I don’t have my hand in an actual classroom, unless you count the college courses I’ve written supporting software for. And I don’t expect to: from the reports I’ve gotten from those teachers I admire, the sheer bureaucracy would drive me mad. Political change is slow and frustrating, and I wouldn’t even know where to try to drive it.
Instead, I aim to make compelling games that effectively teach these high-level skills, whether those games are straight-up video games, or carefully-constructed ARGs, or board games, or whatever odd mashup of these is required. If you look at what’s written by anyone who takes game design seriously, you read about trees of player mastery, management of motivation, and interaction that varies based on player interest. In particular, game designers talk about the careful design of incentive systems.
I suspect this is exactly what needs attention in education.
So, I want to make these games for a few reasons:
If these games work at all and get any audience, then they help to raise the sanity waterline.
If these games get a sizeable audience, I could conceivably make a living working towards a goal that I’m deeply enthusiastic about.
If these games work and garner critical or political attention, then they might help to shift how regular education works—or at least change its priorities.
These are lofty and difficult goals. If I’m to work towards these in any serious way, I should first attain some scholarship. (Yes, much can be learned by jumping in feet first and trying things. But when other people are part of your feedback loop, it’s nice to know, say, what the embarrassing mistakes are.) I have some sense of what to read regarding game design; I had no real sense of what to read regarding education. Thus, this thread.
What age group are you teaching to? This will change what you have to learn.
Since I assume you’ll have only classroom-level control at best, a literature search will have to be a bit selective.
A textbook might be useful… but resources for further teacher training might also work. Here and here look useful and well-sourced.
I don’t have my hand in an actual classroom, unless you count the college courses I’ve written supporting software for. And I don’t expect to: from the reports I’ve gotten from those teachers I admire, the sheer bureaucracy would drive me mad. Political change is slow and frustrating, and I wouldn’t even know where to try to drive it.
Instead, I aim to make compelling games that effectively teach these high-level skills, whether those games are straight-up video games, or carefully-constructed ARGs, or board games, or whatever odd mashup of these is required. If you look at what’s written by anyone who takes game design seriously, you read about trees of player mastery, management of motivation, and interaction that varies based on player interest. In particular, game designers talk about the careful design of incentive systems.
I suspect this is exactly what needs attention in education.
So, I want to make these games for a few reasons:
If these games work at all and get any audience, then they help to raise the sanity waterline.
If these games get a sizeable audience, I could conceivably make a living working towards a goal that I’m deeply enthusiastic about.
If these games work and garner critical or political attention, then they might help to shift how regular education works—or at least change its priorities.
These are lofty and difficult goals. If I’m to work towards these in any serious way, I should first attain some scholarship. (Yes, much can be learned by jumping in feet first and trying things. But when other people are part of your feedback loop, it’s nice to know, say, what the embarrassing mistakes are.) I have some sense of what to read regarding game design; I had no real sense of what to read regarding education. Thus, this thread.