Gaming and the liberal arts

""They are scared to death of confronting racism in American history because it could blow up in their face," said Dr. Higbee. "They want to rework it and take out all the controversy and leave it as a viable game but there is no way to do that." "

I like this as the most basic gamification exercise I've seen!

"Gossip is our weapon of choice," reads Tyrer's Kickstarter pitch. "Instead of raids, we will have grand balls. Instead of dungeons, we will have dinner parties." Ever, Jane, currently a free playable prototype, has strict social rules. To navigate its mazes of etiquette, my character keeps a Lady's Magazine to hand. Drinks with characters are scheduled via requests sent by letter, while the importance of social conduct is reflected in the fact you have three buttons, each offering a different kind of curtsy or bow. "It was about finding out what the characters in her novels did," says Tyrer, "coupled with the etiquette of Regency period."

What a great idea.

Choose your own adventurish, but reader creates dialogue with the book. Can see well received. Nice example of overlap lit and games.

Notice _House of Leaves_ on a table during the promo video.

Sounds fascinating.

It seems logical that games which have players wrestle with social issues might change social attitudes, but there's a lack of data to prove it.

Good points. It's early days in long-term research. Plus there's the long, long track record of social science failing to find long-term effects from other media.

A fun idea with some good information. Too narrowly constrained, though.

Very interesting meeting. Note the importance of student-generated games, hacking foreign games for local context, and physical (board, tabletop) games.

"The chance to learn about leadership and management from top corporate strategists is part of the business school guarantee. But what if your B-School professor could be replaced by technology, without sacrificing any educational payoff? An experiment conducted by John Beck, Ph.D., at Hult International Business School found that a business strategy video game proved just as effective in teaching students as a professor...."

Seems like Beck's conclusions are largely in line with other literature on games and learning. I'm curious about the fact that this has come up in the context of an MBA program and not another field.

"These are middle schoolers building mobile, place-based games with ARIS, taking advantage of the game editor's powerful new re-design and one science educator's trust in letting his students demonstrate what and how they learn."

Very cool. I appreciate that he takes the time in the video interview to lay out how one could take a more standard pedagogical model - his "5E" model (which I had not heard of before) - and augment/alter parts of it to incorporate the new technological elements he's interested in having his students explore.

Archaeological dig simulation. Also involves dealing with the demands of robbers, local media, and your university.

Using Google in the classroom, a UK story

Gamifying college life.

I'd like to use this to teach gaming to faculty. There would be blow-back, which could be useful.

The new campaign from War Child lets the viewer experience an armed conflict through the eyes of a child.

The film " Thank You for Playing," which premièred at this year's Tribeca Film Festival, follows a young father who is making a video game about his terminally ill child. Joel Green was diagnosed with terminal cancer in 2010, at the age of one.