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Undergraduate Learning, Small Colleges and Digital Gaming: Collaboration and the State of Play. Gaming, teaching, liberal education: a 2010 snapshot A taxonomy of practices, with selected examples The role of NITLE Futures, next steps, discussion, and futures: towards 2011.
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Undergraduate Learning, Small Colleges and Digital Gaming: Collaboration and the State of Play
Gaming, teaching, liberal education: a 2010 snapshot A taxonomy of practices, with selected examples The role of NITLE Futures, next steps, discussion, and futures: towards 2011 Plan of the session
Snapshots of the American landscape: Gaming as art and industry continues to develop and grow Pedagogical uses unfolding Liberal arts campus cases are now available, and practitioners are networking I. Gaming and cultures, 2010
Median age of gamers shoots past 30 Industry size comparable to music Impacts on hardware, software, interfaces, other industries Large and growing diversity of platforms, topics, genres, niches, players Gaming as part of mainstream culture
Anecdata: Number of Facebook FarmVille players: 63,715,177(as of June 2010, http://statistics.allfacebook.com/applications/leaderboard/, ) Gaming as part of mainstream culture (Casual games are more mainstream than most heavy-duty games)
Diversity of game genres American teenagers, Pew Internet, 2008
Games serious, public, and political • Oiligarchy, Molle Industries • Jetset, Persuasive Games • The Great Shakeout, California • DimensionM, Tabula Digita
James Paul Gee Claims games offer pedagogical experiences (2003ff) Other experts follow suit: Marc Presnsky Henry Jenkins John Seely Brown Mia Consalvo Constance Steinkuehler Kurt Squire Hippasus Sample pedagogical principles: Semiotic domains; transference Embodied action and feedback Projective identity Edging the regime of competence (Vygotsky) Probe-reprobe cycle Social learning (roles; consumption-production) “Fish tank” tutorial Strategic self-assessment Gaming’s pedagogical functions
Jason Mittell, Middlebury College: games are platforms for learning… Skill development Simulations Media studies (psych, cultural studies, media) NITLE brownbag, January 2008 Another summary
Classroom and courses Curriculum content Delivery mechanism Creating games How is gaming used now? Peacemaker, Impact Games Revolution (via Jason Mittell)
Game studies as academic field • Joost Raessens and Jeffrey Goldstein, eds, Handbook of Computer Game Studies (MIT, 2005) • Frans Mayra, An Introduction to Game Studies (Sage, 2008) • Pat Harrigan and Noah Wardrip-Fruin, eds. Third Person: Authoring and Exploring Vast Narratives (MIT, 2009)
Libraries Collection development Game night Creating games How is gaming used now? Defense of Hidgeon, Games Archive: University of Michigan
And what is liberal education, again? Learning for learning's sake Pedagogy (active learning, faculty/student collab. etc) Democratic, engaged citizenship/leadership Specific institutional type -Jo Ellen Parker, 2008 Gaming and liberal education Scripps College library
What are shared concerns with the rest of academia? Pedagogical uses Support strategies Tenure/promotion Cultural fears Gaming and liberal education • Bryn Mawr College, • Michael Toler
II. A taxonomy of practices • Liberal arts uses • Gettysburg, Hope, Depauw
Faculty research area Faculty/staff game creation From scratch Modding Classes and learning Professional games delivering learning content “ “ “ objects of study Students creating game content “ “ games II. A taxonomy of current practices
Harry Brown, Depauw University (M.E. Sharpe, 2008) Part I: Poetics Chapter 1: Videogames and Storytelling Chapter 2: Videogame Aesthetics Chapter 3: Videogames and Film Part II: Rhetoric Chapter 4: Politics, Persuasion, and Propaganda in Videogames Chapter 5: The Ethics of Videogames Chapter 6: Religion and Myth in Videogames Part III: Pedagogy Chapter 7: Videogames, History, and Education Chapter 8: Identity and Community in Virtual Worlds Chapter 9: Modding, Education, and Art 1. Faculty research
Valley Sim, Christian Spielvogel (Hope College) Simulation: American Civil War Archives: based on primary documents already in digital archive (Valley of the Shadow) Type: MMOG, as players experience and debate the war’s epochal events as avatars based on the lives of residents from two wartime communities 2A. Faculty/staff game creation
Trinity University library: ARG 2A. Faculty/staff game creation
Dickinson College, class on empires: game modding 2B. Faculty/staff game creation
Shalom Staub, Assistant Provost for Academic Affairs, Dickinson College: Conflict Resolution course 3A: Games as learning content Peacemaker: “integrate and apply the concepts and strategies that you will encounter elsewhere in the course.”
Todd Bryant, Dickinson College: teaching German with World of Warcraft 3A: Games as learning content “If the game provides authentic language content and requires communication in order to progress through the game—and our students are willing to spend hours of their time immersed in this environment—we can greatly increase not only their overall exposure to the language but their motivation to learn as well.” http://www.academiccommons.org/commons/essay/bryant-MMORPGs-for-SLA
Aaron Delwiche, Trinity University: COMM 3344, interactive multimedia (Spring 2006) 3B: Games as objects of study
Chris Fee, The Medieval Atlantic, Gettysburg College: Interactive Fiction (2007-) 3C: Students creating game content http://blogs.nitle.org/archive/2008/05/09/teaching_with_games_medieval_culture_and/
Venatio Creo, Ursinus College 3D: Students creating games
Nonprofit, working to advance technology in liberal education III. The role of NITLE
Professional development (workshops, videoconferencing) NITLE Network venues (IT leaders meetings, NITLE-IT list, annual Summits) Research Exploration of field Publications Blogging Network facilitation Game co-creation ARG (ELI 2009) Web game: futures market, 2008-ongoing NITLE gaming programs so far
Conference (Dickinson, 2007) Workshop (Bryn Mawr, 2008) Web 2.0 networking Blog conversations Twitter “ Diigo The gaming initiative
And: Videoconference sessions (starting 2008) Presentations (CNI, Educause, NMC 2008-10) Publications (Alvarado, Alexander, Bryant) “Overcoming the Fear of Gaming: A Strategy for Incorporating Games into Teaching and Learning.” EDUCAUSE Quarterly Magazine, Volume 31, Number 3. 2008. The gaming initiative
Faculty and staff involved from: Albion College Austin College Depauw University Dickinson College Gettysburg College Hope College Middlebury College Swarthmore College Trinity University (Texas) Ursinus College Vassar College The gaming network
Disciplines include: Anthropology Communication English History International relations Languages Media studies NB: strong emphasis on humanities and non-quantitative social sciences, so far The gaming network
NITLE prediction markets (http://markets.nitle.org/) We launch one game
More social media strategies • Diigo group (http://groups.diigo.com/group/gaming-and-the-liberal-arts)
More social media strategies NITLE blogging, http://blogs.nitle.org/
What supports intercampus collaboration for educational gaming? Strength in diversity (disciplines, regions, projects, sectors) Supernodes make the network work (the Dickinson movement) Low barriers to entry are crucial Educational examples are essential Economic fears vie with cultural anxiety Lessons learned?
What else is possible for teaching and learning with games, based on practice outside of the classroom? IV. What next? “Computer games as liberal arts? Educators who teach kids to make their own video games are on education's cutting edge.” (CNN, 2008) http://money.cnn.com/2008/06/06/technology/games_change.fortune/?postversion=2008060606
Already in use in other .edu sectors: Machinima for video production Information/media fluency curricula More modding (ex: Civ IV mod) Mobile app development More current options
Exploring no- and low-cost games further “Nanw’s Adventure”, National Library of Wales (http://dysgle.llgc.org.uk/gemnanw/)
Looking into 2011: Diigo group continues (68 items so far) Ruthless blogging NITLE prediction market trades, grows Reaching out to more schools and organizations What next in liberal arts gaming?
Looking into 2010: Iterations and new projects for fall classes Reacting to the Past interest (Pearson) Mobile gaming development (Vassar) Repurposing gaming tools for visualization (machinima), computing power, presentation (Wii remote) Simulations in use? Involvement from sciences What next in liberal arts gaming?
Techne blog http://blogs.nitle.org/ Prediction Markets game http://markets.nitle.org/ Diigo group http://groups.diigo.com/groups/gaming-and-the-liberal-arts NITLE http://nitle.org