Working Group Notes

1. Working Group Notes • This presentation consists of slides created on-the-spot during the working groups of the Teaching Methods session during the IGDA Education Curriculum Workshop.

2. Theory and Practice • The definition of theory and practice differs depending on • Who you are/what you are teaching • Whether you have a full degree program, or a few • What’s the outcome desired? • a beautiful project/portfolio, • a deep understanding of theory with conceptual prototypes, • deep knowledge of a given tool • or all of the above.

3. Theory and Practice • How much do industry demands dictate specific tool/language knowledge? • Animation studios will often take a skilled traditional animator vs someone with skills in a tools set as its easier to teach the tool. Is that similar for the game industry? • Instructor Experiences • One programming teacher, over the course of three iterations of the same class, went from heavy in theory to teaching only the API. The latter group had the best projects but it was not clear what what else they walked away with. • Our assert creation instructor had found that his balance of 1/3rd theory, 1/3rd application, 1/3rd of class time for practice has proven the best mix for asset creation. • One theory and narrative professor ignores tool choice and leaves that up to the student but students will often run into trouble balancing technical and narrative focus during the prototype implementation stage. • If the theory focused on is game play, level and puzzle design, etc it may be best to pick a lightweight tools for shorter learning curves and more focus on development timelines. Playability, etc. • If the focus of the course is technical, the desired outcomes listed above should help decide the balance

4. Games as “Texts”: Resistance • What is the purpose of writing about games? • "Magician training school" • How to write? • mechanics • audience

5. Games as “Texts”: Game Assignments • Use a game • analyze different aspects • the interface • older games • force them to go beyond eye candy • useful as models for student projects • Use movies as examples • Choose your own game • write about over the course period • Use a board game • mechanics • Diplomacy

6. Games as “Texts”: What students need • Tools • conceptual vocabulary • narrative • acts, hero's quest • books • Rollins and Adams • Rules of Play • Handbook of Game Design • Examples • films • board games • video games • video clips from IGN • Feedback • writing and feedback

7. Games as “Texts”: Assignments • Pick a game • analyze using different topics over the quarter • Write a game review • using industry standards • Game syllabus • key defining games • common discussion • Game demo • work through the same scenes • Machinima • create a scene

8. Community Building • Faculty community • Have many opportunities with conferences, IGDA, SIGGRAPH etc. • Need help to build community among our students • Game developer’s club • IGDA Student Chapter • ACM Chapters • Game competitions

9. Community Building • Game/arts studio lab space • Informal lab space outside a classroom lab(with a couch, tables, coffee and food) • Have labs open during breaks • Key card access • Make it more of a social space • Give students some control of space • Pay for “your lab” with lab fees • Have students “maintain” the lab

10. Community Building • Attract more women • Hire female students to work in the studio • Recruit more students • Email students that are taking a math class to recruit for a particular class or degree • Collaborative team projects • Collaborative projects across the curriculum • Art, CAD, Social Science, English • Offer money, offer extra credit

11. Community Building • Alumni • Email list of alumni • Get on list close to graduation • Yahoo email list – News & Current Events • Have alumni talk to current students

12. Community Building - Deterrents • Students don’t want to share their “great game” idea • Need to figure out way to work around the IT department • Lots of organizations are competing for students • World of Warcraft • Second Life • MMOs • Other campus organizations – frats/sororities

13. Participants • Yusuf Pisan, Univ of Technology, Sydney • Jerry Rosenberg, Edmonds Community College, Lakeland, WA • Matthew Bivens, Leuzinger High School, Lawndale, CA • Ian Horswill, Northwestern University, Evanston, IL • Carlotta Eaton, New River Community College, Dublin, VA

14. Inter-institutional Collaboration • Industry wants schools to share resources • Schools may not want to share $ • “job sharing/posting” with student projects • Instructors find partners across schools and have mutually timed indep. studies/classes and share projects • Help fill missing holes on teams • Help schools with diff. strengths • XSI Base, students post their work, blogging, build relationships (grassroots), growing

15. Inter-institutional Collaboration • Meeting mutual needs • Sharing/exchange instructors? • Site visits/tours • Material • Schools help each other to improve quality of game education overall (improve view of other academic fields) • IGDA • Students join, industry members help with reviews • Student chapters in established areas/schools take on newer groups from nearby schools

16. Inter-institutional Collaboration • Companies recruiting • Coordinate with your “neighbors” for showcases/visits so that companies recruiters can “sweep” through your area and not compete with schools (idea modeled off of PhD programs coordinating visit days) • Build rapport of student work/raise standards across schools

17. Inter-institutional Collaboration • Devil’s advocate: cooperation bad? • If you’re in, not want to give it up • Survival of the fittest? (game programs die, student backlash, programs become very selective) • Maybe some schools calling “game student” not really, could hurt view of “real” game students • Is everyone jumping in on the bandwagon? Also programs suffer if they’ve not been given proper internal support/resources

18. Inter-institutional Collaboration • Peer review and consulting • Longer-time faculty/schools help other schools/program build the new program • Curriculum review board? Are people afraid? • Separate institution for peer review—third party accreditation? Maybe more collaborative/collegiate organization • Voluntary list of people to help—IGDA maintain list? • Issues of who owns your school

19. Inter-institutional Collaboration • Conferences • GDC • What’s “must go to”? Is GDC it? • SIGGRAPH and game track • IDMAA internation digital media arts assoc. • How many conferences? All of this is expensive and time consuming—maybe we don’t have *THE* academic game conf? • IDGA is “education friendly” • GDC education proposals get “dumped” to IGDA (set up educator’s track for subset of IGDA track?) • Educators educate other educators

20. Inter-institutional Collaboration • Physical location? • Can we have an expanded listserve • IGDA edu mails too much—maybe need separate lists? Other way to process/post/participate? • List of game programs • Game career guide site? (was on gamasutra) • Any school who doesn’t put themselves there not really part of “the community” • List of schools who participate in peer review process • Too controversial too organize by types of programs • Tech schools vs higher-education

21. Inter-institutional Collaboration • Collaboration with research • Ex) mobile gaming • Could be a lot more with research

22. Collaborative Projects • Students reviewing students: some part of grade is from those reviews • Team leaders also evaluated along with the whole group on a project • If one person not pulling weight, then bring in the teacher • Can be very difficult to evaluate individual work in a group, of course, but the point is to participate, not necessarily to succeed

23. Collaborative Projects • A project group will include laborers and managers; as they age they move up • Much depends on length of time students have • Initial excitement vs. second-term burnout • Collaboration is a critical skill for the real world, but hard to justify to admin • Every team has faculty mentor, but students must be given only rough guidelines • Monthly postmortems

24. Collaborative Projects • Team leaders generally chosen by age/experience • Everyone should have a chance to lead • Goal is to learn, not to develop a game • Must learn what you like, what you’re good at—that’s what school is for

25. Collaborative Projects • Don’t expect grads to go straight to EA • They learn business, entrepreneurship • Expected to start small, and to expect it • Supply of graduates will exceed demand

26. Collaborative Projects • How to get students away from first-person shooters? • Need to understand games are much broader • But college is a chance to indulge one’s proclivities • Have students propose games, vote on top five, class does five projects • Can combine them, as in Remission

27. Collaborative Projects • Teachers love collaborative projects; students don’t and departments/administers don’t • Separate projects for separate classes? • Very cool if you can spread it across, but you don’t want one project for all the classes • Need a balance of individual and collaborative work

28. Collaborative Projects • How to get students to work toward a result anyone might want to buy • Have an actual prospective customer critique and give feedback (requirements capture) • Then company “interns” the group for a third year (after two-year project). • Seek more crossdepartmental (art, music, programming) and even multi-institutional collaboration.

29. Game Library: What’s a game library? • Who thinks it’s: • old games for students to play? • games students have made to show off to the public? • code libraries?

30. Game Library: Old games for students to play • What’s the year of birth of your youngest student? • Were they alive concurrently with Ronald Reagan’s presidency? • Do they know that not all games were 3D?

31. Game Library: Value in old-new games • Atari – PS3/XBox360/Wii • Old games were made by one person (design, art, programming), in assembly • Simplicity of design can have value • Dig Dug is still fun • Try game genres outside of what they would buy • new experiences

32. Game Library: Why did certain games succeed? • Pac-Man, Starcraft, Tetris, Chess, Elite, WOW, GTA3, Unreal Tournament, Doom, etc. • What gave them fanatics?

33. Game Library: What games failed? • Should they play ET?

34. Game Library: Warning • Make all students cancel their WOW accounts at the start of the semester

35. Game Library: How can students show-off their games? • Online, playable Java applets • Ref NYU’s Ken Perlin’s homepage • Downloadable EXEs • Stony Brook University’s CSE 380 homepage • DVDs • record gameplay • good for console portfolios

36. Game Library: And game code libraries? • Is there documentation? • Is there documentation? • Is there documentation? • Is there documentation? • Is there documentation? • Is there documentation? • Is there documentation?

37. Game Library: But seriously … • Decisions to make: • C++ vs C#/Java • Inside vs Outside the Game Engine • Professional vs Self-made Game Engine • Course code reuse? • Game genre sample packs

38. Interdisciplinary Student Teams: Issues & Strategies Human Communication Issues Internship program example Where students must work in teams and then build actual products Not as much communications as stereotypes and profiling as “arty” , “geeks”, “and “superpeople” in their area Management is strategy to combat the profiling with appropriate assignments for them to work together and with questions that relate to the game and not to each other. 1/3 art … 1/3 programming … 1/3 story & gameplay

39. Interdisciplinary Student Teams: Issues & Strategies Management Issues Trying to find artist that are willing to compromise on style Programmers hate UI but the game still needs it Numbers of students that start, find out that it’s not as much fun to build a game as to play it!, so there is attrition that needs to build up One environment in an academic environment that works is to build a non-credit club that allows for portfolio building.

40. Interdisciplinary Student Teams: Issues & Strategies Publishing the game encourages a focus on the game http://www.gamecreation.org Producer is firewall that assists in negotiation between differences. Short time frames force decisions Programmers have the POWER since they determine if something can be done, so programming is a bottom line for leadership. Creating “real-world” contexts over the project will encourage a focus to work together Ideas must be presented to the producer, then bounce back for feedback from the team, then final defense with the Producer.

41. Interdisciplinary Student Teams: Academic Issues 5 students out of 15 do all of the work Multiple streams (art, programming, designers) have students in each team and the game is a result of the balance of the team in any semester Off site work can facilitate inter-institutional outsourcing Team teaching is “a pain in the a_ _ “ but interdisciplinary requirements require equal expertise on the faculty Portfolio Credits is an incentive for both faculty and students (publish or perish – and job portfolio)

42. Interdisciplinary Student Teams: Academic Issues You can’t force a student to care More difficult to see free-loading in programming, but it does stand out in the art and audio. Bring in professionals to help with SCOPE issues How do you pass off responsibilities to students who have no experience with management? One suggestion for many issues is to be the “fly on the wall” and make sure the faculty knows what is going on, and how people are interacting.

43. Interdisciplinary Student Teams: Academic Administration Issues Silos of interdisciplinary talent Credit distribution and department ownership of tuition dollars Faculty time or course release time Solutions would be Provost Level interdisciplinary majors Honors Programs for Capstone Experiences

44. Interdisciplinary Student Teams 2 : Overview • Amy Chaaban, Scott Roberts, Dana Wortman, Rodrigo Obando, Dani Castillo, Rob Martyn, Kathleen Harmeyer, Patrick Holmlund, Craig A. Lindley, Lennart Nacke • Definition of “interdisciplinary” • Case examples • Conclusion

45. Interdisciplinary Student Teams 2 : Definition • Students level • They have different majors • Different kinds of people with different skills • Inhomogeneous groups • Everybody needs to feel equally invested • Establishing a vocabulary • Word values • Extending the communication process • Ranks against traditional bureaucracy

46. Interdisciplinary Student Teams 2 : Cañada College • Start with faculty • Get them talking • All teachers

47. Interdisciplinary Student Teams 2 : Art Institute of Washington • Firing students in teams • Team mates provide input for the grade • Promote individual responsibility

48. Interdisciplinary Student Teams 2 : DePaul University • Co-teaching with the industry • Real-world approach • Administration overhead as a problem

49. Interdisciplinary Student Teams 2 : Waubonsee Community College • Small scope of projects • Gaming club factors in • Creating a class format from student projects as a major challenge

50. Interdisciplinary Student Teams 2 : University of Michigan-Dearborn • Students get to pick • Own projects • Own team mates • Coordinating between two different unis • Teams meet beforehand