Hi Judith,

As you have noticed. We have recently started play testing the Social Media Game: SΩ (pronounced: somega). Last friday students of the Minor Digicoach presented by my colleague Ankie van den Broek have engaged in this new game that we (yes including you) are developing together. The purpose of the game is getting a lot of xp in the field of social media by using the tools available. Students are challenged to use the media on the topic: ‘digital coach’.

I am, as the students, very excited on this for us new way of learning. I hope that I can maintain the level of enthousiasm the students showed after the first meeting. The next 10 weeks will answer that for us.

Students get the opportunity to play with three types of quests. The first two types I have introduced friday. It are ‘normal’ missions which are open and for everyone to know. In the first mission (Cards below but written in Dutch) students have to get accounts in several social media. As you have seen I managed to create a logo:  SΩ (somega – social media game) corny huh. Ankie (the teacher from the School of Education) called it: A high level of Big Bang terminology. Other ‘normal’ missions will be get peers to connect, or get experts on your field to connect. And those kind of missions.

The real fun (I think) will be in the secret missions. You understand I cannot really go into the content of those missions as the students just have received their first secret missions. But for example (this one is not used -yet ;)-) a secret mission could be: Get the most retweets in the next two weeks. You’ll understand we have made them more spicy than that. At least some of them 😉

The third kind of missions are achievements. For instance the first one that reaches a set amount of followers will receive a price for achieving that level of followers.

In the first weekend 3 of the 5 participating students have been very active and 2 have already posted their first blog post. I hope we (the gamemaster, Ankie, you (?) and me) can buff their energy, experience en commitment to the project.

It was a good start. Now we have to see how the next weeks will go. I will keep you posted on this topic.

Our colleague Frans has interviewed me on this topic (in Dutch) http://weblectures.blogspot.com/2011/11/social-media-game-als-onderdeel-minor.html

Game On!

Greetz Marcel