2,275 Matching Annotations
  1. Feb 2016
  2. gamesandlearning.files.wordpress.com gamesandlearning.files.wordpress.com
    1. Given the wide variety of approaches and styles that different designers bring into their own design process, it can be confusing and difficult for new learners to come to understand the nuance and complexity of thei
    2. gns. In particular, the more social the jobs were, the more effective they seemed to be in promoting student engagement with the game, as well as reflection on thei
    3. es. Its possible that this was due to the fact that up to this point the game simulation had not tied the jobs in the game to the overall narrative,and thus writing was not seen as something valuable by the
    4. In order to garner some initial insights regarding their engagement with the game, we also gave them access to a video game lab where they could play many popular games such as Guitar Hero and Halo.

      Okay! Here they set up a sort of affinity space for gaming in the game lab where the participants may talk about any sort of game but perhaps, divulge something about their play experience with Gamestar.

    5. ponents. Their purpose was to simulate as completely as possible the overall experience of playing Gamestar Mechan

      "simulate" is key to prototyping.

    6. olving initial versions of the look and feel for the game interface, the narrative and the play experience, all of which were documented digitally in a design document and a shared

      Key characteristics of "pre-alpha." Often times there is no "game" just document(s) about the game.

    7. Such theories necessarily forfeit any claims to grand generaliz
    8. h, the goal for the Gamestar Mechanic team has been to produce a learning environment that encourage the appropriation of what Gee refers to as the big “D” Discourse of game designers (1996). By discourse, he refers to an “identity toolkit” represented by the ways of doing, communicating, thinking, and interacting with the material world that people use to demarcate an identity as members of a particular community to others (in this case, an identity as game designers).

      (D)iscourse is defined here for us clearly and refers back to the work of Gee back in 1996. This Discourse has been used by many academics and scholars to discuss the way in which people construct identity often times through the means of 21st century social constructs.

    9. Council of Master Mechanics, some of which are represented by game characters but which can also be impersonated by live players. To do so, they must complete a series of jobs that involve playing, designing, documenting and repairing games, as well as discussing their games and having them rated and critiqued by others.

      Definitely a big "D" Discourse!

    10. 78) including (but not limited to) activity theory (Emgestrom, Miettinen and Punamaki, 1999), situated learning (Lave, 1993; Lave and Wenger, 1991), mediated action (Werstch, 1991), connectionism (Bechtel and Abrahamsen, 1990), socially embodied cognition (Barsalou, Niendenthal, Barbey and Rupert, 2003), distributed cognition (Hutchins, 1995), ecological psychology (Gibson, 1977), Discourse theory (Gee, 1992; 1996; 2005), and sociocultural theories of literacy (New London Group, 1996).

      This study pulls from so many learning perspectives. Can anyone speak to any of these theories?

    11. students. While skeptics might claim that such interventions “taint’ the research context and diminish

      Sounds similar to Action Research, which is the research method used in the Research in ILT course. It's not so much about observing only, but actually being a stakeholder/participant in the study.

    12. s well. With the interactive design interview format, we took the first step into identifying better and more effective ways to assess the understandings of children in these contexts, an area of research that will play a key role in determining the effectiveness of 21st century curricula.

      That's an amazing step forward!

    13. ers. At the same time, these findings have suggested to us a diverse number of directions where future iterations could go, since questions such as how to best integrate writing into the game, or what the best way to structure its community components remain largely unansw

      It seems like literacy is complicated to teach and will continue to be a source of refinement.

    14. ations. In some of these cases, the verbal explanation, even using the specialist terms of game design, would have proven insufficient to communicate the designer’s point.
    15. w ones. Some of the participants were able to develop more sophisticated views of the game design activity, as well as of the systemic relationships between its sub act

      I wonder if these participants had gaming backgrounds

    16. Individual participants tended to specialize on specific game designs, preferring to perfect those designs than start completely n
    17. they tended to produce a lot more in the context of the collaborative exercises, an encouraging observation in light of the concerns about writing we had in previous tests.
    18. ame. In this way, as the assessment was ongoing in Madison, so was the feedback we provided Gamelab with being incorporated into the next implementation of the game: the alpha build.

      Clever design.

    19. guage. This suggested that a future iteration of the game should integrate the writing components more closely into the game if it was to promote 21st century literacy practices on children.

      What an excellent opportunity to weave in literacy in such a way the children would not even be aware of their learning.

    20. By the end of the workshop, more sophisticated responses such as “a game designer plays games, he learns about other games, and he designs games” were more common among participants, reflecting the activities that they would participate in with Gamestar Mechainc. However, these observations also suggested that the speed with which a player would increase in sophistication with their designs would have as a factor the previous gaming experience of the playe

      It seems participants were absorbing the discourse.

    21. ren. For the girls, this was characterized by intense spans of collaborative design and discussion. This provided an opportunity for Barbara to participate by making suggestions to the other girls as they designed. With the boys, these jobs were marked by a mood of competition with comments such as “check my game out, I bet you can’t win it!” typifying their exchanges during these j

      I wonder why the girls and boys were so different in their social gaming interactions.

    22. As before, the social jobs were the ones that seemed to generate most enthusiasm among the chil

      Could this be connectivism in action?

    23. vel. In the interest of assessing participant progress, at some points in the workshop I decided to use this framework in the context of an individual interactive interview, a method I designed where the participant would explain out loud their design process as they tried to tackle a job in the toolk

      I wonder if a individual's learning progression could be mapped from the recording?

    24. ers. Given our interest in collecting in-depth data on their enactment of the game designer Discourse, we chose methods that would capture as fully as possible the interactions between the participants, the toolbox and the job context.
    25. a) play jobs–where players needed to win a game previously designed, b) repair jobs –where they had to identify and fix a problem with a dysfunctional game-, and c) design jobs– where they had to design a game from scratch within constraints specific to the Disc

      This is an interesting scope of jobs. I wonder if they arbitrary or correlate to potential personality types in the participants.

    26. ing, the question still remained regarding whether they would sustain engagement with it over an extended period. We also wanted to know whether such engagement would lead to students appropriating more of the practices of the Discourse of game design, and whether the curriculum designed for the game would facilitate this appropriation.
    27. observe the way in which players could work around the limitations of the game to make their design intentions happen, as instead of creating a single game with multiple levels, they created multiple games representing different levels of difficulty of the same concept using the name of the game, and presented them to their peers this way
    28. the majority of them would take at least 15 minutes designing a game before testing it even the first time, leaving questions open as to what degree of understanding of individual components of their games they could get from the game
    29. t about half the students preferred designing games on their own, while the other half preferred to do it socially hinting at the possibility that we would have to implement multiple paths to advance in the game to keep players engaged.
    30. the boys tended to enjoy first designing complete games to share with friends more rapidly than girls. The designs themselves however would commonly use a shooting the enemy mechanic and tended to be more
    31. implistic. Girls in contrast tended to design in groups, with one girl controlling the mouse while others commented and made suggestions to her. The designs took longer to make, but were more complex in their use of space and used a variety of mechanics such as collecting coins or navigating a maze.
    32. I gave them the rules for a job that required making games for others to play test, and fix them using any feedback obtained from their peers.
    33. This protocol asked players to tackle both structured and open-ended design jobs
    34. We also had questions regarding the steepness of the learning curve that children would experience trying to play the game, especially given that some of the prototype’s functions had not been thoroughly tested yet
    35. writing. Being a product of design research, Gamestar Mechanic is not only meant to inform learning theory development, but also to be a reification of such theory at different sta
    36. At this point in the research one of our core questions was whether the game would be interesting and engaging to th
    37. tween them. The data sources for this study were collected by members of Gamestar Mechanic research team during the two years of research, and included transcripts of interviews with players and members of the Gamestar Mechanic team, naturalistic and participant observations, field notes, audio and video recordings, as well as digital and paper-based documents.

      I'm curious to know the actual number of participants.

    38. ) “In epistemic games, learners do things that have meaning to them and to society. Such games are knowledge games. They are meant to teach learners both how to navigate complex linguistic, cognitive, and symbolic domains and to innovate”.

      Quite an honorable cause.

    39. social constructivist perspectives of learn

      The theory that emphasizes the collaborative nature of learning. Clue #4:

    40. vide instructional designers contemplating the development of videogames for learning with useful insights for their own designs.

      I'm wondering how often instructional designers (ID) actually create games as learning tools? Or is it more of a collaborative effort with a team of IDs, videogame developers, etc?

    41. . When a published games is played, a rating scale and a form to provide comments are associated to it on the websit

      Is a rating system a fundamental component for a game's sustainability?

    42. e. It also provides others with a place to identify a specific mechanic’s game design interests and preferences through a character profile, as well as his/her relative status in the community in the form of an experience level and the ratings for the games he/she has creat

      Is it possible seeds of professionalization are being planted here?

    43. A fundamental aspect that the game exploits in order to foster the appropriation of a game designer Discourse by learners is framing these jobs in the conte

      Does Discourse in this statement mean that the learners fully take on the role of game designer as their expertise progresses?

    44. The Gamestar Mechanic project is a collaborative research and development effort between the Games, Learning and Society Group at the University of Wisconsin-Madison and Gamelab, a professional game design studio based in New York

      Remi, did you get to work on this project while you studied at your alma mater, University of Wisconsin Madison?

    45. d. Some have argued that the widespread dissemination and lowering cost of information and communications technologies have made it possible for new literacies to emerge, characterized by thinking and meaning production practices more attuned to the needs of an increasingly global society

      Can anyone offer examples where new literacies have made broader communication possible and perhaps helped solve a problem?

    46. One consistent message coming from those warning us of these issues however is that in order to tackle them we will need new ways of thinking, a new mindset that can harness our curiosity and imagination today so that we can find solutions tomorrow.

      I'm reminded of the book Ender's Game in this instance. I don't want to spoil the book for anyone, but the premise is that in future times the world has been attacked by aliens so we must learn to defend ourselves and survive as a species in light of tremendous challenges. Elaborate games are used as part of the cadets' training.

    1. We would be wrong, however, to see this as a simple binary: youth whohave technological access and those who do not.

      Digital divide (or gap) runs rampant.

    2. Our focus here is not on individual accomplishment but rather the emer-gence of a cultural context that supports widespread participation in the production and distri-bution of media.

      This is the premise that Facebook, YouTube, and various other social networks were built upon. The production and distribution of media & content.

    3. We are just beginning to identify and assess these emerging sets of social skills and culturalcompetencies.

      We probably all have examples of these skills and competencies that we have had to acquire along the way. I like to contemplate in what ways this has always been true for humans (think about your range of relatives and what feels different versus natural for each) and in what ways this time period is unique for these changes.

    4. students were learning how to read information from and throughgames, but they were not yet learning how to read games as texts, constructed with their ownaesthetic norms, genre conventions, ideological biases, and codes of representation

      This is such an important skill - I would love to see more, also, about teaching to create and critique one's own work (along the lines of "with great power comes great responsibility")

    5. every child deserves the chance to express him- or herselfthrough words, sounds, and images, even if most will never write, perform, or draw profession-ally. Having these experiences, we believe, changes the way youth think about themselves andalters the way they look at work created by others

      I would like to change this to say, "every person" rather than "every child" - I think it's important to regard all ages as benefiting from artistic expression, and I would suggest that it's fairly common for people to trivialize non-professional creativity in adults.

    6. wiki enthusiasts argue that giving all members of a larger community the ability to correctany mistakes will ultimately lead to more accurate information.

      This remains true as long as the majority of the population knows information that is true. What happens when the majority mistakenly believes false information? An unintentional tyranny of the majority suppresses the correct information.

    7. he emergence of systems-basedthinking has arisen hand in hand with the development of digital simulations.

      This is a correlation, but as we all know correlation does not imply causation.

    8. We are still experimenting with how towork within these knowledge cultures
    9. The proliferation of digital technologies requires aconcerted effort to envision activities that enable students to engage in more complexproblem domains.

      Yet, I've found these new technologies potentially open up a "can of worms" of other various, perhaps not intended, problems to solve. We can design or mod a game with well designed API but now we have to learn how to create art, graphic design, and intuitive interaction. These problems arise from the result of being enabled to be productive with the technologies but how do we teach well thought out solutions to complex problems that are deserving of it's own course or field of study?

    1. In less nurturing spaces, individuals place more of a premium on establishing their expertise in relation to other people in the space, and may vie to lay claim to the possession of unique knowledge or skills.

      I am new to the term affinity space, and have only heard of it through this class. From this excerpt, it seems like an affinity space could be a synonym for an open source forum. Or at least a fancier word? Am I wrong?

    2. In a sense, however, all games treat players as designers, as an inherent property of good games, in that players must figure out the game rules and interactions so that they can use these rules and interactions to their advantage to win the game. Players are, in that way, co-designers of the game, recruiting the rules (as well as taking advantage of flaws or bugs in the rules) in certain ways to customize their own play and, thus, their own game.

      The key is taking advantage of the flaws or bugs in the rules. In my opinion, this is what separates the gamers from the winners. I have never thought of it in this context however.

    3. She failed to learn geometry well in school but now feels quite confident in her geometrical knowledge. This woman did not master geometry because someone told her she ―had to‖ or ―should.‖ She learned it because she wanted to design in Second Life, and knowledge of geometry is required to do that. Further, shehad the support of the people and resources in Second Lifeaffinity spaces devoted to design. Geometry became a tool for something she wanted to do.

      Many of us are great learners when we have a passion for, or at least the need for what we are learning.

    4. The above features are not easy to achieve, in either nurturing or less nurturing versions, and they can deteriorate over time

      A very important point to make, as it does not happen magically just because it's an affinity space. In my experience organizations take on the personality of the person, or people in control of them.

    5. n less nurturing spaces, such requests can be treated as evidence of stupidity,

      Good to see some "more" balance here, as I was beginning to feel that I was being "sold" a utopia.

    6. Indeed, students often learn to articulate knowledge (say it or write it down) that they cannot apply in practice to solve problems.

      And yet, some of this knowledge forms their foundation and is therefore valuable to the whole person. It becomes part of who we are, and how we approach life and problems, even if we can't directly lay-hands on it, or consciously apply it to the problem. It's still there working for us.

    7. it is important that each person with specialist knowledge sees that knowledge as partial and in need of supplementation by other people‘s different specialist knowledge

      Part of the whole, interconnected if you will. I argue that this is important to any healthy, productive group. One's specialist knowledge being useful to others, it feels good.

    8. persist past failure

      This phrase should be essential to us that wish to actually use games for learning new skills.

    9. The subject serves as a gateway

      This is an interesting statement because I would argue that gateways are often necessary components to moving into different realms of interest. They suggest to me a place to start - a foundation. Where does foundational knowledge come from if some of these concepts are not explored independent of a driving passion? How does one discover a passion if one is only participating in that for which one has a passion? How do we connect our passions back to broader concepts if we do not have the foundational knowledge to communicate with language/understanding that is shared by a wider audience? I feel like there is something missing...or maybe I'm just missing something!

    10. Affinity spaces do not have ―bosses.‖ They do have various sorts of leaders, though the boundary between leader and follower is often porous, since members often become leaders and leader often participate as members

      I disagree. Affinity spaces have bosses, in a sense that they are the people that enforce the rules.

    11. eople who frequent a Simsaffinity space often go there to consume, that is, to get content other fans have created, and that is fine.

      This is called "lurking".

    12. viewed more as a threat to ―safety‖ than a means of accessing important, decentralized knowledge systems

      Do you feel this is true k-12 education?

    13. An important question for further research is how nurturing affinity spaces are initiated, by whom, and how they are sustained over time.

      Do we know if any of this research has been done in the meantime? **Note to self to look into it!

    14. ven a visitor who has come only once to the news room is ―in‖ the affinity space and part of what defines the space

      But that visitor is not necessarily afforded any rights within the group that runs the newsroom. There are still a lot of social structures that have to be dealt with and complexities of interaction. Does the visitor feel to be a part of the affinity space if the news reporters and editors aren't interested in interacting? Depends on a variety of factors. Might belonging then be more dependent upon the perspective of the visitor (which is likely related to what they came to accomplish)?

    15. Within a space, various other sorts of (sub-)group membership criteria or norms can be set up

      So the affinity space is the general population (you belong because "you are"/you were interested enough to show up), and these groups then be the niche spaces that may have their own rules (and might be less open). This will be interesting as part of our exploration of affinity spaces to discover if the sub-groups have a lot of impact on the experience. I imagine it really depends on the original space and what it provides to users. Makes me start contemplating "ownership" of spaces and groups.

    16. Children in school rarely share a common passionate endeavor

      While this may be common at the elementary level, I see quite the opposite of this at the high school level. It is very common for high schools to have clubs and organizations around students' interests and passions. As most arts programs bands and theatre are electives or extra-curricular, successful programs survive by creating this nurturing atmosphere.

    17. beginners; indeed, anyone can begin at any time.

      This is the way of the life long learner.

    18. ensuring the survival and flourishing of the passion and the affinity space, requires accommodating new members and encouraging committed members.

      I see this at my spiritual center as well. I'm always surprised when a long term member, doesn't make the extra effort to welcome a new person. Without new members, the center will cease to exist.

    19. This is the way in which many games today stress the role of players as designers

      This seems like the place where excellent scaffolding allows for players to design their experience.

    1. generic game activity that doesn't match the underlying non-game setting will create a hollow gamification experien

      All too common.

    2. ful is to allow players to set their own goal
    3. c user, however, they have to be relevant to that user
    4. l motivation. Allowing users to self-identify with goals or groups that are meaningful is much more likely to produceautonomous, internalized behaviors, as the user is able to connect these goals to other values he or she already holds.
    5. e goal of this paper is to explore theories useful in user-centered gamification that is meaningful to the user and therefore does not depend upon external rewards
    6. almost all forms of rewards (except for non-controlling verbal rewards) reduced internal mot
    7. the potential long-term negative impact of gamifica
    8. One problem is with the name. By putting the term "game" first, it implies that the entire activity will become an engaging experience, when, in reality, gamification typically uses only the least interesting part of a game -the scoring system

      An important distinction. Recall "-ification" rather than from the "game". -Ian Bogost "Gamification Is Bullshit."

    9. These designers are first asking: "How does this benefit the organization?” instead of how the gamification benefits the us
    10. The implications of focusing on user-centered design can help designers avoid meaningless, or even harmful, gamificatio
    11. Chore Wars

      I had a friend who tried a similar game to Chore Wars with her fiance, did not end well...

    12. engage with what others have crea

      Another big game that came out in 2015 with this feature is Mario Maker. It is ALL user based. You play other players levels, and can create your own levels. It's quite fun!

    13. This concept has been at the center of tabletop roleplaying games for decades, and early text-based Multi-User Dungeons (MUDs)

      Here they are referencing games such as Dungeons and Dragons and Pathfinders.

    14. Universal Design for Learning

      Oh UDL, How I love thee!

    15. ery. Without involving the user, there is no way to know what goals are relevant to a user's background, interest, or needs

      This is the problem with traditional gamification. What is relevant to me, might not be relevant to you!

    16. is to create long-term systemic change where the users feel positive about engaging in the non-game activity

      It's like when you're trying to lose weight. It really sucks, but then you step on the scale and see a lower number and you feel great! You also might reward yourself (hopefully not a food reward!)

    17. ion. Underlying the concept of gamification is
    18. "playification"

      or as we call it: "'coz it's cool"

    19. around those goals. These communities of learners can share experiences and increase their learning around the non-game activity, which OIT suggests is a method more likely to create truly internalized experiences

      So according to the OI theory, a system that is designed to be fun for the users, allows for user's input and certain level of control over, different paths to achieving outcomes, and the ability to participate in the generating and creating of the content, results into transforming external motivation to internal. Thus, it increases the system value to the user and consequently, the learning experience. Did I get it right? .....In essence it sounds familiar coming from andragogy principles addressing value and motivation as necessary for the adult learner's experience.

      Actually, did Malcolm Knowles derived the principles (or assumptions of the Adult Learner) from that theory?

    20. By being transparent about the constraint process, the users can learn about why constraints are in place, become more informed about learning outcomes, and then see how the game elements are connected to the learning outcomes

      It is true that there is a constraint of users defining the course objectives because of curriculum and accreditation needs but how about if users participate in determine lower level unit objectives or milestones? That may be something to consider in the designing and teaching of a course....well no. They have to be subject matter experts to determine that. So never mind.

    21. What is common in these games is that the game designers created not only a game, but developed a system to allow others to create and modify the games. Allowing player-developed content extends the life of a game and allows the designers to see how creative users can be with the toolkits provided.

      I think Remi's wiki pages in the course are a great example of this. It is an instructor generated content that provide students with the opportunity to add, edit, modify or in other words: generate their all content to contribute to the learning process. Right?

    22. OIT

      I am still not very clear on the essence of OIT theory.

    23. gh, that "once you start giving someone a reward, you have to keep her in that reward loop foreve

      I am quite fascinated by this study/statement. I wonder what are the brain mechanics for this necessity to occur in the brain? How does the brain process and works through the motivation factors to create such a dependency? IF anyone have a good source of information on this, I would be really interested (and if it not too complicated to read :)

    24. hat gamification systems need to either allow different ways for users to achieve goals so that users can be involved in the ways most meaningful to them or to allow users to set their own goals and achievements.
    25. n, meaningful gamification puts the needs and goals of the users over the needs of the organizatio
    26. Another example of meaningful gamification is the display of the Toyota Prius. This game-like display shows the driver if power is coming from the fuel or battery, and when power is being directed back into the battery. The driver can get information about how their driving is affecting t
    27. A class of examples of meaningful gamification is most Alternate Reality Games (ARGs). In these games, game elements are used to tell a story that is based upon a non-game setting
    28. . Ensuring that there are a variety of ways for the "what", the "how", and the "why" will allow more users to find meaningful connections to the

      I assume that "who" is sort of built in, but do you see a place for "where" and "when" here as well?

    29. 011b). Putting these two theories together means that for meaningful gamification, it is important to take into consideration the background that the user brings to the activity and the organizational context into which the specific activity is placed. A significant challenge in creating this type of a broad system is developing a strategy to encompass a wide variety of user backgrounds, desires, and skillsets

      It might also be interesting to consider if a strategy could be too broad. Is a activity intended to spark motivation in most/all individuals likely to succeed? Is it possible to make an activity flexible enough that the appeal can easily be shifted depending on the audience? As an instructor/designer, what kind of resources would be needed for such an endeavor?

    30. ns, students should be able to select the way in which they demonstrate how they have met learning outcomes. The result is a course that is meaningful for a wider variety of learners (
    31. at a user is motivated by an aspect of a system only when there is a match between that aspect and the background of the
    32. . Two users with the same search query will have different information backgrounds, so that a document that is relevant for one user may not be relevant to another use
    33. l influence. OIT explores how different types of external motivations can be integrated with the underlying activity into someone’s own sense of se
    34. Organismic Integration Theory

      I think I could pretty much highlight this whole passage, but I will resist. Again, any real life examples out there?

    35. there are more effective ways than a scoring system to engage use

      Before the author offers ideas, do you have any to share?

    36. programs. These gamification programs can increase the use of a service and change behavior, as users work toward meeting these goals to reach external rewards (Zichermann & Cunningham, 2011, p. 27)

      Anyone have either a positive or negative experience with gamification they'd like to share?

    1. For the rest, those of you who would consider that games can offer something different and greater than an affirmation of existing corporate practices, the business world has another name for you: they call you "leaders."

      This last statement seems to contradict Ian's previous commentary on how gamifiication is "bulls**t." #ILT5320

    2. The title of this symposium shorthands these points for me: the slogan "For the Win," accompanied by a turgid budgetary arrow and a tumescent rocket, suggesting the inevitable priapism this powerful pill will bring about--a Viagra for engagement dysfunction, engorgement guaranteed for up to one fiscal quarter

      The narrative for this reading in my head is Edward Norton's character from Fight Club.

      Edward Nortong in Fight Club

    3. bullshit

      You have piqued my interest!

    4. gamification is marketing bullshit

      Using the words "game" and "education" for marketing purposes to create such trends as "gamification" and "edutainment" can harm the learning industry. Remi tweeted about this in the article Is the Educational Games Industry Falling Into the Same Trap It Did 20 Years Ago?

    5. The rhetorical power of the word "gamification" is enormous
    6. For those whose goal is to clock out at 5pm having matched the strategy and performance of your competitors

      What if people simply don't know any better?

    7. Game developers and players have critiqued gamification on the grounds that it gets games wrong, mistaking incidental properties like points and levels for primary features like interactions with behavioral complexity.
    8. Gamification is reassuring.

      Have any of you been given the task of implementing gamification to help your company achieve its goals?

    9. Gamification is bullshit.

      Up to this point, I have been a fan of gamification, so all I can say is (Clue #1) Image Description

    10. bullshit is used to conceal, to impress or to coerce.

      This makes me think about how Facebook is so full of illusion. I know that it's all about impressing others, yet I still play the game. Does anyone else experience Facebook bullshit?

    1. In the end, it’s just a game. ♦

      Such is life.

    2. According to the SuperBetter method, you should turn your regret into a bad guy, do your power-ups, tell trustworthy people that you need their gameful help to lick the grief and move on with your life.

      I can absolutely see how this would help. The game gives your a reason to talk about it, air it out, and begin healing.

    3. McGonigal points out implications for P.T.S.D. treatment: offering victims a Tetris console in the chopper as they leave the battlefield could spare them a great deal of suffering.

      I've had images that were really hard to get out of my head. Wish I knew this then!

    4. Really?

      Really??

    5. “Work ethic is not a moral virtue,” she writes. “It’s actually a biological condition that can be fostered, purposefully, through activity that increases dopamine.”
    6. Having friends—or allies—around can cause cortisol levels to drop, indicating a decrease in stress.

      Yes, having a support system is huge.

    7. in a world of knowledge and technology, the only obstacle to happiness is your own state of mind.
    8. Institute for the Future, a nonprofit think tank in Palo Alto, designing video games for the cause of human progress.

      This sounds amazing. Thank you Silicon Valley!

    9. “You will hear stories from people who have adopted a gameful mindset to find a better job, have a more satisfying love life, run a marathon, start their own company, and simply enjoy life more.”

      Has anyone tried McGonigal's method?

    10. Now it’s Friday, and you’re due to give a terrifying presentation in three hours.

      My worst nightmare.

    11. when a jumbo bottle of shampoo fell on your foot

      The worst!

    1. I don’t think games are happiness engines, either

      I would argue that some are. I know when I'm down, I jump into a video game to escape "reality" and come out of it a happier person.

    2. I don’t think reality is broken. It’s messed up and horrifying, sure, but we don’t get to fix it, ever. It’s flawed and messy and delightful and repellent and stunning. Reality is alright
    3. where she values happiness and epic wins, I value wonder and sublimity

      While the Bogost specifies that he and McGonigal are not opposites, this is an interesting "versus" comparison considering that Bogost said several times that he is not as optimistic as McGonigal. Yet, McGonigal wrote a book about reality being broken, where Bogost says, essentially, that reality is what it is. Which is more optimistic in your view? Where do values come into play? How do your own values affect your view of the topic?

    4. tend to see my games as troubling the idea of solutions rather than leading us toward them

      In what ways would you agree and/or disagree with this statement about games that "engage problems?"

    5. claims that games can save the world

      Since we aren't reading the book itself, this might be a bit off-topic, but do you have any initial responses to these ideas from Reality is Broken that Bogost highlights?

    6. I need to remember that reality is always a mess. That’s not tragedy to me. It’s the unstoppable infinity of being.
    7. we never save the world
    8. we don’t occupy game worlds because the real world isn’t happy or fun enough, but because we need help embracing that real world through the properties of ambiguity and intricacy that make games like the world in the first place
    9. One can only hope that McGonigal’s book scores an epic win against the trite, simplistic trends in “gamification” that her smart, sophisticated ideas overshadow
    10. playing and making games like Evoke not only make people happier (she calls game designers “happiness engineers”), but also inspire people to collaborate to solve problems
    11. “ARG” to mean any game that integrates itself with the real world
    1. A design tool like Scratch can promote the reciprocal development of individual and community, enable youth to ex-press their cultural heritage, have a broad communi-cative value, and allow for information and resource exchange (Pinkett 2000)
    2. Jerrell, Chandelle, and Jorge to implement ideas that are personally meaning-ful to them without having to conform to a designer’s aesthetics or to a choice of genre that may not be ap-pealing to marginalized groups.

      I would have been interested in knowing more about the individual responses of these youth in relation to the game design experience. I would also be interested in knowing how much of the "inspired by" designs adjusted cultural aesthetics to match the youth-designer's vision and how much they tended to try and repeat what their exposure to the original games taught them about game aesthetics.

    3. Interfaces happen to be one of the most difficult artifacts to design, because many assumptions about human interaction are built in, as-sumptions that most people are not aware of unless faced with designing them.

      This makes me consider the concept of human communication in an even broader sense! Probably everyone on the planet could work on this one..

    4. technical and creative fluencies that are complexly intertwined, helping them to organize and coordinate multiple events and types of meaning-making systems in the process. We call this intermix of technology and gaming practices “gaming fluencies” because youth became fluent not only in game design but in technol-ogy design.

      If you were working with this group of youth, how would you help them relate their game design experiences back to technology design in general? Do you think it's necessary to be explicit about the relations in order to make them meaningful to the learner?

    5. Our central argument is that gaming fluencies, like gaming literacies, promote valuable learning goals in the design of games but do so in addition to developing technology fluency (National Research Council 1999).

      For additional reading, if you're interested: http://www.nap.edu/catalog/6482/being-fluent-with-information-technology

      What evidence best supports this argument? Anywhere that the argument falls short?

    6. Our interest in gaming fluency has involved the creation of a more general tool that is not specific to game design.

      This makes sense as they indicated that gaming fluency includes technical implementation as well as creative production in their earlier definition.

    7. We define gaming fluencies to include not only the critical evaluation of game designs but the creative production and technological implemen-tation of those designs.

      Does this definition/terminology affect your view of the topic? Why is it important to include?

    8. he scope of Club-house game production and the variety of game designs we observed provide evidence that game-making activi-ties can authentically connect youth to multiple expert communities, including the game-design industry, the gamer community, programming communities, and visual arts and design communities.
    9. Jorge began to mentor other inspired youth in the creation of their own games
    10. support alternative path-ways toward gaming fluencies and, more broadly, the new literacies important to 21st-century learning
    11. archive shows that youth engaged heavily both in learning to program and in designing the types of interactions that players would have with one another as well as with the computer-crucial technology fluencies that underpin most con-temporary technologie
    12. suggests that more complex forms of human-to-computer interaction need to be an explicit part of youths’ exploration of Scratch.
    13. The increased breadth and frequency of challenging programming concepts in the second year of the study indicates that the Clubhouse community had become more adept at programming with experience—another central component of creat-ing a sustainable video game design community
    14. hese findings indicate that the Clubhouse members were widely incorporating aspects of aesthetic and audio design, enhancing the professional value and personal quality of their work
    15. But do these game designs represent the full range of gaming fluencies?
    16. game designs: three Case studies

      As you read through the case studies, what stands out to you? What are your initial thoughts in relation to these stories?

    17. peer-to-peer mentoring

      Consider Salen's Litmus Test stages...

    18. Work in Scratch established one’s membership within the Clubhouse community
    19. In ad-dition, Scratch was quick to be adopted in the Club-house because of rules and norms that supported a design-based approach to learning as well as the presence of mentors and knowledgeable peers
    20. Our goal was to capture the range of gaming fluencies that emerged over the course of the study.
    21. We believe this distinction is arbitrary and neglects to take into account the design process and community in which game design with Scratch is situated.

      What do you think about this statement? Do you have an opinion about "arbitrary" versus "not arbitrary" in this instance?

    22. By providing opportunities for underrepresented youth to participate in making games, we hope they can be vehicles of change as both critical consumers and designers in an industry that has an increasing importance for schools and society at large.
    23. game play is not the only approach to becoming literate in gam-ing; writing reviews or “modding” game components can be equally instrument

      Or, perhaps, even scholarly inquiry and reflection? Time to write some blog posts, everyone!

    24. Gaming literacy is the understanding of the narratives, rules, and economies that provide the semiotic structures of games, whereas creative produc-tion involves transformation of different resources and assets pertaining to games
    25. design computer games that would teach younger students in their school about fractions.

      How cool is that?!

    26. One of the first studies to address game produc-tion for learning did not come out of the traditional strands in these academic communities but built on efforts to construe design as a new pedagogy for learning with technology.
    27. address the following general research question: What do youth learn in the process of designing games?
    28. approach differs from these other efforts in that we use game produc-tion not just as a way to promote gaming literacy in the broadest sense but to enhance the technological fluency that disadvantaged youth particularly need
  3. gamesandlearning.files.wordpress.com gamesandlearning.files.wordpress.com
    1. kidstaking on identities from the game

      I used to do this with a friend at recess time :)

    2. Does Using “Cheats” Make a Player a Cheater?

      I have always found this to be an interesting question. They can make the gameplay easier (and ultimately less interesting). However, the game designers put them in the game for a reason! How can it be cheating if the designers intentionally put them there?

    3. heat codes

      ↑ ↑ ↓ ↓ ← → ← → B A start

    4. “in-room” interaction provides opportunities for sociality, joint projects, and empowermentthrough sharing one’s knowledge and seeing it used for concrete success by others. Sincethis interaction occurs primarily without adult guidance or direction, it may be that thekid-organized and kid-managed aspects of these contexts—for kids of this preteen and earlyteen age—make them powerful learning contexts.

      Knowledge sharing which helps others, feels good. And finding it in a kid managed space too.

    5. Sales ofits products support a multibillion dollar industry that continues to grow. And while thereis a good deal of innovative writing—both popular and academic—about video games, onlya small percentage of this writing arises from ethnographic studies of game play.

      I'm pleased they acknowledged the amount of money in this industry and the need for ethnographic studies like theirs. Of course we are being told how good it is, but good so far good translates to good and profitable.

    6. Doesdesigning virtual cities inSimCityprovide a starting point for a career designing real cities? Isthat starting point different in any substantive way from building cities with wooden blocks?

      So, in my opinion these are fundamentally wrong questions to ask. An example of transferable skills may be:"Does playing the game teaches on tactics or how to build a strategy". I think finding out which skills are being practiced during the game and then formulate the question of what is being transferred.

    7. we do see video games as an important type of human activityagainst which to pose the basic question of transfer

      I am not sure I agree with the way the question of transfer is situated here. It seems way too broad.

    8. We really do want to know whether playing first-person shooters actually teachesplayers how to use weapons in real life.

      Reading just this sentence makes me excited reading the rest of the article. It is like asking if one would be able to learn to swim by taking a course on swimming without even trying to get in the water. So if the conclusion of the article is playing first-person shooters teaches players how to use real weapons, I would be extremely surprised!

    9. using thegame as a context for design was her leading value
    10. This scrutiny—in turn—affected Tyler’s play, as he would then hold the controller so his competition could watchhis hand movements and see that he was not entering the codes
    11. a link between gameplay and identity formation,
    12. Rather we see the reason that games, or more specificallycollaborative interactions around video game play, are good learning environments
    13. Across fourvignettes, we see real variation in the learning arrangements involved. Pure cases of clearlymore expert players teaching more inexperienced players are not what we see; instead, wewitness more complex situations in which less able players provide instruction to betterplayers
    14. , our interest is in theway in which this learning occurred—through an evolving sequence of interactions betweenthe boys and the spontaneous use of an unconnected controller as an instructional device
    15. strongest themes in this study—young people organize themselves toteach and learn together, with adult intervention and as a taken for granted, as a natural partof playing video games together

      This is interesting because people have most likely learned as family groups since before the time of recorded human history. Through playing games this is one way learning can be replicated in this manner at home.

    16. laboratory studies would suggestshould be beyond the capacity of an eight-year-old

      It's interesting that this research described this as "beyond the capacity" of 8 yr old learning.

      What are 8 year olds doing with games today?

    17. Mikey providing assistance to Maddy as she requests it, illustratingthe working apprenticeship that formed between them.
    18. In other words, the tutorials, not Rachel, were in control of thetiming and direction of the learning.

      Anyone ever felt this way when playing a video game? Was it annoying, helpful, mix of both?

    19. she sought out the learning resource that allowed her the greatestcontrol over the learning experience.
    20. most of the learning happens in the context ofvaried arrangements of people working together
    21. Rachel’s brother functions for her as a just-in-time guide and instructor for a course of learning she herself is organizing in the moment
    22. more permeable and blurred than the separate worlds view would suggest
    23. tangled up11with other cultural practices, which include relations with siblings and parents, patterns oflearning at home and school, as well as imagined futures for oneself

      I'm glad this was called out as learning in the home environment would affect this research due to a number of factors such as these.

    24. video game play as a cultural practice worthy of study in its own right.
    25. writing about video games is what we will call theseparate worldsviewof video game play
    26. This is part of a larger project tounderstand learning within and across informal and formal settings.
    27. We visited each focal participant ap-proximately once a week and observed his or her play. Among our core participants we hadfour boys and four girls, including two sets of siblings. We purposefully selected participantsin our study to maximize variation; this is a common strategy when pursuing a new researchdirection because it helps define an uncharted territory

      It's important to note how this study was set up and who are the participants and how the researchers interacted with the participants.

    28. The research we describe in this chapter is ethnographic, based on a six-month-long studyof young people in different families playing video games in their homes, using their owngames and game systems
    29. Considerthe following thought experiment: imagine that a learning scientist definitely proved, allother things being the same, that a year spent immersed in a game-based curriculum betterprepared a young person for a successful life and career than that same year spent in atraditional high school curriculum?

      Interesting! Can we find any resources to support this thought, as in a study or examples of GBL curriculum?

    30. what kindof effect, on how that person leads others in collective action