Sounds like the broad genre of "strategy" board games is really not your cup of tea!

Given your emphasis of this point, I'm reminded of the classic scene from an elementary school playground: kickball teams are being picked, with children yelling "me, me!"

What an important recognition. As a former public school teacher, I read this as a wonderful parallel to so much of what happens in schools today. If K-12 students could learn with their friends, in a less sterile (and often prison-like) environment than schools, they would likely have a more positive experience with disciplinary inquiry.

Wow... so many ways to "read" this situation - the removal of agency, infantilizing your presence and demonstration of skill... or was this welcome on your part? Or a bit of both...?

Interesting how a feature of the built environment has unintended consequences for the social relations among the group. Not insignificant, as you note!

As you become more of an insider, what types of shared social practices do these veteran group members share with newcomers? How are newcomers "enculturated" into this space? And in that process - even with a transitory membership - are there opportunities to either a) reinforce offensive behavior or b) promote more accepting social relations? In other words, what - if anything - is the social responsibility of veteran affinity space members to create a more tolerant and affirming environment?

Regardless, the offense of this sexist remark does nothing to create a more welcoming environment for all players. On the contrary, it likely reinforces a normative social environment that promotes - and certainly provides tacit consent - for this type of behavior. Silence is complicity.

Do you remember what the game was? Despite your assessment of the core mechanics influencing a negative desire to participate in this shared activity, it seems as though your overall feeling of comfort wasn't entirely about the game... but more a reflection of the social environment, yes?

So who won, you or the game?

Like Small World?!

And can you give us a small glimpse into his strategic thinking?

This is a nice connection that I wouldn't have immediately made - thanks for bringing together your recent play experience with this cycle's readings.

Fantastic! Wonderful to support a local game store. That's where I purchased Small World for our January shared play session.

There's been a theme recently with some of our blogging and play about the benefits of cooperative games. In our last shared play session, for example, Brian, Lisa, and I collectively attempted to diffuse some bombs through a collaborative - and cross-site/platform - experience. And Susan has also commented recently about the unique insights that arise through collaborative - rather than competitive - game play.

Any thoughts about why this might be the case?

It likely goes without saying... though the cross-platform strategy for engagement is really intentional, with these different modes of engagement providing both distinct yet complementary means of joining and contributing to this distributed affinity space.

Without a doubt there are benefits to accessing information and participating in conversations and communities anywhere and while "on the go." As a mobile learning researcher, I'm very much in favor of tools, practices, and platforms that help to extend learning across settings. That said, I do appreciate that Hypothesis use requires a computer - as such, it requires me to focus differently than I would if I were at the DMV or waiting at another appointment. Perhaps that's the case with you, too?

Amen

A necessary skill to develop in civic matters - so many perspectives to consider.

Huge educational pull.

Ha! The people who think that haven't met many teens:)

Also, does the highlighting on this annotation match up for readers? It doesn't look right on my screen...

It would be interesting to see if/how this experience impacted the student over time. Did the interest in the local community and local issues "stick"?

Adding back in the personal/human element after the more removed/distancing research. I like the structure of this.

This student is learning to form his own opinions, that's great!

not sure what happened with my highlight, that's a lot of jumbled letters...

I feel this is more learner-centered than the neighborhood project.

It's great how they are expanding their learning outside the constraints of the school project.

I wonder why the students were so interested. Did the budget affect them directly (education cuts, city changes, new buildings)?

Before the authors explain, what do you think the three core values of this project are?

Makes me think is the design component the key to the balance between purely self-directed learning and instructor-led learning?

I like how the authors mention and recognize the challenges for creating/recreating a project like this.

Powerful statement

In our last reading we read about student need more self-directed learning.

What percentage of this project would you guess is self-directed, group-directed, or instructor-facilitated?

The Product.

Methodology explained.

What are your thoughts thus far on the process of the project?

The topic

How would you define this term?

(http://arisgames.org/featured/dow-day/)

Here the authors provide their own explanation of why the students chose to include multiple perspectives.

Who else was curious to see what this actually looked liked?!?

Also do you feel this was a sufficient explanation of this component of the project?

The methodology is explained.

What components do you like the most or are most likely to use in a classroom setting?

How would you explain this phenomenon. Why did the students want to present multiple perspectives?

Quick Poll: Were you already familiar with these platforms?

Again, what issues do you think the students might want to investigate?

The Abstract

There is a logical reason for this, but it has nothing to do with the students. Frequently, guidance counselors just dump students into open classes that don't have prerequisites if the student has an open slot in their schedule. Prerequisites (at least in theory) stop counselors from doing this.

This is happening to some of my colleagues at the high school level. They have advanced performing ensembles, and counselors are just dumping kids in them that have never even picked up an instrument before, just because that class had an open seat at the right time.

Being from Canada I can totally understand this issue. But this is bringing up memories of back home, and it's a warm day in PA (75, sorry you rocky mountain folks have SNOW!) and now I want to go swimming.

Oh the memories of thottbot!

The percentage of gamers now is almost a 50 - 50 split between woman and men. Article from the guardian.. This number varies slightly depending on who you speak with.

I believe that we have already achieved this. With all the new education apps out there (LMS apps, testing apps, mobile web conferencing apps) there are so many ways to engage students using a mobile device.

Is this really that different than before? It's just a different means to the same end.

Which is why STEM is so important

I'm not sure what this statement means..

Tapping into those theories of intrinsic motivation.

Ah the explanation of why it felt organic!

It sounds like the experience was very organic, and not contrived.

Brilliant!

Great story! Any thoughts?

Sounds fun. Anyone want to share their best classroom or teacher experience?

What is your critical evaluation of this statement? Do you think this is true? If so does it effect your opinion of the article?

Written in 2010, perhaps he didn't know about the iPhone yet. Thoughts on what the author is trying to say?

Wait! Wasn't the main purpose of this project to make it mobile?

The game. But notice how the author didn't mention if the kids were a part of the design, as in our Matthews & Holden (2012) reading.

Descirbe how you have used resources as tools in your own gaming experience?

Three of three things needed to design a learning environment.

Two of three things needed to design a learning environement

One of three things needed to design a learning environment

To the teachers, this article was written in 2010, now in 2016, how has your classroom or school leveraged this balance?

Who felt their schooling experience was like this? How did you relate personally as a student?

This is the authors definition of "disruptive technology"

I know we've seen this statement made a lot, but are you interested in reading the real reports on how we compete globally? Read here:

Is there such a thing? How would you define a "disruptive technology" and would iPhones in school fall under that category?

Wonderful - and as you do, please share either via this blog or Twitter so that we can follow along!

Thanks for including this reference to - and update about - your affinity space participation, that's great for us to learn.

Seconded!

Maintain this healthy skepticism! Transfer is a really tricky topic, and as our reading from Young et al demonstrated, the jury is definitely out.

Awesome, and what a large and contested literature! There's some rather interesting debate about the importance of MOOCs in education - student persistence, measure of learning, and the "gamification" of MOOCs. I'm eager to read your future posts.

This is a really important insight and I'm glad you've taken this away from the course. I'm especially appreciative of Susannah who has helped to advance this narrative around critiquing notions of "seriousness."

Isn't that interesting - the act of design may have been more meaningful than the benefit of implementation.

Yes, this is important to recognize and a real tension - thanks for bringing it up.

Annospate?

This is a great question!

I think about agency a lot, too. I have a forthcoming conclusion to a book that explicitly tackles educator agency. When it's published I'll be sure to share it with you!

Yes, it's important not to ignore aspects of metacognition just because a particular experience happens to be fun.

This is tremendous for me to learn, wow! What concepts? What aspects of learning? I'm pleased to know that you're feeling more like an expert, particularly with a community outside of our course.

I'm curious... and this is really important, thanks for noting this right up front.

And as you do so, I wonder if reaching out to someone like Scott Nicholson would be a valuable means of receiving feedback on initial design work...?

As I mentioned in response to your annotation to Susannah's reflection post (if I'm not mistaken), it's important to be a critical consumer of research. Yet that also means that playfulness may, in that context, take a bit of a backseat. That's an important tension for us to grapple with...

Thanks for sharing this, very important for me to read!

Nice! I need to think about this more... I've certainly appreciated the affordances of Hypothesis in building conversation and - to varying degrees - shared understanding. And yet, as you note, there's also value in breaking ideas... gotta chew on that, thanks for sharing.

Seems like the Bevelier et al reading really resonated! I know you put considerable effort into your facilitation responsibilities, that likely is informing some of these curiosities, yes?

Yes, my pessimistic self often sees a similar challenge. I have a forthcoming conclusion to a book about teachers as game designers, and I remark upon this challenge at length. When that conclusion is published I'll be sure to share.

And that's OK, at least you're committed and consistent!

About a third of our course has noted motivation as a key area of interest related to games and learning.

My argument always, along with learning how to use new literacies and media creation there are Design Literacies. Things like use of fonts, graphics, layout, color, etc. These things make media consumption legible or at least easier. As an instructor communicating this, on top of course requirements as well as game-like exploration is like another layer of new literacy expression that is seldom understood or taught, yet is actually really valuable for the perception of quality.

Core set of principles!

I wonder if it might be wise to first expose students to a mobile experience outside of school, to improve interest and motivation, and then a return to the classroom to teach the foundation. And then additional experiences outside the school where the students could practice and improve theses skills. Opinions?

Quests usually have rewards. What were the rewards for successfully completing the quests?

My wife is Korean and was educated in Korea including her first college degree in architectural engineering. She has tutored college algebra at 2 universities here in the U.S. She "often" asks me how these students can be expected to do college math when many are lacking a foundation in mathematics. She argues that some of this foundation must just be memorized through rote learning. Do you teachers agree with this? And she loves math and has even taken courses just for fun!

Who.

A fresh, interesting and pragmatic approach to math, isn't it?

We might ask our professor if we can trust this author and his institution! I understand this is a recent photo of the author at work.

A basis in architectural education. I had no idea of this and yet it seems like a logical outgrowth. Learning this is helpful to me, and what do others think?

Yay! I'm glad this was part of the conversation.

I wonder if they had a back-up strategy for if this had been inverted...

Not the first place that we've discussed "constraints" in this course, but I like this perspective from a design standpoint. Adding constraints thoughtfully and with purpose in order to give shape to the vision. Which we see in all games that have rules (and that we sometimes adjust to better fit our own visions:)).

And probably learn some new literacies along the way!

Who wouldn't be psyched about people playing their games?!

Sounds suspiciously like a story board.

I like how the school took into account the equity factor and allowed everyone in the class to be immersed in the project.

I feel that this is an important point. The students will be designing a game for mobile devices and are using their mobile devices to take notes. I wonder if there was any difference in the quality of the games produced based on their note taking methods.

Discourse!

Would you like any recommendations? Sounds like a great plan and I certainly have a few favorites. I would also suggest that some scholars who focus on play - rather than explicitly games - may be useful, too. For example, are you familiar with Vivian Gussin Paley?

Interesting... so if I'm following this correctly:

• You're learning in our games course
• Your learning has influenced how you speak with colleagues
• These collegial conversations are then informing how you design and facilitate your own courses?

Or in computer science... or as a research scientist... or...

And did our use of open annotation with Hypothesis contribute to this learning at all? If so, I'd love to learn more!

Yes, particularly as those scaffolds fall away (as they should) leading to more independent and interest-driven learning.

Which is certainly one of the challenges in the world of Gamer Game - people have no design to be positive or considerate - so depressing and scary!

Nice, it's good to have a curation strategy.

Wow... I've either forgotten or didn't realize that was your first course. Amazing what's happened in a single year!

Yes, absolutely. It's not - necessarily - about the tools. And reading this, I'm reminded that this course would be ideally complemented by a second semester - a course that focuses on game design. It's taken three months for you to appreciate this insight. And that's fine, it takes time. And now with this insight, a grounding in learning theory and literature, and an appreciation for design possibilities, it would then be possible to launch another course about game design.

It's so nice to see you reading about some of my previous game-based learning projects.

Nice! I'd like to learn more about how the specific role of open web annotation helps you to carve these pathways. Because of our collective learning in this course, I've been thinking a lot about playgrids. Still not entirely sure what that even means right now... but it seems to capture what you're describing here - interest driven-pathways, etc. Again, I'd welcome the opportunity to learn more about specifically how annotation affords this type of learning...

Nice. That wasn't an explicit goal when choosing to use Hypothesis this semester, so I'm glad that's happened!

So in this respect, community engagement occurs primarily through access to information. This is a nice insight. Can you ever imagine a time when you might contribute that knowledge for others to access?

Nicely stated!

I have the same issue. I now find that I am spending more time searching for an article than I am on the actual reading and writing.

Sounds like life!

This is a HUGE area of research within the field of game-based learning. If you're interested in further reading about motivation do let me know I can share various resources.

I like this video a lot - I've returned to it on various occasions.

Again, something that seldom happened in my own experience with foreign language learning (specifically) and schooling more generally. I hope we're cultivating a slightly different learning environment in this course!

This is one reason why I didn't engage deeply with foreign language learning during middle and high school - something I now deeply regret.

I really like this side-by-side comparison, thanks for representing and sharing your reflection in this way!

Yup, that's a key motivation for this aspect of our course design.

Amongst many "take-aways" this semester, I'm pleased to learn this.

Nice recognition

If I read between the lines here, might I assume that it is because of your learning in this course that you're better able to reflect upon: a) how you designed those previous teaching experiences and b) how you understand the relationship among design, play, and learning?

This is a nice design rationale for game-based learning.

Indeed, I'm intrigued!

Which, as you certainly know, is an important aspect of game-based learning but not unique to game-based learning. One reason for our grounding in learning theory is the recognition that learning principles (such as those articulated by Gee) leading to particular types of designed experiences are possible beyond the realm of games and game-based learning.

Is this lesson/project for another course? If so, I'd like to learn more about how your learning in this course is informing your activity in another...

So vocabulary is the primary content-specific learning outcome of this experience, yes?

Learning what? I'm a bit confused... and given your critique below, sounds like you weren't impressed either.

I'm glad you're highlighting this. Often the design criteria can be glossed over in a rush to examine (and then "prove") some type of game play outcome.

I really appreciate how your scholarly critiques continue to investigate a very specific interest. I'm pleased that this basic course structure ("go read some research, and review it!") has provided you the opportunity to explore interest-driven learning.

Awesome, go for it!

And perhaps from your peers who have experienced similar dynamics in their own experience, unfortunately.

Glad that sharing that previous resource was relevant and a bit unsettling (in a good way!).

Yeah, I recall reading your previous blog posts and the surprise you expressed around these realizations.

That's really nice to learn - how playful language and approaches to writing inspires subsequent annotation.

Indeed, it was written by a good crew!

Ugh... that's really challenging for me to read, particularly because I designed and taught some of those previous courses. Whether that's the LMS, or me, or some combination... goodness, thanks for the wake up call!

Thanks! That's certainly the intention of his emergent design, and I appreciate that it's resonating with you. And - it should go without saying - thanks for helping to co-construct the experience by playing along!

If I'm understanding your reflection accurately, it seems as though this "deeper" understanding is some combination of our tool use (Hypothesis), the course content, and the type of learning community and our practices that we've created over the past few months... something like that? Something else?

Yes, this is really critical, too. And perhaps in a related instance, your external knowledge about libraries, information organization, curation, etc. is very relevant to the knowledge building and accessibility of information and interaction within the affinity space. Perhaps, as you've noted, an opportunity for various knowledge areas and practices to cross settings.

A key characteristic of knowledge building within affinity spaces.

Nice connection!

I wonder if you might suggest changes to community organizers based upon your experience? Do you know if others have experienced similar challenges?

We have ILT alum you are deeply connected to Twitch and know a lot about programming and engagement. Let me know if you'd like to be connected.

Learning and community engagement without playing, nice to read that is your current approach to participation.

Sounds like a good approach!

Interesting... as you know from our Gee & Hayes reading, status and established credibility can play a big role in affinity space interaction.

I wonder if/when/how this may become two- (or multi-) sided in the future...

Nice. As you know, that's a key reason why we're using Twitter in class - to prompt interest-driven connections with communities beyond our immediate course.

This is a really nice analysis, thanks for thinking through these important dynamics.

Of course I agree 100%. Hence the inclusion of various topics, authors, and debates in our graduate course.

I appreciate you naming your positionality, this is important for so many reasons!

Agreed, and I appreciate these critiques as they related to your specific participation in (what sounds like) a rather nascent community.

How much of an affinity space insider do you have to become before you can make these recommendations to others in the community?

Interesting... on the other hand, I appreciate that this space is organized around these various platforms (perhaps "settings") - the dedicated website, a Google Drive, and Facebook. Knitting together distributed platforms is key to many affinity spaces, even if disorganization is an unintended consequence. What are the specific affordances of each platform that have led community members to adopt and incorporate these into their group interactions? Would a centralized site/archive achieve the same purposes? Pros/cons?

Life balance, perhaps?

Wonderful!

This is why I am a little concerned about the current state of research in GBL. The focus seems to be largely on video games, which is not bad in and of itself, but I feel that it is focusing too much on the technology and not enough on the pedagogy. If the pedagogy were the true focus of the research, we would see more diversity in the types of games being used.

This is a really delightful idea to me, and yes it really does "legitimize" games and learning in the academy :)

Random unrelated side note: this is one of the things that scares me about getting hired after the ILT degree. Even three years from now, ed tech will still be emerging, universities will still be initiating innovations, and jobs will still be new and in the experimental (ie. unstable ) stage.

Understanding cultural norms is really important. But how do we work with them and not against or around them?

I strongly disagree that students are the biggest challenge to changes in pedagogy. Students are asked to give feedback, and teaching can be altered based on that feedback, but I reject the notion that institutions won't even try to innovate due to the fear of how students might react.

I felt a great deal of pressure 10 years ago at the secondary level to incorporate games in my classroom - I assumed it was to capture students' attention and to make foreign language learning fun. I resisted for a long time because I thought my classes were already fun haha. But the kids I taught are now approaching their 30s, so I can't speak to the attention span and expectations of today's college learners, for example.

I am very interested in the idea that games facilitate social interactions. My first instinct when I sit down to play a game with a group of people is to run away....I need to work on this :)

There it is!

Although I believe they are closer, I still think that this line of reasoning will lead to a research dead end. As an academic exercise, replace the words "video games" with "books." It very quickly becomes silly because we know that some books are very useful, while other books are less. Ultimately, it comes down to how the books are being used. A great quality book can quickly become useless in bad pedagogical setup, whereas an awful book can still be highly useful if it is used properly (usually as an example of what not to do). I suspect that games can (and will) be understood similarly.

Simply accounting for social interactions may not be enough.

They are correct, but this is an example of bad logic. (e.g. All cats are animals, therefore all animals are cats).

Now they're starting on a better track.