Stepping Joyfully Beyond the Textbook:

Operation LAPIS

Emily Anne LewisWestborough High

Schoolealewis07@gmail.com

James Paul Gee

“A video game is nothing more than an assessment.”

What Video Games Have to Teach Us About Learning and Literacy

The practomimetic principle

Map learning objectives onto play objectives 1:1, and let the rules of the game foster and assess

the learning.

What is Practomime?

• Practomime is a game

• Uses Edmodo and Google Drive

• Immersion environment

• Each immersion ends with a prompt

• Links to supplemental materials included

Traditional “Learning” vs. Practomime

Traditional

•Lots of “Chocolate-covered broccoli”

•Worksheets

•Tests

•Lectures

•Not learning for learning’s sake

•Extrinsic motivation only

Practomime

•Continuous assessment

•Guided, focused adventure

•Directed research

•Forming self-directed autonomous learners

•Learning for passion and interest

•Builds intrinsic motivation

Operation LAPIS•Role Playing Game in an alternate reality

•Students as “Operatives” recruited by the “Demiurge”

•Save western civilization by finding, reading, and interpreting the Lapis Saeculorum - “the stone of the ages”

•Play objectives: think, act, speak and read like a Roman

•Learning objectives: think, act, speak and read like a Roman links.practomime.com

/lapis

Immersion Environment

•or the “TSTT”

•mix of Latin/English for accessibility

•directed “prompt”

•link to the CODEX - supplemental materials

the CODEX

key-text

grammatica

attunement

TSTT - navigation

link from the immersion

Team collaboration

•fixed teams

•community building

•students helping students

•asynchronous

Latinity Points + Profiles

Aggregate grading

Personalized feedback

Self-reporting

Continuous embedded formative assessment

Expression of Ideas

Elaboration

Cultural Competence

Vocabulary

Grammar

Risk Taking

Practomimetic Assessment Rubric

links.practomime.com/rubric

Collection as assessment

Old

Repetitive writing and memorization

New

•Finding examples

• Keeping list in exchange for CARDs

Collections + CARDS

CARD-Tamen

•Debate/Discussion around “controversies”

•“The Pokemon Thing”

who inspired more

stories?

Questions to Consider

• Are game design and instructional design two sides of the

same coin?

• How low is the tech threshold for game-based learning?

• To what extent is Practomime a plug-and-play instructional

system?

• Should we let students play their assessments?