Task #9: The Discussion Continues

Thursday's #levelupbc Twitter Chat was another great celebration of all the amazing knowledge each of you bring to the table. Thanks for transferring those relevant ideas picked up from reading James Paul Gee's What Video Games Have to Teach Us About Learning and Literacy and applying them to your current instructional practice. We know lots of you were not able to join us for the Twitter Chat, so...

Task 9:

WIKI CHALLENGE: "Let's Talk Gee on our Wiki"

Directions: Join the new Level Up Book Club wiki (http://levelupbc.wikispaces.com), visit the Discuss Gee page, and respond to a couple of questions. You can add to our Twitter Chat discussion questions or respond to other questions submitted last week by #levelupbc members care of Task #8. Make sure you leave your name if you want Reward credit.

Reward: Let's level up together! Earn +1 level for joining the wiki plus an additional +1 level for every question you respond to (Remember to leave your name so we can reward you!).

Deadline: Respond to questions via the wiki no later than 11:59pm Monday, August 13th to claim your level ups.

Task #8: We Will Now Be Taking Questions

Our Twitter Chat for James Paul Gee's What Video Games Have to Teach Us About Learning and Literacy will take place on Thursday, August 2nd at 8pm EST. Jennifer and I decided to up and ante by crowdsourcing the  discussion questions.

Task 8:

GOOGLE DOC CHALLENGE: "Take Down the Leader"

Directions: Think of a question we could discuss at our upcoming #levelupbc Twitter Chat for James Paul Gee's book, then complete the form below with the question you'd like us to consider. You may submit as many questions as you'd like. Please complete a new form for each question.

Reward: We will select 4-5 questions for our discussion. We will award +10 levels up for each question accepted, regardless of the author. But look out! Jennifer and I are competing in this one, too... and we each want that top leader spot back!

Deadline: All questions must be submitted no later than 11:59pm Wednesday, August 1st.

Task #7: Powerful Words

Now that most of us have our copies of James Paul Gee's What Video Games Have to Teach Us About Learning and Literacy, why don't we open things up for discussion.

Task 7:

TEXT CHALLENGE:  “Agree or Disagree with Gee”

Mr. James Paul Gee himself.

Directions: Share a quote that interested, intrigued, or otherwise spoke to you via this post's comment thread or on Twitter using #levelupbc.

The more you share, the more we connect. The more we connect, the more we WIN.                                                                                                                

Reward: It's the middle of the summer and Jennifer and I find ourselves away from our computers during the same week (Eeek!). Thankfully, two Level Up members jumped on board to help us out in the 11th hour. So we hope you don't mind that we're front-loading our prize for this week's challenge. 

Katy Vance (@katyvance) and Aimee Bartis (@aimeegbartis) have stepped up to keep score on our leaderboard, so we're thanking them with +20 levels up each for taking initiative (and being the first to respond).

As for the rest of you, same rules go. Tweet a quote that spoke to you from Gee's book, earn a level up on our board. The more you share, the more you win. (AND the more we all win!)

Deadline:  11:59pm Friday, July 20th. Find your highlighted, penned, and dog-eared quotes and share away!

Happy reading, sharing, and winning!

And the Task 6 Avatar Winner is...

Wow! Your avatars are great! We can't wait to hear how you use them in your classes and libraries (there's already been a bit of buzz on the #levelupbc Twitter feed and blog comments). Last week we challenged you to name some websites for creating avatars and to share a couple of your own. You responded with veracity and enthusiasm, and we applaud you for it!

But there can be only one highlander... I mean, winner of this week's avatar challenge.

Anyone who shared an avatar website link or posted an avatar of their own earned a level up on our leader board (plus bonus levels for each additional link or avatar posted). Each participant name was put into my hand PikMe app and this week's winner is none other than Trish Cloud!

Way to go, Trish! You win a t-shirt with a print of your avatar! You'll be contacted directly with the details.

Check out one of Trish's avatars below:

Stay tuned for next week's challenge!

Task #5: Game Based Crowdsourcing

This week's challenge was inspired by last week's #levelupbc Twitter Chat in which one of our members asked the Twitterverse for help.  Check it out:

If you've been following the #levelupbc Twitter feed then you already know that, in addition to quotes from our reads and convos about how these books will inform our practice, #levelupbc members also, from time to time, post articles, videos and other resources related to video games and gamification.  Indeed, #levelupbc is becoming a resource for anyone interested in this topic - even if they're not keen on reading the books and officially joining our madcap group (although I can't imagine why they wouldn't be!)

So... this week, while we're all waiting for our copies of James Paul Gee's What Video Games Have To Teach Us About Learning and Literacy to arrive, we're challenging you to be a part of the #levelupbc crowdsourced gratification revolution!  Here's what to do:

Directions: Find and share awesome articles, videos and other resources related to gamification and game based learning.  Resources can be posted to either the #levelupbc tumblr or to Twitter using the #levelupbc hashtag.  Easy, right!?

Update: Super kudos to #levelupbc member Katy Vance who created a Diigo group for the bookmarks collected by this challenge and beyond!  Feel free to post these resources to Katie's Diigo which we've linked to above!  Woot! +1 Initiative to Katy for being a #levelupbc rock star!

Reward: This week, the more resources you share, the more points you get!  AND the person at the top of the leaderboard by the end of the week will not only have major bragging rights, but will also win a one off video thank you card from one of your #levelupbc hosts.  Sweet!

Deadline: 11:59pm Friday, July 6th. Good luck!

PS:  Even though this isn't the official challenge this week, we'd also like to invite you to share photos of you + our next read on our Tumblr.  It's always fun seeing our members sporting some super summer reading material. 

And The Winner of Challenge 4 Is...

Last week we challenged you to take a virtual victory lap by sharing photos of your own EpicWins on our Tumblr.  The results were STUPENDOUS!  We had everything from architectural design elements  to (half) marathon completions to true medical miracles appear on the list - plus many other crazy inspiring examples. I gotta admit, this has been my favorite challenge so far - I just loved seeing so many examples of pure joy. Well done, gang!

As with past challenges, once the week was over, I put the names of all our participants into the app PikMe! (which I use at school to select students at random). A few clicks later and we have a winner!

Congratulations to Kristina Thoennes whose impromptu, made from scratch, lemon meringue pie not only bumped her up a notch on the Level Up Book Club Leader Board, but also made her the winner of this week's prize!  Congrats Kristina!  I know I speak for the rest of our club when I say, of all our entries this week, yours was certainly the yummiest! 

Speaking of Epic Wins, thanks to all of you who participated in last week's Twitter chat!  One of the best parts of this whole process has been the conversations that have taken place on Twitter as we explore the concept of gamification and how it might impact student learning.  The twitter chat was truly an explosion of ideas that left us saying "wow!"  

If you missed it, don't fret, you can still check out the discussion by searching for the #levelupbc hashtag on Twitter and following the tweets starting at 8pm EST on the 28th.  The Twitter Chat is also where we announced next month's read:  What Video Games Have to Teach Us about Learning and Literacy by James Paul Gee.  Thanks to everyone who voted!  

We'll announce next week's challenge tomorrow.  In the meantime, congrats again to Kristina whose Epic Win scored big this week!