After-school play observations

It was interesting to see how the students decided to play on the server together. The map was set with an environment where they were to survive on an island. This island map was mostly surrounding with large bodies of water, much like an ocean setting, with plenty of trees. It didn't take long for the students to dig into the ground to do some mining.

Some key learning points I discovered as a server administrator:

• Turn PVP (Player verses player) mode off. - This definitely will increase peace among the players and prevent the students from attacking and decrease each other's health. We want the game to be focused on collaboration and not for students to wage war on one another.

• Encourage the kids to work together. - It was very interesting to notice right away the kids were building in their own spaces away from another. Many of the students struggled to survive on their own especially at night time when the in-game Minecraft monsters began spawning. Eventually they realized, with some of my encouragement and prompting, that they needed to work together. After a few days, they started building tunnels to each other's home bases and built shared living spaces together. They all built a safe living space, a sustainable food source, and gathered equipment for survival

Future considerations:

• Create a written club expectation creed with the students during the school club meetings. Have the students develop the rules and expectations for maintaining a positive virtual world environment, and also make decisions on what consequences should be followed when someone chooses to not follow the expectations. - Although I verbally encouraged the test trial players to be considerate and respectful towards one another, there was a complaint from a student about another member who was stealing his in-game materials. The student received a warning and an expected consequence if this action were to happen again he would be removed from the Realm server. He complied with an apology and stated he won't "troll" any longer.