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Narrative, Geography & Leinenkugal at GLS11

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Thursday at the Games+Learning+Society Conference was another packed day of speakers, the GLS Showcase and food. It kicked-off with keynote from Brenda Romero, the amazing Fulbright scholar, entrepreneur, artist, writer and games guru. She has been a pioneers in the gaming industry going back to 1981. Listing all of her accolades would take this entire post, but as someone listed in the top ten list of developers by Gamastura.com. He a high-energy, funny and entertaining speaker because that is the person she is – no slick delivery, just oozing enthusiasm (and F-bombs) with everything she says. Her topics was “Women in Gaming”, and as you may have surmised by my description of her, this is not the way she identifies herself, despite the fact that she keeps getting awards to this effect. She shot holes in the division the industry and media have drawn based on sex. If living those issues every day isn’t annoying enough, she is also married to gaming sensei John Romero of Wolfenstein 3D, DOOM, Quake fame, so she has to constantly deflect questions about him.

My first session of the morning was the presentation of three papers on the subject of narrative. I am particularly interested in this topic because this was the framework from which I authored my ARIS game, Dilemma 1944. Stephen Slota of the University of Connecticut discussed the role of narrative as a means to explore a game setting in his paper, Stories, Games & Learning Through Play: An Analysis of Narrative Affordances in Game-Based Instruction. He used Project Technologia to demonstrate collaborative storytelling emphasizing how users can experience context, chronology and content in a manner that is not dominated by achievement. Next, Sean Duncan of Indiana University presented “I Have To Tell You Something”: How Narrative and Pretend Play Intersect In Story Games. He discussed how board games like Fiasco allow players to embody different identities and the roles that come with them through imaginative play. Finally, James Cox presented a means to provide direction and options in games through narrative versus drop-down menus or information panels in Metafiction in Videogames. He described “the fourth wall” concept from Greek theatre, where a character steps away from the play and speaks directly to the audience. He identifies four levels of metafictions: emergent (fictions revealed to the players), immersive (fiction that brings the player into the narrative), internal (character-to-character), and external (designer-to-player). All of these papers were very thought provoking. I’m looking forward to reading through them.

Lunch time features another rant with Jim Gee who entertained us all with his predictably unpredictable zingers. He noodled through many topics all on the theme governmental and economic impact on education and the need for a societal shift in thinking to have any educational change work. He believes that Americans are living in a state that more closely resembles the 1890’s than the 1950’s. His best line of the day: “Liberals keep pitching softball to right wingers.”

My afternoon session focused on landscape and geography, which are topics near and dear to my heart. Landscape architect and professor Christopher Marlow from Ball University presented a fascinating session on how gaming is used by his students to learn important conceptual principles of designing inside and outside common spaces. Students were also given the opportunity to develop their own games for learning. He described his favourite, Sustainability which is based on Plants and Zombies where players have to decide where to place the best water drainage systems. Julie Oltman of Lehigh University demonstrated how ARIS could be used to augment a field trip for grade 3 students.

The last session of the day was my favourite: Collaborative Content Generation. Mark Chen of Pepperdine showed his research on Twine games with disadvantaged youth in Los Angeles. These games are low-tech, choose-yoiur-own-adventure digital narratives. His goal was to give a voice to the participants through play, where they collect written word, digital photos and hand-drawn pictures etc. Anthony Betrus, Nate Turcotte an Matt Leifeld demonstrated the simple card game, Teaching Bad Apples which they designed for Pre-Service teacher education. We all played in the session and had a blast. Players are given 2 cards with different response options that teachers may have in a given situation. Next  a situation card is drawn and players must apply their card. Of course the options are almost always humorous but act as a spring board for a deeper conversation of that scenario. David Ng of the Michael Smith Lab at UBC finished up with Phylo. This game leverages crowd sourcing to create trading cards games that foster learning in any domain. He uses biodiversity cards that were ultimately adopted and produced by the Beatty Biodiversity Museum at UBC. Check out his project at phylogame.org.

It was a warm and beautiful night overlooking the Terrace at Memorial Union. Once again we were spoiled with delicious food an beer. I’m not sure how I’m going to source Leinenkugal Shady in Vancouver.

gls_day31

GLS11: Day 2

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I am a conference newbie, so selecting sessions to attend is complicated by not fully understanding the different options. Keynotes and workshops – I get those, but fireside chat, paper and poster sessions? not so much. Before I go any further I’ve got to comment on the food provided at GLS11. It is not your average proD fare. In fact, I think the brats and pretzels of lunch one on Tuesday was just a teaser because meals just keep getting more and more varied and complex. Of course, it never runs out so can eat your fill.

The morning breakfast keynote featured Dr. Nichole Pinkard and her Chicago Learning Network. Her goal is to integrate the learning of digital literacies between school, home and the community throughout the city with a system of completion badges. Mentors are used as the “secret sauce” to help students transfer their understandings and skills between the different settings of their lives so to maximize employment and educational opportunities for them where that otherwise may not occur. It is powerful and important work. Have a look at digitalyouthnetwork.org.

My next session was a presentation with breakout sessions based on a new publication: Teacher Pioneers: Adventures with Media, Pedagogy and Play in K-16 Learning. This resource is just becoming available and features a cast of impressive educators who tell their stories about innovation and change using playful learning. Sean Dikkers was the draw for me. I’ve heard him speak a few times now and he always captures my attention and interest. He was a principal in norther Minnesota in a school with a 100% drop-out rate for special needs learners. He was given carte-blanche to make any changes he saw necessary, so he introduced pedagogy of fun, play and gaming into all courses in the school. In a few short years 70% of the special needs students were now graduating.

Next up – UBC’s own David Ng, a geneticist and science literary writer with the Michael Smith laboratories, who spoke about how he has integrated a card-based game with his students and the impact that bringing the notion of play continues to have on them. David is a very interesting guy. Among other things, his dad beat-up Bruce Lee, which grants him cross-generational cred. I’ll be checking-out his joint session on collaborative content generation this afternoon.

One of the concepts that came out of this session was new to me- the proD “hack-a-thon”. Here, staff are challenged to create a digital tool or game for learning in a tight time period – typically 3 hours. It is high energy and crazy-making, and inevitably groups fail at some level (or many). In the process, they get to reframe failure as iteration of design rather than dishonour.

The fireside chat features the iconic Jim Gee, author of the ground-breaking book in 2003, What Video Games Have to Teach Us About Literacy and Learning. Jim sat in an armchair on the stage of the great hall in front of a 14-foot screen of a burning fire place (it was very funny), entertaining us all with his rant on assessment, appropriately called “Assessment and Stupidity.” I think the title speaks for itself. Jim was on fire (heh heh, sorry – could’t resist).

The afternoon was paper session time for me. This is where people are given 20 minutes to describe recent work that they have published. The theme of this sessions was reluctant learners. Betsy DiSalvo of the Georgia Tech presented her research on bad game design’s impact on the subject in Pink Boxes and Chocolate-Dipped Broccoli. It focused particularly on girls. Beth King of UW Whitewater presented a powerful paper on the challenges of African-American boys learning in gang-riddled South Chicago. This was particularly moving in light of the 54 people killed there this past weekend, including a 7-year-old boy in gang related violence. She used the Sims as a means for the boys to communicate what it is like to be “living in the Life.” It was eye-opening.

My favourite part of the day was the poster sessions in the Great Hall at dinner. Here, you have the opportunity to speak one-on-one with presenters who stand if front of high-production posters and share their work. The amount of work you can see while walking around with dinner in hand was amazing. Examples included: connecting students with autism with peers through games, how games support formative assessment, using games and simulations in climate change science education using games to teach global connectedness. One of my favourites was the work of Concordia’s Tom Fennewald, who has developed a card game called Troubled Lands. Here, players learn about the complex decision making of government about the environment by casting players as one of three characters who must compete and cooperate to manage the limited land they access to. Tom is going to share his resources with me so that I can play the game with my classes next year.

Of course, the beer continued to flow, and following a performance by Deidra Kiai called Cofee- A Misunderstanding people, attendees played games in the arcade area until midnight. I had to turn-in early. I was exhausted.