Students 'Game' Minecraft Campuses

The Verge: "The day before University of Pennsylvania students were told that their college commencement would be held online, junior Andrew Guo thought of an alternative to holding the address over Zoom. Students could have a 'Hey Day' and graduation inside Minecraft, just as a Japanese elementary school had organized days earlier. Quickly, “Penncraft” students began to recreate dormitories, food trucks, and local sculptures in-game ... Their main goal was to have a completed campus, specifically Locust Street, for graduating seniors to walk down in-game now that COVID-19 ensured they wouldn’t return to campus and complete this UPenn tradition." "Students from Boston University to UCLA, from South Louisiana Community College to Northwestern University, have recently created or resurrected Minecraft servers and shared their creations on Discord chats, in Facebook meme groups, and on Reddit threads ... Smaller groups and clubs, like Bowdoin College’s men’s ultimate frisbee team or University of La Verne’s debate team, have found ways to bond in survival mode servers after their practices and championships were canceled. Zoom isn’t nearly enough, and it doesn’t carry the ten years of memories that Gen Z has for Minecraft." "Nearly all builders say that they will leave their projects with a newfound appreciation for campus architecture, especially the spots they never visited or overlooked ... Builders can get caught up in small details; a pair of Girl Scouts selling cookies at a crosswalk in the University of Minnesota, or Domino the Cat lounging outside the UT student union building. University of Washington builders went as far as creating a 'Building Standards' channel on Discord to formalize road widths, the variety of wood for signs, and the color of concrete blocks used in brutalist constructions."

College Board Offers At-Home AP Exams

Clarksville Now: "With an overwhelming majority of students out of school due to the coronavirus (COVID-19) pandemic, The College Board’s AP Program has announced a new, at-home testing option for Advanced Placement (AP) students ... The announcement follows news that standardized testing requirements will be waved this year both on the federal and state levels ... In order to allow students to earn their college credits while maintaining CDC guidelines, students may take a 45-minute online exam at home for this school year only. Educator-led development committees are currently selecting exam questions that will on the tests."

"The College Board will allow local institutions to decide the best means for students to complete coursework. Recognizing that many students have lost valuable instruction time, this years exams will only include topics that most classes would have covered by early March ... Recognizing that some students might prefer to take their exams while information is fresh in their minds while others might prefer to study, the AP Program will offer two exam dates. Those dates, as well as specific question types and testing details will be made available on April 3."

"Students will be able to access the test from most devices, including computers, tablets and smartphones. Students may also send in a photo of handwritten work ... The College Board has stressed the importance of test security, and will use a variety of digital tools to prevent plagiarism and cheating. They also have begun offering free, mobile-friendly live AP review courses. These on-demand class sessions will focus on reviewing the first 75% of AP course materials, with supplemental lessons covering the final 25%."

College Profs Adjust to Online Classes

USA TODAY: "Mark Naison, 73, had just days to move online his decades-old class, a history of music from rock-and-roll to hip hop ... The technology, mainly the video-streaming software Zoom, was unfamiliar to him. And without a physical presence in the classroom, the professor at Fordham University wondered how he would keep his students’ attention. He wasn't sure how to use the music videos he had played live in class ... So he filmed himself rapping. His material included odes to social distancing, hand-washing and self-quarantining. He is not the fastest rapper, but his rhymes mostly work. And his students seem to appreciate the lengths he is willing to get a laugh." "On Friday morning, five College of William and Mary students — some of them in focus, others a bit blurry — followed along via Zoom as Professor David Feldman drew economic models on a whiteboard ... But then, on one of the students' screens, a door slowly swung open. A furry yellow cat popped into the student’s lap. Hardly anyone noticed, and the rest of Feldman’s lecture went off without a hitch. Students were even able to break off into digital groups to talk about local and national economies. Zoom has an option to ping the instructor, a digital raising of the hand. But most of the students opted instead to raise their hands in real life. Feldman could spot them easily." "Vanessa Fonseca-Chávez, an English professor at Arizona State University, said many of the institution’s students work in the service industry and are out of work as a result of the virus ... Part of making things more bearable for students is altering the expectations for what they need to do. Fonseca-Chávez was teaching a graduate-level course this semester that only met once a week for three hours. She knew that was not going to work online ... Instead, she shifted some of their discussions of literary texts to online message boards ... For the most part, the students seem to grasp the tweaks to the class, she said."