updates

On December 6, game developers and programmers, Mike Edwards and Kyle Li playtested a new game scenario in SMALLab-New York. The New York team travels to Arizona State University this week to work with their K-12 Embodied Media and Learning group collaborators.The two teams will be brainstorming new game-based learning scenarios all week!

On December 4, we traveled uptown to observe teacher/ educational technologist Andrew Gardner’s afterschool game design class at The School at Columbia University. At The School, we met five students who were riveted to their game design work and eager to reflect on their experiences. Although it is always informative to investigate how classroom’s are using games as a foundation for learning, this visit also served as research for the Institute of Play’s creation of a strategy guide for the multiplayer online game, Gamestar Mechanic, being developed by Gamelab and funded by the MacArthur Foundation.

We had a productive brainstorming session about ways that the platform and game design in general might be incorporated into other disciplinary contexts and knowledge areas. Some of the ideas that were offered included—literary adaptations where game systems are used to illustrate narrative tensions and story arcs within a literary work, historical reenactments or simulations, where different game levels might represent different related events and even a math-related option in which the ability to clone or spawn game characters might be used as a point of entry into mathematical problem-solving. We also visited the class’ community blog, and discussed how writing and reflection were used as a way for students to share resources, reflections and ideas about games and game design.

On November 18, Quest to Learn school creation team member, Robert Torres, visited Janet Cappadona’s 6th grade Spanish class at East Side Middle School. Robert observed the “Date, Weather and Seasons" quest, a part of the Blubonian Treasure Hunt mission, developed during the 2008 Summer Teacher Institute.

In the Blubonian Treasure Hunt, each of Janet’s four 6th grade classes is responsible for helping an athlete from the planet Blubonia in his quest to find a treasure hidden in a Spanish-speaking country. As a result of the Blubonian Treasure Hunt's clever role reversal process, Janet’s students practice and solidify their Spanish language skills, by teaching their athlete what he needs to know to survive and succeed on Earth. In this clip, Janet reflects on her experience and how the use of game-based learning tools has deepened her students' understanding of the Spanish language.

On November 13, the Institute of Play observed a Multimedia Storytelling class at the Calhoun School, taught by Ayesha Randolph, a master teacher who participated in our 2008 Summer Teacher’s Institute. When we visited, her class was engrossed in Find the Idea, the first quest in the Writers of the Digital Roundtable mission, developed in collaboration with the Institute of Play. Find an Idea, is a series of short “story-generator” quests and mini-games to help students brainstorm and develop treatments for their stories.

In this clip, students pitch story ideas to literary agent/teacher Ayesha and work on storyboards to illustrate their ideas. In order to complete this stage of the mission, students must successfully summarize their stories and demonstrate a commitment to the completion of their work. After students have successfully pitched their ideas, they commit to a submission deadline, and multimedia format, and then seal the deal with the signing of a writer’s contract.