Moderator's Roles:
Improvising Story Teller

Sometimes unforeseen game situations will require additional scenario modifications or extensions. The online role-play moderator becomes a story teller and creates extensions to the original design to cater for the situation.

EXAMPLE

During an online role-play with postgraduate Education students, the moderator made various postings in the form of a news item or editorial comment. These items were not pre-planned but were in response to the ongoing discussion. For example when one role-play group’s postings proposed that criterion referenced assessment should not have been used at Idontgoto University because it was compromising standards, the following Newsflash appeared.

A leading educator at Ialwaysgoto University medical school (where criterion-based assessment has been used successfully since 1992) has challenged the academic staff of Idontogoto University to clearly explain to the international academic community the reasons why criterion-based assessment is unacceptable. Professor Will Igetafarego claimed, "We have been turning out medicos since 1992 using this system and our graduates haven’t lost a patient yet. I’m sure the community doesn’t want doctors who have been graduated by universities that give out degrees to students who only got half of everything right."

When an apparent lack of understanding of norm and criterion referencing emerged, a news item appeared which purported to be an interview with one of the experts in the field explaining the difference between the two. The expert was John Biggs whose book, Teaching for Quality Learning in Universities (1999), is the set text for the course. Interview quotes were taken from the text.

Maureen Bell, UoW

  : Imagination... flexiblity

Role play hinges on learning by discovery, so as the direction of the role-play winds/twists the moderator needs to be imaginative and flexible to follow/guide the play. [Holding a canary in your hand]
Simon O'Mallon, DMIT