http://markdangerchen.net/

Really, this is so that I can have more display options…

From the Great Geek Manual (via guildie Ignacio Solis).

Awesomely funny.

Anyway, he gave me some feedback on my answer to exam question 2 (the lit review one) and suggested I read some more stuff and edit the essay a bit to reflect a more focused application of the theories I named as applied to games. I could look at this in two ways… oh damn, I have to revise or yay, someone gave me feedback and I can learn from it. I’ll go with the latter, but can’t help but think that I wouldn’t be in this sort of position if I had access to a group project outside of classes from the get-go as it seems pretty clear that students in collaborative projects have the support needed to deepen their understanding of stuff. Or am I wrong?

I think I might have to send an email out to the Madison-MIT crazy ass network to ask if anyone wants to form a virtual reading group with me as it is pretty clear to me that I am playing (and failing) at a catch up game with people who can just talk to someone else doing games research in everyday contexts.

Anyway, also in the meeting with Phil this week, we discussed possible dissertation topics. One that I might’ve mentioned before is to look at a group of players across off-screen and on-screen contexts to see if their teamwork and general interactions and relationships are similar/different. The easier route to take, however, might be to analyze the mountain of data I collected for my WoW paper with different theoretical lenses, paying particular attention, for example, to the social dynamics and power relations at play. I could even attempt to quantify and measure certain things like level of communication events or types of utterances on different nights. Stuff to think about. Which would help the games research community more?

1. participatory culture and new media literacy (Henry Jenkins and Alice Robison)
2. ludic bureaucracy (Thomas Malaby)
3. gamer mindset (Jim Gee)

The common theme in all of these topics is that gamers and people in general are in a new age where the traditional ways of structuring and organizing things no longer applies. The gamer mindset focuses on exploration, transgression, pushing the system, trial and error, emergent phenomenon, etc. all of which is essentially a subset (I think) of living in a participatory culture. It’s not really a knowledge economy, but more of a social economy. Your positionality and network and the skill you have in plying that network will get you far in life. The old bureaucracy is being replaced by one that doesn’t attempt to control and order everything; instead it supports emergent actions and movements.

This of course has huge implications for how I teach the technology class to future teachers that Yen-Ling and I run… How do we prepare teachers so that they can prepare their students? It’s hard enough just trying to expose new teachers to the gamer mindset, Web 2.0, etc. How do we help them develop the skills necessary to help kids develop a critical view of the world they live and participate in?  In other words, I think our teacher ed program is working under the old model too much.  Kids and adults will need, if not already need, equitable access and sponsorship to new technologies.  Participation now depends more than ever on social skills and cultural capital and the skills involved with content creation and mediation.  Yet our schools and teachers are still emphasizing knowledge and facts rather than processes and usage of knowledge.

[Edited Thursday... finally!]

So, after a night of way too much beer…. (and I should note that when I say way too much I mean our tables had 2 pitchers courtesy of Kurt too much which basically went undrunk… undrunken.. undrinked…? whatever. and NOT that I had way too much beer since as most of my friends know, I don’t really drink beer.)

Anyway, after a night of way too much beer for our tables, Moses and I walked to his place (partly alongside Kurt and Josh). When we got there, we were setting up the air mattress and stuff when his roommate entered (about 2:30-3:00 AM) with not one, but TWO women he had picked up or something… they went to his room and he came out to the kitchen to fix up a cocktail once they got settled. While passing us on his way to the kitchen he said something like, “holy shit.” Whispered incredulously. This was a proper time to use “holy shit” if any, I thought. We figured he was implying that he was just about to do what many men fantasize about. Ha.

Ok, so I digress from the trip to Madison. You’re probably more interested in hearing about the arts fair the next day.

I woke up at 7:30 to meet up with Jen at 9 and have breakfast at a place called the Sunroom Cafe on State St. I had a breakfast burrito; she had a stack of three pancakes but only ate one. I think both of us were sort of feeling, “bleh… too early.”

After breakfast, I walked up State back over to the capitol and checked out the arts fair that was well underway. Here’re some photos…

After walking around the capitol with the huge crowd (where I think most people were concentrating on staying with the herd, all going the same direction, not stepping on toes and heels of people around us that we weren’t really paying attention to the art…) for a bit, I got thirsty and saw someone with a strawberry smoothie. So I stopped at a booth and got one myself. It was the worst smoothie ever. Mostly water. I could say more, but meh.

I got bored so I called Shawna to see what she was doing. As it turns out, she was walking around the capitol with some friends and was going to go to a ball game later with them. I didn’t feel like doing the walkabout again, so instead I gave Moses a call to see if he was up yet. (bout 11 now)

He was and we met up to get lunch though neither of us was hungry. It was a pizza place of which I forget the name, but it was really good crust. Seattle needs more pizza places like the one we went to in Madison. Unfortunately, since I was totally not hungry, I only ate three bites.

Afterwards, we walked over to the waterfront and checked out the view (of the lake and the bikinis). Nice day, really. We passed an apartment building which used to be an old school. That was pretty cool looking.

All in all, a really laid back day of rest and recovery after the whirlwind 2 days at the Games Learning Society conference. He gave me a ride to the airport (in which I saw Jen, Liz, and Lane again). I took a photo of Madison from the plane…

Surgeon General Sees 4-Year Term as Compromised

By GARDINER HARRIS

Published: July 11, 2007

Former Surgeon General Richard H. Carmona said that Bush administration officials tried to weaken or suppress health reports.

• Rebecca Black
• Samantha Blackmon
• Ian Bogost
• Ted Castranova (well, technically, we didn’t meet, but I saw him…)
• Mia Consalvo
• Ben DeVane (and wife Amanda)
• Josh Diaz
• Julian Dibbell
• Elonka Dunin
• Shree Durga
• Debbie Fields
• Justin Hall
• Erica Halverson
• Chris Holden (and wife Sarah)
• Tori Horton
• Aaron Hung
• Dan Hunter
• Shawna Kelly
• Lane Lawley
• Thomas Malaby
• Dan Norton
• Nathaniel Pope
• Alice Robison
• Lauren Silberman
• Dave Simkins
• Bert Snow
• Doug Thomas
• Bill Tomlinson
• Mark Wagler
• Dave White
• Lee Wilson
• Moses Wolfenstein
• Suze Woolf
• Eric Zimmerman
• Renata
• Matt
• Dana and I think her boyfriend from Florida
• Carole?
• Tim?
• a bunch of people at the LAN party whose names I’ve forgotten

And people I’ve previously met:

• Lisa Galarneau
• Jim Gee
• Betty Hayes
• Henry Jenkins
• Liz Lawley
• Brett Shelton
• Kurt Squire
• Constance Steinkuehler (big wit baby!)

And, of course, people I go to or went to school with:

• Laurie McCarthy
• Tom Satwitcz (now at U of Georgia)
• Jen Stone (former adviser, now at U of Alaska Anchorage)

Here’s a summary of all the ones I could find off his list:

• 2¢ Worth on:
  • cheating
  • some quotes
  • PMOGs
  • UK survey of teachers and COTS
  • classroom strat guides
• Lisa Galarneau’s post with her slides from her presentation on 21st century skills
• Lee Wilson’s comments on the opening by Jim Gee
• Filament’s presentation
• The Shifted Librarian (she’s awesome!) on:
  • gamer mindset
  • building a strat game for your virtual school
  • designing local games for learning
  • playing to belong (including my presentation)
  • blurring game boundaries
  • individual lessons learned
  • participatory culture
  • MMOs and learning
  • gaming literacy

Also, check these out:

• Research Quest
• Flickr stream of GLS photos

Anyway, a bunch of folks went off to some party but Moses and I happened to meet up with a guy named Josh Diaz before Moses had to take off for said party.  So, I ended up hanging out with Josh, walking around the capitol talking, and having dinner with him at The Old Fashioned.

I forgot to take a photo of dinner, but here’s an image someone else took of the same menu item, The Old Fashioned House Burger. It was amazing. Perfectly cooked medium, with two thick crispy strips of bacon, smoked cheddar (good cheddar–but I’m a cheeseburger snob), and a medium cooked egg–not too runny, not too dry. The egg added a surprising complexity and binding flavor to the whole affair, making for possibly the best burger I’ve ever had. I’ve had egg on burger before, but previously it was greasy as all hell. This time it was fantastic.

If you read the account from the website I found with the image, however, they felt otherwise. Also, I didn’t like the fries much, again, unlike the folks who wrote the review… so maybe take it with a grain of salt. /shrug

Anyway, Josh is an amazing fellow.  He went to St. John’s College and it seems he got a lot out of it and is very well read, esp. wrt western philosophy and humanities.   He’s entering the Comparative Media Studies at MIT this year and will be studying with Henry Jenkins.  How crazy shit lucky is that?  Well, with Josh, luck has nothing to do with it, I’m sure.

After dinner, we wandered around the capitol some more, checking out all the tents being set up and the blockades and stuff that was going on that evening in preparation for an annual arts fair this weekend.  Man, whoever chose when GLS was chose very well.  Free concert Wednesday night and free arts fair Saturday.  That was pretty awesome.

While wandering around we bumped into David White from the UK, and he and Josh proceeded to talk a lot while I hung out and listened and then took a phone call.  Check out Dave’s presentation abstract at GLS.  Wow; that’s eerie.  I should read Dave’s blog postings now.  Ya think?

After Dave left, Josh and I met up with Moses who was back from his party and we headed to the Essen Haus to meet up with a bunch of other peeps from the conference.  Lots of photos follow…

Erica Halverson and Eric Zimmerman.

Matt and Moses.

Josh and Ben DeVane.

Me, Chris Holden, and Kurt Squire.

Chris Holden and Shree Durgan.

Shawna Kelly and Josh again.

Dave Simkins and Shawna.

Ah crap.. my laptop is almost out of juice. I might have to go offline for a bit and transcribe hand-written notes… gasp.

[Edit:] Ok, I did indeed have to write stuff down by hand. What follows is my attempt at a transcription; sorry for the delay.

Immersion vs. Learning – Michael Wagner

Michael is from the dept. for interactive media and ed tech at the Donau-Universität Krems from overseas! Awesome seeing someone from outside the U.S. involved in the dialog about literacy and games. Michael introduced the Game Based Learning Paradox: games are great for learning but that also means violence and aggression might be being learned, too. This is what I had to grapple with in my general exams, too.

Also, he mentioned that what was good about games comes from constructivist theory, while what’s bad comes from cognitive load theory. Did I hear that right? Gonna have to ask him for a paper to read…

Anyway, there’s a moral panic from people who don’t know digital games based on false or exaggerated perceptions. (See book Folk Devils and Moral Panics by Stanley Cohen.) The question we have to answer is how do we address this moral panic?

To answer this, Michael explains that media comes in three forms: static, explorative, and active. Things like books are static, hypertext is explorative, and games are active. (Aarseth used static, hyper, and unpredictable texts… I really need to read his book sometime…) These three types map onto information literacy, decision literacy, and strategic literacy.

To help, Michael then showed us a series of diagrams that map out the relationship players have to a virtual world and that two of the action arrows–immersion and transference–appear as counterparts in a symmetrical diagram. We know how to do immersion very well, but not transfer from skills learned in-game to our real lives. The trick, if we buy into the diagram, is to flip our thinking so that things transfer back into our real lives.

So, instead of thinking that we control a character, think about the character controlling us. What skills does our character need us to learn in order to do the things the character wants us to do? That is an interesting idea! Reverse role-play as a path towards metacognition?

What Videogame Making Can Teach Us About Learning and Literacy – Kylie Peppler

Kylie looked at game modding and making as an entry into participatory culture. She described the games some kids (one kid named Jorge in particular) made during a(n after school?) program using Scratch.

[Note:] Kurt was merely blinking, but I thought this photo was hilarious…

While Jorge learned programming, remixing, sprite design, etc., he also had an identity or role shift while becoming an expert Scratch user. His confidence and participation in the computer clubhouse increased to the point where he was actually teaching the mentor (and other students) things about Scratch.

Participating in game modding and making is a “healthy counterpoint to consumer culture.”

One thing I thought about with our move to a participatory culture is that, sometimes, I don’t want to make anything… I just want to play some good games. But as I become more and more literate with games, I become more and more dissatisfied with them. Even good games have faults to me. Is developing a critical awareness about games killing my hobby and my safe space? Is my only recourse to turn my game-playing hobby into a game-research or game-making hobby? I don’t really get the same enjoyment out of that… Sometimes, despite all the evidence and myself purporting how social game playing is, sometimes, I just want to hole up by myself and play a good game.

Using Playing Breakdown as a Lens for Understanding Literacy – Will Ryan

Will comes from the School of Informatics at Indiana U. He looked at how players deal with frustration in a variety of games in a controlled lab setting, watching players play unfamiliar game genres and seeing how those players learned game UI and conventions. A breakdown occurs when either a tool (game or game UI, I suppose) doesn’t match the domain in which the tool exists or when a player tries to misuse a tool. He categorized the breakdowns and created a map of the types of things that cause breakdown.

This reminded me of the engagement research that Elisabeth Cuddihy and I did a few years back. We also used a controlled lab setting to measure how engaged players were with certain games. The difference is that Will is looking at disengagement or disruptions of engagement. In doing so, I think he also doesn’t get at empathy and role-playing that was included in our engagement model, but I think what Will did was briliant. We also measured flow state in our model, but maybe we shouldn’t have because maybe disruptions of flow are needed for games to be engaging and for people to learn how to play them?