Spor-ducators!

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Comment by Kae on October 20, 2008 at 1:38am

Did the brainstorming session on Friday at a state system wide faculty development conference for online instructors. It did turn out to be more of a showing what Spore is. Less brainstorming then I expected. We only had 45 minutes and only one person in the session had played with it and he is the IT/ Blackboard coordinator at one of the colleges.

I did get a commitment from the children's literature instructor that she would work on developing the creature creator into an assignment. She's taking a 3 week instructor's course on games with us and she is suppose to leave with choosing a game and developing an assignment for next semester.

The legal studies and economics instructors from some other colleges saw uses for it in their classes in the "tribes" section - developing laws for the tribe and deciding on use of resources.

Actually, our most insightful comments came from the day before the conference. I was running thru the intro and the videos with one of our Computer Information Systems instructors and I asked him what he thought.

He talked awhile about all the progamming that would have been needed to develop the creature creator to be usable for the consumer. But he ended up saying that Spore would make him be more creative. He said that he normally focuses on what is right in front of him, but that Spore would make him think creatively and globally.

Then he told me that I should get to work developing a training class for faculty on how to use it. :)

I'll put it on the list!

Comment by Kae on October 2, 2008 at 7:30pm

2 Great Spore related things:

Just got a proposed workshop accepted at our state community college system's faculty development conference. We asked for an hour to brainstorm with interested faculty. We'll post our results.

Also had a biology instructor who can't make the conference, come up and say she wants to figure out how to use it with students! :)

Comment by Dr. Christopher Deason on October 1, 2008 at 10:28pm

Hello from Full Sail University
I'm a professor of Media Project Development in the Education Media Design and Technology Master of Science degree program. I would like to begin researching the implications of SPORE as a tool for learning. I'm glad I found this group. I've been using the creature creator for about 3 weeks. My 5 and 8 year old love it. It's like modeling clay. I can't wait to actually play the game. My department has ordered a copy and its on the way.

Comment by Cie Buschle on September 17, 2008 at 9:59am

Hi! I am a homeschooling mom, and wanted to share. My son has waited almost two years for Spore to come out. (The Spore info page was even his homepage!)
One of his first experiments was to see how the creatures would react without eyes. He went through two 'evolutions' before he just couldn't stand it anymore - he only had small local vision and everything was shades of brownish gray. It was actually quite cool! I would encourage everyone to try this for a bit.

Comment by Sabine Reljic / Willow Shenlin on September 15, 2008 at 8:17pm

So anyone having introduce Spore in their classroom yet? My son is having a blast creating and playing his creature. I have to fight for my computer back!

Comment by Sabine Reljic / Willow Shenlin on September 6, 2008 at 9:28pm

Spore is here!!!! Spore is here!!!! Did you see the TV ad today? you can see it here too: http://ph.video.yahoo.com/watch/3403596/9509807

I got my call from GameStop that my copy had arrived. They better be opened tomorrow (Sunday)! I'll be right there, waiting for the door to open. Woohoooooo! My RedDoomDoom is dancing at the excitement:

Comment by Kae on August 19, 2008 at 11:01am

Just introduced the creature creator in 2 setting last week. Included in "5 Cool Tools to Caffeinate Your Class" at COLTT conference last week.

Also showed it and other Web 2.0 tools to new faculty during HR's orientation. It was after lunch and after the "how to fill out your benefits paperwork" - they were all sitting up, laughing at the creatures and engaged!

Suggestions we gave above and beyond life science -

1) logo and branding for marketing class
2) character design for children's lit class
3) philosophy to represent "evil" or "folly"

We asked they let us know if they actually use it for their class - if we have any takers, I'll post here.

Comment by Sabine Reljic / Willow Shenlin on August 1, 2008 at 10:53pm

Spore's latest goodies: http://www.rezed.org/profiles/blog/show?id=2047896%3ABlogPost%3A12006
Just in case you guys have not yet registered to receive the monthly newsletter.

Comment by Sabine Reljic / Willow Shenlin on June 25, 2008 at 10:33pm

OH...how exciting! I participated in a course design last year (when Spore was supposed to be released) around Spore for Honor students. I"ll dig up some of ideas we came up with and share them. (If you must know, the course was re-designed around Second Life in time for the Fall 07 Honor Course). :-)

Comment by Jonathon Richter / Wainbrave Bernal on June 25, 2008 at 1:16pm

Students design a creature - play Spore and see how it fares. They journal their strategies and compare how other creature designs and strategies do, creating a systematic discussion of creature capabilities by morphology (body part) in ecological niches and examine real creatures in the real world and how they've gained / lost evolutionary advantage by body design and changing environments. This could be done in teams too.

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