Small Colleges and Digital Gaming:

Collaboration and the State of Play

Coalition for Networked Information, fall 2009

Bryan Alexander, NITLE

Plan of the session

For the next hour, we control the horizontal and the vertical:

1. Gaming, teaching, liberal education: a 2009 snapshot

2. A taxonomy of practices, with selected examples

3. The role of NITLE4. Futures, next steps, discussion, and

futures: into 2010

Making the audience work alreadyQuick note-taking: what are the two

most salient uses of computer gaming in your institution?

I. Gaming and cultures, late 2009Three key takeaways, for today:

1. Gaming as art and industry continues to develop and grow

2. Pedagogical uses unfolding3. Liberal arts campus cases

are now available, and practitioners are networking

Gaming’s pedagogical functionsJames Paul Gee• Claims games offer

pedagogical experiences (2003ff)

Other experts follow suit:• Marc Presnsky• Henry Jenkins• John Seely Brown• Mia Consalvo• Constance Steinkuehler• Kurt Squire• Hippasus

Sample pedagogical principles:

• Semiotic domains; transference

• Embodied action and feedback

• Projective identity• Edging the regime of

competence (Vygotsky)• Probe-reprobe cycle• Social learning (roles;

consumption-production)

• “Fish tank” tutorial• Strategic self-

assessment

Another summary

Jason Mittell, MiddleburyCollege: games are platforms for learning…• Skills • Simulations• Media studies (psych, cultural

studies, media)– NITLE brownbag, January 2008

How is gaming used now?Classroom and courses• Curriculum content• Delivery mechanism• Creating games

Peacemaker, Impact Games

Revolution (via Jason Mittell)

• Oiligarchy, Molle Industries

• DimensionM, Tabula Digita

• Jetset, Persuasive Games

• The Great Shakeout, California

Gaming as part of mainstream culture

• Median age of gamers shoots past 30• Industry size comparable to music• Impacts on hardware, software,

interfaces, other industries• Large and growing diversity of

platforms, topics, genres, niches, players

Gaming as part of mainstream culture

Anecdata: Number of Facebook FarmVille players: 27,539,610 (http://statistics.allfacebook.com/applications/leaderboard/, as of December 2009)

(Casual games are more mainstream than most heavy-duty games)

Diversity of game genres American teenagers, Pew Internet,

2008

•Joost Raessens and Jeffrey Goldstein, eds, Handbook of Computer Game Studies (MIT, 2005)•Frans Mayra, An Introduction to Game Studies (Sage, 2008)•Pat Harrigan and Noah Wardrip-Fruin, eds. Third Person: Authoring and Exploring Vast Narratives (MIT, 2009)

Game studies as academic field

How is gaming used now?

Libraries• Collections• Game night• Creating

games

Defense of Hidgeon, Games Archive: University of Michigan

Maturing professional venues

Making the audience work some moreReturn to your earlier note-taking, and

compare notes with people near you: where on campus are you seeing this?

And where might you see more in ‘10?

Gaming and liberal educationWhat are the

intersections?Shared: classic

academic concerns

• Pedagogical uses• Support• Tenure/promotion• Fears

Image: Bryn Mawr College,Michael Toler

Gaming and liberal educationAnd what is liberal

education, again?• Learning for learning's

sake • Pedagogy (active

learning, faculty/student collab. etc)

• Democratic, engaged citizenship/leadership

• Specific institutional type

-Jo Ellen Parker, 2008 Scripps College library

II. A taxonomy of practices

Liberal arts uses• Gettysburg, Hope,

Depauw

II. A taxonomy of current practices1. Faculty research2. Faculty/staff game creation3. Classes and learning

A. Professional games delivering learning content

B. “ “ “ objects of studyC. Students creating game contentD. “ “ games

1. Faculty researchHarry Brown, Depauw University(M.E. Sharpe, 2008)• Part I: Poetics

– Chapter 1: Videogames and Storytelling

– Chapter 2: Videogame Aesthetics – Chapter 3: Videogames and Film

• Part II: Rhetoric– Chapter 4: Politics, Persuasion, and

Propaganda in Videogames – Chapter 5: The Ethics of Videogames – Chapter 6: Religion and Myth in

Videogames • Part III: Pedagogy

– Chapter 7: Videogames, History, and Education

– Chapter 8: Identity and Community in Virtual Worlds

– Chapter 9: Modding, Education, and Art

2. Faculty/staff game creationValley Sim, Christian Spielvogel (Hope College): MMOG

• American Civil War simulation

• based on primary documents already in digital archive (Valley of the Shadow)

• MMOG: Players experience and debate the war’s epochal events as avatars based on the lives of residents from two wartime communities

2. Faculty/staff game creation• Trinity University library: ARG

2. Faculty/staff game creation• Dickinson College, class on empires: game modding

3A: Games as learning content• Shalom Staub, Assistant Provost for

Academic Affairs, Dickinson College: Conflict Resolution course Peacemaker:

“integrate and apply the concepts and strategies that you will encounter elsewhere in the course.”

3A: Games as learning content• Todd Bryant, Dickinson College: teaching

German with World of Warcraft

http://www.academiccommons.org/commons/essay/bryant-MMORPGs-for-SLA

“If the game provides authentic language content and requires communication in order to progress through the game—and our students are willing to spend hours of their time immersed in this environment—we can greatly increase not only their overall exposure to the language but their motivation to learn as well.”

3B: Games as objects of study• Aaron Delwiche, Trinity University: COMM

3344, interactive multimedia (Spring 2006)

3C: Students creating game content• Chris Fee, Gettysburg: Interactive Fiction (2007-)

http://let.blog.nitle.org/2008/05/09/teaching_with_games_medieval_culture_and/

3D: Students creating games• Venatio Creo, Ursinus College

III. The role of NITLENonprofit, working to advance

technology in liberal education

NITLE programs

Professional development (workshops, videoconferencing)

NITLE Network• Several venues

(NITLE-IT, Summit)

Research• Exploration of field• Publications• Blogging• Network facilitation• Game co-creation

– ARG (ELI 2009)– Web game (futures

market)

The gaming initiative

• Web 2.0 networking• Conference (Dickinson, 2007)• Workshop (Bryn Mawr, 2008)

The gaming initiative

And:• MIV sessions (starting 2008)• Presentations (CNI, Educause, NITLE

Summit, NMC 2008-9)• Publications (Alvarado, Alexander, Bryant)“Overcoming the Fear of Gaming: A Strategy

for Incorporating Games into Teaching and Learning.” EDUCAUSE Quarterly Magazine, Volume 31, Number 3. 2008.

The gaming network

Faculty involved from:

• Albion College• Austin College• Depauw

University• Dickinson College• Gettysburg

College

• Hope College• Middlebury

College• Swarthmore

College• Trinity University

(Texas)• Ursinus College• Vassar College

The gaming network

Disciplines include:• Anthropology• Communication• English• History• International

relations• Languages• Media studies

• NB: strong emphasis on humanities and non-quantitative social sciences, so far

We launch one gameNITLE prediction markets

(http://markets.nitle.org/)

More social media strategies

• Diigo group (http://groups.diigo.com/group/gaming-and-the-liberal-arts)

More social media strategies

NITLE blogging, http://blogs.nitle.org/let/

Lessons learned?

What supports intercampus collaboration for educational gaming?

• Strength in diversity (disciplines, regions, projects, sectors)

• Supernodes make the network workshop (the Dickinson movement)

• Low barriers to entry are crucial• Educational examples are essential

IV. What next?• What else is possible for teaching

and learning with games, based on practice outside of the classroom?

“Computer games as liberal arts?Educators who teach kids to make their own video games are on education's cutting edge.”

(CNN, 2008)

http://money.cnn.com/2008/06/06/technology/games_change.fortune/?postversion=2008060606

More current options

Already in use in other .edu sectors:

•Machinima for video production

•Information/media fluency curricula

•More modding (ex: Civ IV mod)

• Exploring no- and low-cost games further

“Nanw’s Adventure”, National Library of Wales

(http://dysgle.llgc.org.uk/gemnanw/ )

What next in liberal arts gaming?Looking into 2010:

• Diigo group continues (68 items so far)

• Ruthless blogging• NITLE prediction market trades,

grows• Reaching out to more schools and

organizations

What next in liberal arts gaming?Looking into 2010:

• Iterations and new projects for spring classes

• Reacting to the Past interest (Pearson)• Mobile gaming pilots (Vassar)• Repurposing gaming tools for

visualization (machinima), computing power, presentation (Wii remote)

• Involvement from sciences

Liberal Education Tomorrow bloghttp://blogs.nitle.org/let

Prediction Markets gamehttp://markets.nitle.org/

Diigo group http://groups.diigo.com/groups/ga

ming-and-the-liberal-arts

NITLEhttp://nitle.org