Pedagogy Inspired By Farmville

image: Andrew Stawarz from social games to the  classroom: educational design  inspired by Farmville seeds of engagement an ePaper by sidneyeve matrix

image: kcolwell In a year‐end presentation for the Social Games Seattle  meeting, lead designer of FarmVille Amitt Mahajan of Zynga  discussed what's involved in building big social games 1 that millions of people will want to play.  A blockbuster game must be designed to have wide appeal and  good retention—keeping players coming back and actively  engaged. There are many insights from Mahajan’s talk that transfer  neatly from the world of game development to instructional  design in higher ed.  In what follows we’ll highlight three of them.2 .2.

image: Thomas Hawk Don’t turn people off is the first rule of the day,  according to Mahajan. 1. select material with broad appeal Building for engagement requires using material that  many people can relate to. Using people’s common  knowledge as a lever is about developing products and  experiences that they can connect to and understand  instantly—no steep learning curve involved. For the FarmVille game developer, that might mean  opting for a gameworld ﬁlled with growing crops and  tending to livestock—the same imaginary scenarios  children have grown up playing, with plastic toys from  Fisher Price and Mattel. .3.

image: Pragmagrapher But what about the classroom—where creating learning  curves, and often steep ones, is our business?  To design lectures and lessons that are engaging, the point about  building in commonly known, quickly graspable, highly relatable  concepts might mean: (1) using more case studies to humanize the material,  (2) incorporating news of the day from daily headlines (captured via  newsfeeds and delivered to your inbox), or  (3) adding in some pop culture references, from celebrities to  television to YouTube. All of these research/lesson prep tasks could be delegated to an RA  or TA, if available. If not, set up some Google News Alerts with  keywords to catch newsworthy stories in a trendwatching net. .4.

image: Rennett Stowe “Every time you play a game, you  build up relationships” ~ Mahajan 2. incorporate microsociality Addictive and highly engaging social games on Facebook are so  compelling because they leverage people’s social graphs. In fact,  like it or not, social gaming and socnet connections are  increasingly seen as a viable alternative to oﬄine face‐to‐ facetime.  Watering someone’s crops on FarmVille is quickly becoming a  bona ﬁde and acceptable mode of microsocializing, and “a  replacement for having to go out of your way to keep in touch  with someone” observes Mahajan. .5.

image: smannion Back in the classroom, building educational  experiences that are more social means incorporating activities  and assignments designed to encourage interactivity and class  cohesion. How? The key here is shareability. Designing  opportunities for students to give and take with their peers and  enabling reciprocity. This allows students to increase their value  and contribution to a social network, by trading cultural capital. One way to use the web to accomplish this: build a free site (a  Blogger blog, Ning social network, Netvibes pagecast, or  Facebook page) where students curate and share their research  (links to articles, news, videos, anything). If you ascribe to the  view of millennial students as eager for attention, recognition, a  little microfame, and constant feedback, it’s easy to see how this  kind of public, socially‐networked instructional design is purpose‐ built to engage GenY. .6.

image: Brian Hathcock “Bright beautiful graphics in a  social game are tantamount to  moments of joy”   ~ Mahajan 3. add visual pleasure Engaging game design requires massive graphic  appeal. The power of visual pleasure is not to  be underestimated when spectacular imagery  can keep gamers online and enraptured.  .7.

image: presta Back on campus, some time invested in designing truly great  PowerPoint (or Keynote, if you’re a Mac) slides can work magic  and infuse the classroom with a degree of that same pleasure,  fascination, and joy that game designers speak of.  Need inspiration? Treat yourself to a copy of Garr Reynolds work Presentation Zen 3 or one of the books he recommends to increase the visual and  emotional impact of your slide design. .8.

image: law_kevin Resources Cited 1. Here is a link to the slides from Amitt Mahajan’s  presentation: http://www.slideshare.net/amittmahajan 2. For even more helpful ideas and insights from this game  developer, visit his website: http://www.amitt.com 3. Excellent resource on presentation design is Garr  Reynolds: http://www.presentationzen.com/ . 9.

image: richpix  about the author Sidneyeve Matrix, PhD.  Queen's National Scholar, Film & Media, Queen's  University, Canada. Professor of digital culture, mass  communication & marketing, pop culture, television,  & film courses. Website: sidneyevematrix.net Attribution‐ Noncommercial‐Share  Alike 3.0 License.

Pedagogy Inspired By Farmville

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