Prisca M. Rodriguez Cruzpmrodriguez@ufl.edu

RPG Adventures in On-Line Environments:

Reconceptualizing Adolescent Literacies

Context: University of Puerto Rico – Mayaguez CampusSpecial topics course: Young Adult Literature

in the Puerto Rican Classroom The class consisted of a majority of English

majors considering or preparing for a career in education

We explored the history of children’s/young adult literature in the United States and how this influenced current trends in Puerto Rico

Students conducted surveys of current reading practices of young adults in different schools of western Puerto Rico

Integrating Technology, History, Literature, and PerspectivesWe explored:

traditional teaching methods for reading including bilingual short stories based on the

history of Puerto Rico integrating technology in the classroom, keeping

in mind the different access to technology across the island

the different levels of technology proficiencies in the classroom and how to address this issue in practice

the importance of technology in today’s global society

Why Role Playing Games?

What is an RPG?

Traditional RPGs are games where the players assume a role of a fictional character and control their actions using a set of rules and guidelines.

One of the players assumes the role of Game Master and provides a setting for the others to play their role and improvise according to the characteristics of their character

Why Role Playing Games?

Role playing games:

stress social interaction and collaboration engage the imagination allow students to explore choices and

consequences allow students to explore different identities facilitate a democratic learning environment

The Project: Adventures in Puerto Rico

Students were asked to: create a character based on one of three

time periods in Puerto Rican history: An Extinct Race: The Taino indians’ Story Here There be Pirates!: The last Puerto

Rican Pirates Jibaritos de Puerto Rico: Exploring a Tragic

Event choose and join one storyline created by

Professor Prisca, a.k.a. Kismet

Adventures in Puerto Rico

Students were asked to: research their historical period to lend

reality to the plot assume the role of their character to

create a story based on their continuing research of the time period

(Please refer to the detailed instructions found online)

Adventures in Puerto Rico

Students were asked to: post a minimum of 5 sentences

following the previous post collect and bind their work reflect on their experience with

the project and explore possibilities and limitations

Adventures in Puerto Rico

Adventures in Puerto Rico

Adventures in Puerto Rico

Project Questions

1. How did you first feel about this project? Were you excited, hesitant, or neutral? Explain.

2. What aspect(s) of this project did you like the most and why?

3. What aspects of this project did you least like and why?

4. What would you improve or change about this project that could benefit future students?

5. Future teachers: would you use this type of project for your own students? Explain

Project Questions

6. How might this type of project benefit students in various academic areas?

7. What are some problems you might face when using this type of project in the classroom?

8. What did you learn from this project that will help you in the future either academically, professionally, or both?

9. Would you be willing to do a similar project that incorporates technology in future courses?

10. What other projects that use technology would you like to see in future courses, or would like to use in your own teaching?

Limitations

Not everyone is familiar with RPGs Students may not have access to the

Internet Students’ technological savvy Length of the activity Lack of images / difficulty to work with

images Students are limited in when they can post,

depending on how responsible other students are

Limitations

“Something that got on my nerves was when I was going to post something and I had to change it because someone had posted it before I did. Another thing was that sometimes I wouldn’t log in to the RPG and in a day there would be two new pages; it was a bit frustrating. […] Sometimes I would have to wait too much from one posting to another because there were some who took too long to post and then in the end they were forced to write unnecessary things to reach their fifteen posts.”

-Quoted from students’ bound project

Benefits

Through their own research and interaction, students learned new details about Puerto Rican history

Students explored their creative side Students cared more about what they

wrote because it would be read by peers Students had the opportunity to fix their

mistakes Students were able to socialize and

make new friends

Benefits

“What I most liked was that I had the opportunity to see a side of me that I did not even know I had. I didn’t think I would be able to keep on writing after someone else and follow the story, but I did. I didn’t even know I had a creative side in me. I also had the opportunity to meet new people, some that I had taken classes with before and had never talked to because of my shyness. Another thing I liked about the project was the relationship in the group because we were all willing to cooperate and everyone did part of the job, not like other projects where there is always someone who ends up doing most of the work.”

-Quoted from students’ bound project

Future Applications

Future applications can include: Adapting this project for use across the

curriculum at the secondary levels Encouraging students to explore

identities across cultures through RPG Re-writing stories to explore the different

elements Re-enacting historical events

References

Buckingham, D. (2003). Media education: Literacy, learning and contemporary culture. Cambridge, United Kingdom: Polity Press.

Kellner, D. (2001).New technologies/new literacies: reconstructing education for the new millennium. International Journal of Technology and Design Education. 11, 67-81.

Luke, C. (2002). Re-crafting media and ICT literacies. In D. Alvermann (ed.), Adolescents and literacies in a digital world. (pp. 132-146). New York: Peter Lang.

Muckley, R. & Martinez-Santiago, A. (1999). Stories from Puerto Rico/Historias de Puerto Rico. Chicago, IL: Passport Books.

National Association of Media Literacy Education. (2007). Core principles of media literacy education in the United States. Retrieved October 30, 2008, from http://www.amlainfo.org/core-principles.

National Council of Teachers of English. (2008). The definition of 21st century literacies. Retrieved September 5, 2008, from http://www.ncte.org/governance/literacies?source=gs

United Nations Educational Scientific and Cultural Organization (2004). The plurality of literacy and its implications for policies and programs. Retrieved October 13, 2008, from http://www.unesco.com

QUESTIONS?Feel free to contact me at

pmrodriguez@ufl.edu

You can access this presentation at:

http://www.slideshare.net/priscarodriguez