Runescape, the MMORPG

When I was younger, I played a lot of computer games. 

Most of my days would go like this; struggle out of bed at 8am, get dropped off at school, go through the motions of school until 3:30pm, walk home as fast as I could, go on the computer, eat dinner, go back on the computer, go to bed.

My dad used to say to me things like: "you're wasting your life" "get outside and enjoy the weather" "go and hang out with some real people" "you'll regret wasting all these years later in your life!"

I think Dad eventually moved on from these things, whether he saw the benefit of games, or just gave up hope I can't be sure.

All those years of playing computer, if they didn't give me anything else, gave me a interesting insight into teaching and learning...

Runescape is a MMORPG - a massively multiplayer online role playing game - which started in 2001, which was when I started playing it. Runescape was an interesting, ground breaking game because within it's confines you were able to do pretty much whatever you wanted. You could cook, fight, mine, smith, fish, be a monk and train your prayer, light fires, cut trees, fletch arrows and bows, and much much more. The more you worked at something, the more you levelled it up, and the better you got at it, and the more things you could make/do.

The game is online, so there are literally millions of people (there were about 3million people playing this game at any one time) that you could interact with, talk to, fight with, go on quests with, or level up your skills with.

After a while of playing, and gaining a few levels I was invited to join a clan. This clan was a player made clan, that had a forum, and was well organised including events, wars, and had a great family atmosphere that really added to the game.  Probably after about a year playing the game, and being part of several different clans, my in game friend Joshsaint from Australia and I would create the first of many of our own clans. From then on, for the next 5 or so years, most of my computer playing time wasn't actually 'in game' it was being involved in the negotiations, arguments, and politics of the clan world.

As a clan leader, I had my work cut out for me. I would create and monitor forums, create a hierarchy of jobs for people to do in the clan and then hire people to do those jobs. I would monitor our clans status with other clans, trying to be diplomatic, but sometimes ending up in war. Discussing alliances, and trying to solve disputes between clan members. Making events and trying to help all my clan members get better at the game so our clan would become more powerful without pressuring them so that they felt comfortable. Recruit for our clan and try to encourage clan members to recruit, promote the clan on various game forums and keep them active, and answer any questions from people, discuss applications, and try to avoid letting spies into our clan forums. Look for innovative new ways to do things that other clans might have been doing to get an advantage such as using a VOIP (voice over ip) programme to communicate and organise, using chat software to organise on the spot events, and trying to build flashy websites that would attract the masses. 

It wasn't easy, and there were many times where I wanted to, and in fact did give up on both clans and the game. But I loved it. I always came back. I was so motivated to do all this stuff that I would rush home from school and jump on the computer for literally hours at a time. 

Believe it or not, I'm a real people person. For someone who was on the computer for hours every day, I was always interacting with people. I would always have about 20 MSN Messenger windows open at once talking, discussing, planning... Joshsaint got banned from the game in the end and that's what really killed it for me. I made every single clan with him as a co leader and actually got bored of it without him, which was a good thing, I think. I did need to stop playing in the end. He and I are still friends on Facebook, and still chat every now and then, but neither of us play the game anymore. We've never met in real life, but we're lifelong friends.

So through playing this game, that to the outside world looked like a boring, self-focused existence that really nothing good could come out of, I learnt a lot. I was constantly using my learning muscles of curiosity, investigation, problem solving, to help me and help my clan. I was intrinsically motivated to be the best leader I could, and I knew that to do that I had to be learning. I watched and read guides, hell I even created guides for things that couldn't find guides for, I experimented, I practiced, I investigated and I learnt. 

Why can't our kids have freedom to explore what they want to explore? If you aren't focused on a goal, sometimes your learning web stretches wide and you catch things that you didn't know we're linked. Reading and writing for me, were integral to displaying a professional website, and professional advertisement campaign for my clan. If people didn't like the way I had written something, they simply wouldn't join.

At one time I even joined another clan, and rose up through the ranks, just to see the way they did things in administration, and what I could learn from them. 

Everything was authentic, everything was genuine, everything was intrinsically motivated.

A lot of my learning has crossed over to teaching. 

We are using forums next year to help with content curation and sharing for students, and I still remember exactly how to create and manage them. 

I know how to write job applications, and to read them, because I've read and disseminated so many for jobs inside the clan. 

I know how to argue, to discuss, and to plan. I know how to listen to other people's points of view and understand where they're coming from. I know how to be diplomatic.

I know how to encourage people, how to motivate them, and how to not overwhelm them and turn them off.

I gave up a lot because our clans weren't successful enough, and then I learnt that to be successful you need to not give up.

But for teaching, I think, most importantly; I know how to be curious, I know how to investigate, and I know how to innovate. And I dare say, that teaching is not the only job in the 21st century that these skills are valuable for.