Author: cirving

Categories
gaming

Good Video Games?

Video game obsessions have always mystified me.  I grew up in a household where a game console was not welcome and my turn on the computer was closely policed by a thirty-minute timer.  I appreciate these rules for what they meant at the time.  My siblings and I spent time engaging in many different activities, instead of sitting in front of the tv.  When I did spend time with friends or cousins who lost themselves in a video game world I sat on the sidelines, quietly observing, not needing to participate actively.

There are many issues surrounding video game use.  The violence issue is prevalent, though somewhat challenging, considering violence pervades every aspect of life, from sport to real-life news.  Another is physical health, as the most enduring video games require players to be sedentary.  These, and more, issues aside, denying that video games have their benefits is difficult.

Gee (2005) outlines the learning principles that “good” video games employ. Reading these makes complete sense to me.  Video games engage students on so many levels.  As an English teacher, I want my students to be actively using their minds as much as possible.  Granted, I often encourage regular reading and writing and not video gaming, but if these games are getting them to think critically, problem solve, make connections and identify with a narrative – what is the difference? I am certainly not saying that students should be playing games instead of reading or writing. Ideally, there should be a mix of all three…but that isn’t always possible for all kids. I think what I’m beginning to see and promote is the value that can be present in video games.  So many students love to play them, and a great deal of adults are quick to denounce their worth.  If students are passionate about something, how does it make them feel when their passion is depicted as a waste of time?

As educators, we place value in many different types of narratives, why not video games? What students are interested in is important.  In the ELA classroom, we have so much opportunity to give our students choice – why not let them try to design a level of a video game, or make a comparison between a game and a poem? The end product could be extremely rich and rewarding for both student and teacher.

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Uncategorized

Adaptations

I found Bortolotti and Hutcheon’s (2007) extremely compelling as it approaches a fairly commonplace topic in an academic and insightful way.  People are often employing fidelity discourse in their day-to-day lives, and with the multitude of movie remakes and book turned movies this is not going to end anytime soon.

I appreciate the interrogation of fidelity discourse, as I myself have often grumbled about movies not being “true enough” to the original – but why? We see the world in a very linear way, always seeking a point of origin and and moving from that place.  Many are, not so quietly, under the impression that the “original” is the truest form of a work, and any changes made in adaptations are perversions.  I love seeing these changes instead as adaptations.  It can be extremely useful to make comparisons between adaptations of the same work, but to hold them up beside one another and protest that one does not do a good enough job of mimicking the other is a complete waste of time.

I think that this discussion is relevant and worthwhile for so many reasons.  One issue that I see, having to do with the ELA classroom, is that the English discipline can be a hostile place.  “Oh, you haven’t read Brave New World? Strange.”  Intellectuals in this discipline are notorious for being snobby, and I myself notice that I hold back certain information for fear of being judged.  If I have not read a novel that everyone has read, I try to keep it to myself.  If I commit the cardinal sin of watching a movie before reading the book, I either remain quiet about it or blurt the embarrassing truth out apologetically.  There can be so much judgement in English, and there should not be. If my students want to engage critically with a movie, how is that any less valuable than engaging with a book?  If they want to creatively interpret or adapt a literary work, they should not be worried about stay “true to the original,” rather, they should be taking risks!

Bortolotti, G. and Linda Hutcheon. “On the Origin of Adaptations: Rethinking Fidelity Discourse and “Success”: Biologically.” New Literary History, Vol. 38, No. 3, Biocultures (Summer, 2007), pp. 443-458
Categories
Media Project II

QR Code “Advencha” – Aimee Ceilidh Johnnie Whitney

Our second media project was almost a companion piece to the first in that it ultimately became an exploration of the UBC campus space. Drawing a blank on what we might do, the idea of using QR (quick response) codes in some capacity came about following a brief discussion with Teresa. We just couldn’t decide how to use them. Eventually, we determined that our plan be to set out around the campus individually for inspiration—seeing what spoke to us, what thoughts or memories were evoked, and how these might be somehow represented. We would plan to tag these places with QR codes which would simply link to a webpage of our choosing. As this was personal, there were no set rules to follow concerning the link. Also, we decided that over-collaborating would produce less interesting results so we kept some distance with our ideas. Over the next couple of days, locations had been marked, and group members had made their connections by way of a link. For the class activity, we put together a map of the campus, flagging these particular spots. Class members would set out in small groups—an “advencha”, as one member put it—to find the QR codes, using their smart-phones to unlock the codes and connect with our chosen pages. Ultimately, we were not sure whether or not these would mean anything to anyone but ourselves. 

Our idea was to make a connection with the space. We have each spent months and years interacting with the campus. It is a place of experience for all of us. It holds memories, conscious and unconscious. It is a place of knowledge and great beauty. It is a marker of time—holds histories long before our time and will continue to evolve long after we leave. While many of us often come and go without much more than our next class or assignment in mind, the campus is a wonderful place to reflect. It turned out that our reflections took us all over the place. We have taken a similar path in some ways, but our experiences and memories are wildly different. The valuable piece of this exercise was seeing how different we are.
The experiential aspect of this exercise was interesting. Engaging in narrative and by making personal connections is a valuable part of the English student’s experience. Likewise, it is fascinating to see how the process of connecting with physical space allows for personal connections and unlocks inner-narratives. While our experiment was rather basic, the underlying idea is complex and potentially rich for students. Given the opportunity, it is one way to synthesize and express ideas without writing. Such an activity might also include writing if students were developing their own webpages. There are certainly ways this might be creatively incorporated into a classroom if the technology was available, ways we have not yet considered. Apart from the dependance on technology, it might be further challenging in a small space. The aspect that seems immediately appealing, however, is getting out of the classroom and interacting with the environment.

Found for Instagram – Aimee, Ceilidh, Johnnie & Whitney

Instagram and Found Poetry

Here is the link to our insta-poem: http://instagram.com/368media1

Johnnie Furlong, Ceilidh Irving, Whitney O’Donnell, and Aimee Beauchamp

Purpose: 

Because of the use of imagery and strong vocabulary, we found poetry to lend itself well to visual representation. We felt that Found Poetry would be a great way to translate text into images. In our experience, students have enjoyed the process of found poetry for many reasons, the most obvious being the pressure taken off of the student to come up with their own words. Found Poetry is a great way of introducing students to new and unfamiliar vocabulary. We also found this particular way of presenting it to be interactive and engaging. The main purpose of Found Poetry is to create a new context while maintaining part of the original meaning. In this way, there is a sort of double-meaning behind each word and the newly created poem – an important process in understanding the context of poetry as a whole.

1) What process did you use to develop your idea? 

 There was a lot of discussion back and forth about different ideas. This particular snowballed from the suggestion of using Instagram as a platform. We felt that this particular avenue is popular amongst students and is a simple enough format to use that it’s easy for anyone to try out. As mentioned, we figured poetry would fit well in Instagram because they both encourage the use of imagery and subtext. Eventually the idea of Found Poetry was suggested and it was something we all felt fit the purpose of the project well.

 2) What other pre-production strategies did you employ?

While we had a main idea for our project we did not have a focus or theme for our poem. We decided that the best way to create this was to let it come about in a holistic fashion. We agreed to spend the next few days individually taking pictures of words we found meaningful or were capable of carrying a dialogue to some degree. We then reconvened to see what we came up with and whether or not we were able to sort of suss out a theme. Indeed we noticed some similarities between the images and developed this concept of the transformation of a teacher from negative to positive. From this, we were able to piece together the images in a collage fashion on Instagram. 

3) How did you assign tasks or roles within your group? How did you manage time? 

 We needed a lot of different images to create the poem and therefore we were able to just each go our own way and take pictures as we came across different words. This project actually allowed us to manage our time well because it didn’t require all of us to be in the same room at the same time. It was only in the last bit where we had to piece it together that we took some time to collaborate once more and create the poem. I guess in some sense we all had the same roles and tasks. We found that it worked really well not always knowing what types of pictures the other members were taking as we came to the conclusion that we felt a strong pull to some similar words. This was an interesting find that may not have turned out had only one person been assigned this task. For other aspects of the project like creating the Instagram account and doing this write up, it was done on a more voluntary basis and we did not find any issue with that.

4) What approaches would you use to assess this activity that take into account the 

following: a) the multimedia nature of the assignment; b) the collaborative nature of the 

assignment 

a) We chose to focus on how well students were able to use this platform to create meaning. This includes aspects such as how were the images laid out on the account, how were the images edited, what kinds of emotions are evoked from this, and what else is shown in the image besides the word. We believe that this process requires a level of contextual knowledge and understanding. Therefore, this project would be an excellent way to determine how well someone understands the role of imagery and vocabulary within the meaning of poetry.

b) This project easily allows for collaboration. As was mentioned, we were all able to take pictures on our own time and reconvene at a time that worked for everyone to sort out the images. Different ideas and themes were discussed based on the similarities between the pictures and the chosen theme was agreed upon by everyone. It was a nice balance of collaboration and individual work without requiring too much of a time commitment from all members of the group. 

5. What is the greatest challenge to using this approach in the classroom?

The challenge we saw was of course with the use of technology. There is always a question of economic status and access within projects based around new forms of technology. This project did require that we were all able to take pictures on our own time and this was made easier due to the fact that we all had smartphones capable of doing this. If a student did not have this then there would be some struggle for them to participate. However, they would still be able to take part in the collaboration. Also, this approach would require that at least one student in the group is able to access Instagram. The only other potential challenge we saw was the possibility of students simply posting images of words that do not relate to each other and therefore have no context or meaning. This would undermine the purpose of the project. 

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