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Small Colleges and Digital Gaming: Collaboration and the State of Play

Explore the pedagogical uses of computer gaming in small colleges and the impact on liberal education. Discover current practices, faculty research, and game creation within these institutions. Learn about gaming as a mainstream cultural phenomenon and its potential for future growth.

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Small Colleges and Digital Gaming: Collaboration and the State of Play

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  1. Small Colleges and Digital Gaming: Collaboration and the State of Play Coalition for Networked Information, fall 2009 Bryan Alexander, NITLE

  2. For the next hour, we control the horizontal and the vertical: Gaming, teaching, liberal education: a 2009 snapshot A taxonomy of practices, with selected examples The role of NITLE Futures, next steps, discussion, and futures: into 2010 Plan of the session

  3. Quick note-taking: what are the two most salient uses of computer gaming in your institution? Making the audience work already

  4. Three key takeaways, for today: 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, late 2009

  5. 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

  6. Jason Mittell, Middlebury College: games are platforms for learning… Skills Simulations Media studies (psych, cultural studies, media) NITLE brownbag, January 2008 Another summary

  7. Classroom and courses Curriculum content Delivery mechanism Creating games How is gaming used now? Peacemaker, Impact Games Revolution (via Jason Mittell)

  8. Oiligarchy, Molle Industries DimensionM, Tabula Digita • Jetset, Persuasive Games • The Great Shakeout, California

  9. 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

  10. Anecdata: Number of Facebook FarmVille players: 27,539,610 (http://statistics.allfacebook.com/applications/leaderboard/, as of December 2009) Gaming as part of mainstream culture (Casual games are more mainstream than most heavy-duty games)

  11. Diversity of game genres American teenagers, Pew Internet, 2008

  12. 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)

  13. Libraries Collections Game night Creating games How is gaming used now? Defense of Hidgeon, Games Archive: University of Michigan

  14. Maturing professional venues

  15. Return to your earlier note-taking, and compare notes with people near you: where on campus are you seeing this? And where might you see more in ‘10? Making the audience work some more

  16. What are the intersections? Shared: classic academic concerns Pedagogical uses Support Tenure/promotion Fears Gaming and liberal education • Image: Bryn Mawr College, • Michael Toler

  17. 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

  18. II. A taxonomy of practices • Liberal arts uses • Gettysburg, Hope, Depauw

  19. Faculty research Faculty/staff game creation Classes and learning Professional games delivering learning content “ “ “ objects of study Students creating game content “ “ games II. A taxonomy of current practices

  20. 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

  21. Valley Sim, Christian Spielvogel (Hope College): MMOG American Civil War simulation based on primary documents already in digital archive (Valley of the Shadow) MMOG: Players experience and debate the war’s epochal events as avatars based on the lives of residents from two wartime communities 2. Faculty/staff game creation

  22. Trinity University library: ARG 2. Faculty/staff game creation

  23. Dickinson College, class on empires: game modding 2. Faculty/staff game creation

  24. 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.”

  25. 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

  26. Aaron Delwiche, Trinity University: COMM 3344, interactive multimedia (Spring 2006) 3B: Games as objects of study

  27. Chris Fee, Gettysburg: Interactive Fiction (2007-) 3C: Students creating game content http://let.blog.nitle.org/2008/05/09/teaching_with_games_medieval_culture_and/

  28. Venatio Creo, Ursinus College 3D: Students creating games

  29. Nonprofit, working to advance technology in liberal education III. The role of NITLE

  30. Professional development (workshops, videoconferencing) NITLE Network Several venues (NITLE-IT, Summit) Research Exploration of field Publications Blogging Network facilitation Game co-creation ARG (ELI 2009) Web game (futures market) NITLE programs

  31. Web 2.0 networking Conference (Dickinson, 2007) Workshop (Bryn Mawr, 2008) The gaming initiative

  32. And: MIV sessions (starting 2008) Presentations (CNI, Educause, NITLE Summit, NMC 2008-9) 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

  33. Faculty 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

  34. 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

  35. NITLE prediction markets (http://markets.nitle.org/) We launch one game

  36. More social media strategies • Diigo group (http://groups.diigo.com/group/gaming-and-the-liberal-arts)

  37. More social media strategies NITLE blogging, http://blogs.nitle.org/let/

  38. What supports intercampus collaboration for educational gaming? Strength in diversity (disciplines, regions, projects, sectors) Supernodes make the network workshop (the Dickinson movement) Low barriers to entry are crucial Educational examples are essential Lessons learned?

  39. 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

  40. Already in use in other .edu sectors: Machinima for video production Information/media fluency curricula More modding (ex: Civ IV mod) More current options

  41. Exploring no- and low-cost games further “Nanw’s Adventure”, National Library of Wales (http://dysgle.llgc.org.uk/gemnanw/)

  42. Looking into 2010: 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?

  43. Looking into 2010: Iterations and new projects for spring classes Reacting to the Past interest (Pearson) Mobile gaming pilots (Vassar) Repurposing gaming tools for visualization (machinima), computing power, presentation (Wii remote) Involvement from sciences What next in liberal arts gaming?

  44. Liberal Education Tomorrow blog http://blogs.nitle.org/let Prediction Markets game http://markets.nitle.org/ Diigo group http://groups.diigo.com/groups/gaming-and-the-liberal-arts NITLE http://nitle.org

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