Improvisations do not occur in isolation

these veteran educators had extensive experience and knowledge of instructional practice. This familiarity afforded innovative technology designs and social arrangements

While Pratt designed Kingdom Quest so that players earned points “to unlock additional powers and perils”, more importantly, “It was enjoyment of the game and dedication to teammates that motivated students – not the points”

we advocate design-based research utilising gameful learning as a construct to map the cohabited spaces of teachers’ improvisational teaching-as-play within other disciplines, gaming environments, and settings.

gameful learning is a useful construct for future research attempting to illuminate the qualities of teachers’ game facilitation motives as phenomena distinct from game characteristics (i.e., mechanics like points)

Elements of gameful learning

gameful learning as one interpretation of game-based learning

Rather, it described1 jazz musicians improvisin

There was a combination of strain, expectation, enthusiasm, and some fear in the air. The collective nature of our endeavor involved not only that everybody had to ... play within the overall changing texture, but that each participant also had to achieve a level of feeling at ease doing so. I remembered Robin Engelman’s words: “I have experienced the feeling of becoming [what] I have been playing... the feeling of literally losing your identity”. ... [P]eriods of inactivity, dubitation, and weakness interrelated with moments of resolution and fiery activity. There was a nutritious dialogue going on. We were opening a realm of dialogue and exchange. We were building a social reality and a culture.... our own version of the world. [Odria, (2011), pp.55–56]

“fight through” some of the less interesting tasks associated with designing media.

Examining controversial issues from multiple perspectives and learning how to collaboratively design solutions to complex social problems is necessary for participation in a pluralistic society

The rapid growth in mobile technologies presents many new possibilities for interacting with each other and the world around us. Mobile media allow for new forms of social interaction and provide new avenues for participating in the design and distribution of media content.

By making a game about an issue that was important to them and included their voices, the students felt like they were able to “push back” against the city.

Many students referenced this goal in their journals and exit interviews and said that these ongoing discussions made them feel like they had some control over creating the learning environment and determining the learning activities.

For many of the students this included doing more reading (of written language texts) and more writing than usual.

Because the studio method presented a learning ecology that differed from their typical school experience, many students initially found it difficult to acclimatise to the studio setting

The following discussion points, which are based on observations, analysis of students’ designed artifacts, and post interviews, highlight some of the initial themes that emerged during the implementation.

Distributed knowledge

It is important to note that, despite our emphasis on mobility and the use of mobile devices, a central design space and consistent design rituals (for example, journaling, group discussion, critiques) were core to the studio/learning experience. Table 1 highlights some of the key components of the studio method as we applied it in this context.

A normal class period during the project (90-minute block) included a combination of the following:

This last goal resulted in a minor debate, because there was some disagreement over whether or not the simulation should be activist or persuasive in nature, particularly given that it was being designed for use in a school setting.

As part of the design process, students produced all of the game content (for example, game text, photos, videos, audio clips, HTML files, and so on) and organised it into a coherent narrative.

The City Manager helped frame the students’ thinking by discussing some of the design challenges he deals with on a daily basis

invited them to role-play as consultants hired by the city to locate contested places and issues within the downtown area.

The AR software and authoring tools they used (that is, the game engine and editor) were developed by Eric Klopfer and his colleagues at the MIT Scheller Teacher Education Program. The software can be accessed via their website, which is http://education.mit.edu/drupal/ar

Finally, the public debate became quite heated while the project was in progress, which resulted in a flurry of newspaper articles and opinion pieces, blog postings, and robust city council meetings that students mined in order to create their final design.

because the path was near the school, it made it easier to

In the end, the students’ intuition and timing was excellent

After first brainstorming, and then discussing potential topics, the students decided they wanted to learn more about a recent proposal to redesign the local nature conservancy

Throughout the project, but especially during this component, we made a conscious effort to link students’ prior knowledge and interest in games, with the concepts we were studying.

This approach aligned with two key features of the project: (1) to develop activities that could be completed using a range of technologies – from “low-fi” (for example, paper maps) to “hi-fi” (for example, mobile-based mapping software), and (2) to provide students choice in how they decided to gather information and represent their thinking.

Augmented Reality design component, where the entire class collaboratively researched a community issue and then designed a GPS-based simulation to teach other students and community members about the issue.

three major curricular components

I piloted the NGDP with 12 eleventh and twelfth-grade students enrolled in my community studies course, entitled People, Places, and Stories.

this article presents my experience piloting the Neighbourhood Game Design Project (NGDP), a studio-based curriculum intervention aimed at engaging students in the design of place-based, mobile games and interactive stories using geo-locative technologies (for example, GPS enabled cell phones).

more student-centred pedagogies that

ethos built around participation, collaboration and distributed expertise

a literacy rooted in design suggests that students should be capable of collaboratively and creatively designing solutions to complex, open-ended problems.

Design and design thinking have been forwarded as central components of what it means to be literate in the 21st Century. This view ofliteracy does not diminish the importance of reading and writing as core literacies, but instead, emphasizes that literacy involves the active and dynamic Design of new meanings via the reorganisation of available resources

collaboratively designing an Augmented Reality1 simulation

The article presents a brief overview of the Neighbourhood Game Design Project, a studio-based curriculum intervention aimed at engaging students in the design of place-based mobile games and interactive stories using geo-locative technologies (for example, GPS enabled cell phones).

Finally, the inquiry-as-play evidenced during MMM recalls the importance of “boundarycrossing” activities (Akkerman and Bakker, 2011), whereby learners come to see thefamiliar in new ways, and also act in new ways among familiar settings. MMM establishedgameful conditions for “boundary crossing” within mathematics teacher education.

Accordingly, it was useful tomodel mobile investigation and interpretation strategies. Second, despite these learners’familiarity with mobile devices, using this technology during inquiry-as-play requireddemonstrating how to capture and collect media and also how to interview people and observephenomenain situ(Mathews, 2010).

Yet at theconclusion of M3, we confronted a proof-of-concept dilemma not atypical of design-basedresearch (Brown, 1992).

Inequality: “The handicap parking sign demonstrates that certain people haveprivileges over others. In this case people with a handicap have a special privilege, butthere are similar signs that give access to those who have the power to purchase aparking spot, professors, and more. It has to do with math because the spot offers acloser proximity to the main entrance than other spots in the lot

M3

I recorded and shared videoscreencasts that identified the features of Google My Maps, explained how to upload andshare media via cloud-based platforms and reviewed online collaboration strategies.

An unintendedconsequence of this detailed introduction, however, was pre-service teacher concern thatgame-based and mobile inquiry may be unrealistic given typical school constraints:Should I assume that my students have access to technology? I am beginning to think about thecommunity surrounding the schools that I want to teach at, and is it realistically plausible to do[such] learning in some areas that schools are located? (m2.es18).

The M2 redesign featured two improvements.

Nonetheless, when my co-instructor and I evaluated M1 we concludedthat enthusiasm with game-based activities actually detracted from in-depth disciplinaryinquiry.

Another pre-service teacher remarked, “I felt so cliché thinking that math was everywhere,because that is what math teachers always say, but it was powerful to experience it formyself” (m1.es14).

I liked this activity because it got us up and moving – I learned a lot about the Madisoncommunity that I didn’t know before that I think will help me in my practicum. Also helped meas a student to see math in everyday life and made me wonder how I can include activities likethis in my own classroom (m1.es15)

When introducingMMM, my co-instructor and I failed to distinguish quotidian mobile device use fromspecialized disciplinary investigation; strategies for community engagement (i.e.interviewing) were not modeled, nor were pre-service teachers shown examples ofeveryday mathematics scenarios to investigate. We also neglected to discuss how a rangeof device functions – like using a camera for both photography and video – could documentdifferent concepts (i.e. shapes in architecture compared to rate in movement). In an effortto get pre-service teachers investigating outside the classroom, we quickly previewed the14 quest categories. This might explain why some teams perceived quests less asopportunities for nuanced inquiry and instead as the checklist of a timed scavenger hunt.

This configuration was an interpretation oflawor the use of mathematics in upholding anddefining acceptable action.

Inquiry-as-play is defined as expressive mobility situated amongstlearners’ social and material relations, disciplinary concepts and the built environment.

The mathematics future educators are often prepared to teach in school differs from themathematical practices of everyday people, places and cultures (Gutiérrez, 2010).Stevens(2013)describes this difference as “in-not-as”, the mathematics embodiedineverydaysocial, cultural and professional practices is distinguished from mathematicsasactivity, orthe decontextualized problems and rote exercises of school study.

14 disciplinary categories informed by the Common Core State Standards: aesthetics,commerce, conversation, cooperation, development, exclusion and limits, greater and lessthan, history, inequality, interaction, law, nature, operations and visual.

To fully frame the intent of this worked example, it is important to recognize that MMM was notdesigned as a game,per se. Rather, MMM was a game-based mobile learning activitydesigned to encourage play or “free movement within a more rigid structure”

MMM also supported pre-service teachers in interpreting disciplinary inquiry via mediaproduction. The creation of media representations is a common element in game-based andmobile learning

Each team of pre-service teachers included a player-as-geographer tasked withdrawing representations of location and distance as the group walked from campus,through adjacent neighborhoods and back to the classroom. A pre-service teacher alsorole played as an ethnographer who observed social and material relations, and noted themathematical qualities of team interactions. Another role played by pre-service teacherswas of a media specialist; this individual collected data through photographs, audio andvideo. Quests were another feature of MMM. MMM began with teams venturing aboutoutside the classroom, exploring a range of disciplinary topics embedded in everydaycircumstances, like greater and less than, inequality and operations.

Mapping My Math (MMM), a curricular module designed to guide pre-serviceteachers’ mobile investigation and interpretation of everyday mathematics outside theclassroom.

MMM was enacted within the context of what many teacher educators might recognize asa typical university-based methods course.

Technological and pedagogical innovation in mathematicsteacher education often remains stuck inside university classrooms, disconnected from thepeople and places that comprise everyday mathematical knowledge and practice

Thisconversation about units, cost and comparison illustrates the game-based activity’spurpose – to playfully explore mathematics featured in the everyday activities of people

Mapping My Math (MMM)

it is the responsibility of the designer to purposively select particular data and to positionthese data and their contextual and critical framing such that collectively they both allow othersto appreciate their theoretical importance and, at the same time, engage in their own framing oftheir meanings.My narrative frames MMM as intentionally encouraging pre-service teachers to playfullyleverage disciplinary practices, thereby shaping new relationships with mathematics, theircity and the mathematics of place and community

However, many of these experiences simulate everyday practices,privilege classrooms as the container for technology-rich mathematical inquiry

learners participate inexperiences that authentically simulate problem-solving and disciplinary investigation aspracticed by professionals

it is possible to unsettle learning practices from schooling

How can game-based and mobile learning be designed to support pre-serviceteachers’ disciplinary inquiry of everyday mathematics?

he role of mobile learningin mathematics teacher education to connect school, community and online settings

mired in approaches that oftentreat students as passive agents who need to learn content matched to school disciplines,organized through curricul

is thevery real possibility that a change in leadership might derail the currently supported courses,models and ongoing vision.

legitimized a games teaching andresearch agenda for faculty and students shared between disciplines

At one point, she described the emotionalconnection with her avatar allowing her to construct a narrative, which led toself-expression and a more meaningful learning experience

Playful learning summits

GameStarMechani

First, anundergraduate course required for all pre-service teachers was redesigned and opened to allstudents on campus to connect games and digital media environments to learning.

The purposeful hiring of two assistant professors in the SoE with a background in games forlearning

Our intention is to purposely reveal processes, successes and challengesinfusing GBL in higher education to deepen understanding between fields and encourageresearch and practice with games across disciplines.

serious games aligned with pertinent academic content and the appeal (presentationand functionality) of popular commercial games

the cost of developing a game-based course can be prohibitive for many universities.

GamesLearningSociety (www.gameslearningsociety.org/)

The Center forGames & Impact (http://gamesandimpact.org/) at Arizona State University

the use ofleaderboards

When we forget how to play, play looks frivolous.

abandoning leaderboards

“unlock”them as students completed quests

Quests were designed aroundGardner’s (2011)Multiple Intelligences

audio/visual learner

“How much XP do you think that would be worth”, and we start tocommunicate value. Likewise, students can challenge my ascribing of XP by honestlysaying a project had too much XP or too little for their time

My preference is to allow for short vaguedescriptions, give students some creative license, and praise and reward innovative andrigorous thinking

the use of “quests” as a central design element

colonization of studentinformal gaming

Gaming expertise, or literacy, inone good game also can create an increased capacity to pick up and learn the next

So gamers are learners

hobby

These pursuits not only improve theirprofessionalism but also encourage lifetime learning habits and sharing of ideas and whendone, they experience the thrill of expertise by sharing what they know back to the class

For high level learners to go beyond points and be comfortablewith defining and pursuing learning goals under the mentorship of an instructor is, in myopinion, one of the finest outcomes of quest-based learning

generalizable (Laurel, 2003), while being essential to the study of new design and coveringnew ground (Barab and Squire, 2004).

All courses were master’s level, at a mid-sized research university, exploring the use ofdigital technologies for education.

to be gamelike?

Ideal designs could provide the tutorial and recognition of excellence in class andmake greater use of the “play” time out of class

attempting to create their classroom experiences as a game

Games, learning and literacy are closely tied together and quite different than traditionalteaching and learning models

an expression of agency contrary to the often disempowering position that constrains many K-12 and higher education practitioners

instructional designer or a middle school mathematics teacher

conversation about free speech and harassment can quickly become abstracted beyond recognition

What recommendations do you have for platforms like Genius and Hypothesis to manage (the potential for) abuse

How would you respond

My students assumed the roles of historical figures and stepped outside their everyday selves to analyze events and solve problems from multiple perspectives

civilisation

Jeremiah I. Holden*

This meant that highlyskilled students could move on, and others could dwell and work on skills smack dab in themiddle of their ZPD. Not only did I enjoy grading more, but I could get a visceral feel of thebrass ring of meeting students right where they struggled and pushing them with clearguidance – and it all was anaturaloutcome of a fairly simple course design shift.

Google Suite

six master’s level courses attempting to appropriatea quest-based learning approach to classroom design.

digital systems

Looking at ZPD from the teacher’sperspective can be intimidating if not impossible. But what if instead of having the teacheridentify the student, the teacher creates a more game-like space where students canquickly identify their own ZPD?

Looking at ZPD from the teacher’sperspective can be intimidating if not impossible. But what if instead of having the teacheridentify the student, the teacher creates a more game-like space where students canquickly identify their own ZPD?

Anecdotally, students were animated to show their work each week, highly productivestudents more often worked in groups, and conversations around quests were much lessrelated to scoring and points and much more related to increasing the quality andprofessionalism of the products.

“Dr Dikkers, would it be okay if I stopped questing and spent the last fewweeks of class learning to code?

bossfights” as summative activities

where as I was playing to observe them and just get a few points on the board each roll.

This relates directly to our reading from Holden regarding taking risks and trying out different ways of thinking.

were different then my husbands rules so we played one game of each

But I'm up for the challenge.

I take a break and play Code Combat

a baby step towards participation

because I really want to participate in the flower design discussion.

One significant complaint was that students had no means to control the spoken and subtitle speeds, which caused them some difficulty in comprehension and diminished the value of the experience (Chen & Yang, 2012).

abandoned their note taking as play intensified, which likely impacted the results.

for twenty vocabulary items found in the videogame

but instead a commercial adventure videogame.

Bone

she sacrifices her presence in game play to make room for more opportunity. I wish I could accurately describe the superfan's description of this woman. It was almost...adoration. And it was honestly kind of touching.

than as a lascivious wench - which is a character who appears in another faction that I have used previously

they have clothes on

and that the goal was informal learning and collaboration - all realizations that I had taken for granted until I was in a position where I wasn't receiving any help.

It took me being rejected by him to realize how much help I had been receiving from others for over a month.

(I'm beginning to wonder if I have some sort of learning issue that makes it challenging for me to process verbal instructions...)

or play around their common understanding.

have provided little to no authoritative clarification on the rules, so the Smash Up Community is left to resolve issues on its own.

I was pretty confused about the difference between a card's ability and its talent. I'm still really unclear about this and the player who was teaching our group admitted that he wasn't entirely sure, either.

I am almost convinced of my own coolness. Almost.

"What expansions do you have?"

I hope to create some sense of this before the affinity space project is completed. I’m looking forward to learning more about how my own identity will take shape and how others have created an identity in Unity Community.

but there is so much more to discover by learning how key members are situated, and reflecting on yourself as a member of the space.

I never really assessed myself in these ways.

It’s important to understand how others are situated in the affinity space when interacting. Some members may be more inclined to game production, others to theory, others are just starting out looking for direction, and many other possible scenarios

This is a reminder of the multilayered depth many affinity spaces involve

When I looked at his profile, I was able to find out more about him on his web page goodgamesbydesign.com. I was surprised to find a number of resources for game design including “Game Design Zen” podcasts and YouTube videos.

is more of observation and research.

from the more general research

While the article was written with examples from many industries, the authors were mostly interested in applications to the medical industry.  

using the same approach in both simulated and actual settings

tool

drawing the simulation (or, as I’m envisioning it, game) and the regular world closer together

The article also brought to mind Salen’s discussion of games and learning, particularly in regards to the “world separate from other activities” that is inextricably intertwined with the other elements of players’ lives.

Although the article really does focus on the “debriefing,” rather than the simulation

I’ll make sure to take a bunch of screenshots

but it happened!

I asked how I could turn my upcoming faculty development session on Google Apps in the classroom into a game.

I’ve included a video below of me asking Alexa some questions

The contest ended yesterday (March 17), so here’s hoping I win! The prize is a copy of the game.

Board game geek provides you with the javascript to enter into your website.

I am pleasantly surprised that open annotation as social reading so seamlessly affords honest expression as acceptable.

plungers

Stop seeking simple answers that address the wrong question. W

Ensure that game objectives and learning objectives correspond.

Work toward assessments that make it possible to understand the relation-ships among players, their social interactions with one another, their games, and their metacognitive reflections. I

Include the metagame

Encourage collaborative partnerships among commercial game companies, educational researchers, teachers, administrators, policymakers, and par-ents.

Conduct longitudinal studies that examine the impact of educational video games.

Research educational video games already in use.

Create an educational video game repository.

Construct working definitions that will facilitate the separation of video games and simulations

Despite the fact that video games are viewed positively by some teachers and even some administrators

gamers have a tendency to bypass information that is nonessential to completing game tasks

The blend of ARG, video game, and embodied experi-ence provided a unique method of information delivery for historical content.

he game-playing partici-pants underperformed on items that were based on information from the pop-up text, suggesting that the players did not pay as much attention to historical facts in the game text and cut scenes.

found that collaborative paired play worked particularly well in his-tory classroom environments, with students reporting an increase in knowledge of maps, time lines, and historical terms, although the instructor needed to have a good deal of game play expertise to mediate and facilitate game play toward achievement gains.

Civilization series as a tool that instructors and learners can modify to re-create historical conflicts

It should come as no surprise, then, that several studies highlighted history-based video games as an effective means of engaging students beyond traditional methods of history instruction

Civilizati

The results showed that 90% of the children enjoyed that combination and “the games reduce[d] the boredom of exercise” (Hawkins, 2009, p. 10).

the state mandated that all middle and junior high schools integrate DDR into their PE programs and that all of the state’s gym teachers be trained in using DDR,

30-minute session and to determine whether both experienced and inexperienced players could meet the minimal daily recommended levels of physical activity and energy expendi-ture.

Dance Dance Revolution

This study’s results suggested that, at least in the short term, children’s activity level may be increased by using exergames.

the immer-sive environments that video games create, and the human instinct to adapt and survive in those environments, can lead to more than just language learning.

not every student needs to play the game to receive the benefits of video game interactions

Previous research suggests that the use of video games for language learning is so effective that there are many cases where video games used to teach language are capable of teaching students who are not even playing the game themselves but merely observing game play.

but appear to result from a complex situated interaction of learner, game, and context

Looking at the concept of general language learning, instructors appear to agree that the most powerful way to learn a language is through immersion in a culture where the language is used routinely to interact with others and the world.

Sims (Ra

It is clear from our analysis that more time must be devoted to the topic of sci-ence-based video gaming before larger trends regarding their impact are revealed.

the structures built into some games do not directly match their counter-parts outside of them

Bloom’s taxonomy

The transfer of science informa-tion from isolated in-game activities requires metacognitive scaffolding by a skilled educator who can encourage student reflection, provide students with thought questions that force them to reference the specific curricular science skills, and bridge content from the game into their real lives (Baek, Kim, & Park, 2009).