I believe in the power of empathy to positively transform the teacher and student experience in the classroom. If you’ve been in a school for any length of time, you know that whether you’ve asked for it or not, you’re bound to encounter anything. For example, everyday teachers and students are facing difficult/ complex situations in school – questions about belonging and forgiving, advantage and ability, and conflict and acceptance. These are all themes we can find in Frankenstein by Mary Shelley. According to Baker et al., “some elementary school children face constant threats to their academic, social, and emotional growth and development. Equally, in meeting the goal of educating and nourishing the whole child. many schools face threats from unacceptably high rates of school violence, bullying, school dropout, youth suicide and other negative behaviors and psychological health” (209).
The purpose of my game is to teach students the story and themes of the novel, Frankenstein. After the students finish playing “The Amazing Odyssey”, they will gain an understanding of the story and themes of Frankenstein, they will learn more about empathy, and in the end, students will learn why the creature was such an empathetic character. The tagline for this game is #buildempathy. “The Amazing Odyssey” is supposed to be a 10 – week designed journey using the Oculus Rift. Win Smith claims that “Integrating the VR experiences with lesson plans could have huge benefits for kids who might not typically retain information from a textbook” (Babcock, Stephen. “This edtech startup is bringing virtual reality to the classroom.” https://technical.ly/baltimore/2015/05/29/alchemy-learning-virtual-reality-classroom-oculus/)
Using the concept of The Amazing Race TV show, the students will have a chance to become the creature and will be given clues that will lead to a scene or narrative passage in the novel, Frankenstein. Where the player has to complete a task with a character from the book that explores, promotes, or endorses empathy among themselves and the other characters in Frankenstein. According to Cheok et al., “Storytelling is an effective and important educational mean for children. With the augmented reality (AR) technology, storytelling becomes more and more interactive and intuitive in the sense of human computer interactions” (22). One particular theme I found that students can learn from “The Amazing Odyssey” is the unlikely friendships in Frankenstein. For example, in the 1931 Frankenstein film, where the creature meets a young girl. Although a little afraid, she accepts him and plays games with him. After they throw all the petals from a flower into the lake, he looks around for something else to throw. He picks her up and throws her in. In my VR game, this scene can be recreated with the creature and the little girl also having an unlikely friendship, but with him learning how to be a gentle friend.
One cool thing about this game is that ”the creature” will be able to collect books each time the player and character accomplishes a task. The more books the creature collects, the more he learns about his human nature. So, in the end, the students should have an empathic creature. Also, the more books you earn, the more levels up you go which creates a cool gaming aspect for the students. I have not found a virtual reality game like this. This game is for fifth grade – twelfth grade. Principals will definitely purchase this game for his/her teachers.
Baker, Jason, et al. “Teaching Social Skills in a Virtual Environment: An Exploratory Study.” THE JOURNAL FOR SPECIALISTS IN GROUP WORK, Vol. 34, No. 3, Sept. 2009, pp. 209-226 https://ezproxy.stevenson.edu:2101/eds/pdfviewer/pdfviewer?vid=7&sid=6dcb2500-927a-4261-9933-59ce08a3b58d%40sessionmgr104
Cheok, David Adrian, et al. “Virtual reality and mixed reality for virtual learning environments.” Computers & Graphics 30 (2006) pp. 20-28 https://ezproxy.stevenson.edu:2106/S0097849305002025/1-s2.0-S0097849305002025-main.pdf?_tid=e1b51003-a517-48ce-911a-6b8a7ef8c5ef&acdnat=1542724968_d5eea48f1db6bb365e924cb5a4500301
Stephen Babcock. “This edtech startup is bringing virtual reality to the classroom.” Technical.ly. May 29, 2015. https://technical.ly/baltimore/2015/05/29/alchemy-learning-virtual-reality-classroom-oculus/