appreciate any feedback, suggestions, ideas etc.
