Interactive media is pushing the boundaries of contemporary film.
A few weeks ago, we were encouraged to visit several websites promoting indigenous culture. When visiting the “Unikkausivut – Sharing our Stories” webpage of the National Film Board of Canada, I noticed an “Interactive” link at the top and found myself engaging in an experience known as “Bla Bla”.
I dare you to try it. It is so strangely compelling. I couldn’t help being drawn into the animation and had to explore by clicking just to see what would happen next.
This is game theory in its purest form. No instructions. Just subtle clues and the knowledge that the user will become impatient and will try “something”. And when you do try something, you can’t help trying something again.
When art or knowledge is presented in such a way, the audience is compelled to continue to “play” and engage in “experiential learning” which I believe is one of the central tenets to First Nations culture – the belief that that which is worth learning can be accomplished through situational experience.
Dr. Sasha Barab is a professor of Learning Sciences at Indiana University. He offers some great insight into the power of gaming within education and how it can be applied to challenge traditional practice.
He is also the “principle investigator” of the Atlantis Remixed project [formerly known as “Quest Atlantis”] – a 3D educational experience (ie. avatar-style video game).
For my final project, I will be exploring the role of new medias, specifically gaming, and how it is being used by indigenous cultures and why it is important to engage today’s learner.
I believe that some of his most salient points regarding gaming and education are:
“Instead of treating these kids when they come in as people who are ignorant and our job in education is to get them smart enough to demonstrate some sort of high score on a test. Our goal is to position them as really empowered kids who get to feel what is it like to try on the role as scientist and to see themselves as people who could possibly have that future….in a game we can create a storyline where they are the hero. They get a chance to see why the stuff we’re learning in school could matter.”
“When we look at how kids are being positioned to engage, to tinker with, to explore, to represent themselves, to pursue their passions with these new media tools, and then we look at how disciplinary content of schools is being positioned – we have a real disconnect; and we wonder why when they finish school they run home, jump in these new media, where they have agency, they have consequentiality, they have people taking up what they are doing – they have a legitimate role for using these [new media].”
“What is exciting about this world [Atlantis Remixed] is ultimately what determines whether something is valuable is how the next community takes it up; not because a teacher gives me an F or an A.”
“Teachers have been really enthusiastic of finding different ways of meeting standards…the standards are set out in a way that is well-intentioned in their design; the problem is that the spaces…of the schools are very uninteresting for kids and very limiting.”
“In a game I am immediately positioned with a purpose. What are the rules of this game? When I do ‘this’ what happens?”
“In a game I am considered someone who has a really powerful role to do something significant with my time and that significance requires that I learn a bunch of things so I can do that thing even better.”
“I am told thank you for doing that.”
“Failure is motivating. I am allowed to tinker. I am allowed to try being something that I couldn’t normally be. And if we limit kids in schools to being just ignorant children – vessels to be filled with things – we’re not creating futures for them at all.”
Sasha Barab speaks about textbooks and current resources:
“We are in a different time. We are at a point where its not so much about getting information; it’s about using information to accomplish particular ends.”
“The tools that teachers are provided with are not the tools that children will use outside of schools…We’re setting the teachers up for failure. I think teachers are in a hard, hard space. Teachers need to advocate for themselves and parents that there are other literacies [new media literacies]…that will be determining these kids’ futures.”
“Getting information, memorizing facts is no longer part of our current process. I can grab my iPhone and within 5 seconds I can find more than you can remember in your entire High School career.”
“…50% dropout rate in school (Chicago)… is totally unreasonable. There has to be a point where we say, “You know what? It’s not all those kids that’s the problem. It’ sthe way that we are thinking about school. It’s the way we use textbooks, it’s the resources we give the kids and ultimately it’s the kinds of things that we are allowing the kids to do, and as long as they don’t care about those things then we are going to lose more kids in our educational system.”
“I would really like to see teachers start to appreciate the power of what game has to offer and then work with parents, administrators, and local companies to start to use that to develop resources that they can use to prepare kids for the 21st century.”
Dr. Judy Willis has some great material related to gaming and education. Traditionally, gaming has been seen as a “waste of time”. Now, research is showing that the skills employed during gaming can be valuable, and the positioning of the individual within a game environment is conducive to learning in radically different ways from traditional styles of learning. Particularly, I enjoy Dr. Willis’ approach to assessment through a gaming perspective. To learn more about the science of neurology and why gaming supports learning, click here.
This video of Dr. Willis sheds light on her views of how new media supports learning and constitutes “brain-based” strategy for education…
Dr. Willis takes it further on her blog and shows educators how to plan instruction and assessment techniques using a gaming framework. To see examples and learn more about her approach to game-centred assessment and instruction, click here.
With a focus on storytelling and indigenous culture and values, AbTeC is a unique hub that provides academics, artists and technologists with a network in which to share ideas, developments in technology and digital art, as well as applications of technology for educational purposes. The projects supported by AbTeC are largely geared towards empowering indigenous youth to celebrate and enrich their cultural traditions through new media technologies that allow students to create their own video games and interactive web pages.
The website also provides a lengthy biography of artists, scholars and technicians who have worked with communities, schools and universities to assist in the development of new media projects and curricula, in addition to links to AbTeC related research and case studies that examine the impact of technology on education and Aboriginal youth.
