3. Overview
• What are Serious Games?
• What are we trying to do here?
• How can I use them?
• Sample Serious Games
4. What are Serious Games?
• Serious Games are games with a purpose
beyond entertainment, including but not
limited to games for learning, games for
health, and games for policy and social
change.
Source:
http://seriousgames.msu.edu/
5. Serious Games
• Henry Jenkins, MIT
– Exploration
– Experimentation
– Problem solving
Source:
http://www.henryjenkins.org/2007/11/from_serious_games_to_serious_1.html
6. Serious Games
• Henry Jenkins, MIT
– Harness the metagaming, the active discussion
and speculation that take place around the game,
to inform other learning activities.
Source:
http://www.henryjenkins.org/2007/11/from_serious_games_to_serious_1.html
7. What does this mean?
Source:
http://clarkaldrich.blogspot.com/
8. Or as Michigan State puts it…
Source:
http://seriousgames.msu.edu/
9. The New Literacies
• Play — the capacity to experiment with one’s surroundings
as a form of problem-solving
• Performance — the ability to adopt alternative identities
for the purpose of improvisation and discovery
• Simulation — the ability to interpret and construct dynamic
models of real-world processes
• Appropriation — the ability to meaningfully sample and
remix media content
10. The New Literacies
• Multitasking — the ability to scan one’s environment
and shift focus as needed to salient details.
• Distributed Cognition — the ability to interact
meaningfully with tools that expand mental capacities
• Collective Intelligence — the ability to pool knowledge
and compare notes with others toward a common goal
• Judgment — the ability to evaluate the reliability and
credibility of different information sources
11. The New Literacies
• Transmedia Navigation — the ability to follow the
flow of stories and information across multiple
modalities
• Networking — the ability to search for,
synthesize, and disseminate information
• Negotiation — the ability to travel across diverse
communities, discerning and respecting multiple
perspectives, and grasping and following
alternative norms.
Source: http://www.digitallearning.macfound.org/atf/cf/%7B7E45C7E0-A3E0-4B89-AC9C-E807E1B0AE4E
%7D/JENKINS_WHITE_PAPER.PDF
12. Game Genres
• Mini games:
– Small, easy-to-access game built to be simple and
addictive, which often focuses on mastering an action
and can provide awareness of more complicated
issues.
• Interactive metrics:
– Simulation in which students typically try to impact
critical metrics by allocating resources along
competing categories and getting feedback of their
decisions through graphs and charts.
13. Game Genres
• Frame games:
– Students engage familiar games and puzzles such
as Wheel of Fortune®, solitaire, or memory, with
important pieces of awareness or task-based
content replacing trivia or icons.
• Branching story:
– Simulation in which students make a series of
decisions via a multiple choice interface to
progress through and impact an event.
14. Game Genres
• Practice ware:
– Real-time, often 3D sims that encourages
participants to repeat actions in high fidelity
situations until the skills become natural in the
real-world counterpart
• Virtual product or virtual lab :
– A series of challenges/puzzles to be solved using
on-screen representations of real-world objects
and software.
18. Before using Serious Games
• Determine what your objectives are.
• Determine simulation requirements and
reasonable computer capacity.
– This will determine if students will encounter
simulation in class / on campus or off campus
19. Before using Serious Games
• Use the simulation yourself
– Student’s will expect that you have done this and
can solve any of their problems
20. Before using Serious Games
• Develop grading and task rubric
– Student’s will want clear goals and objectives
• Pre-survey
• Actual task
• Discussion
21. Before using Serious Games
• Assign task with realistic timeframe
– If simulation is too large, cut it down
• Request feedback / post survey
– Student’s want to know that you are doing this for
a reason
– Survey’s allow students to vent and point out
issues and areas for improvement
22. Using Serious Games
1. Ice breakers
– Utilize serious games/ simulations to introduce
class to new topics and stimulate discussion
• Projects
– Group or individual work
– Use to reinforce class concepts and assess
mastery
23. Using Serious Games
1. Competitions
– Break students into groups and have them
compete for prizes / extra credit
– Set up a computer lab for real time competition/
tournaments. ****
– Show screen on SmartBoard, so teams can share
tactics/ learn new methods. *****
24. Place
• On the SmartBoard before class
• On the SmartBoard during class
• In computer classroom
• Computer Commons
• Student’s personal Computers
33. REST OF THE WEEK
• Play one or all of the games
– Darfur is Dying
– Eye of the Donkey
– Viking Quest
34. REST OF THE WEEK
• Show us or tell us about it.
– Post in Forums
– Use a Screen capture?
– Would you use it?
– Why? Why not?
– Found something better? Share!
35. Wednesday – 7 pm MST
• TWEETCHAT
– 60 minutes of twitter discussion
– Start with quick intro
– Then 4 questions
– #gamemooc
36. Thursday – 7 pm MST
• Broadcast over Google On Air
• Second Life on Front Range
• Discussion of Jim Gee’s “Big G Games”
– Marianne Maelstrom
– Peggy Sheehy
– Bron Stuckey
37. Saturday Virtual Field Trip
• World of Warcraft
– Google Air
– Sisters of Elune, U.S. Server
– If you don’t already have a WoW account, we
suggest watching this Saturday and next Saturday
we will do an orientation.
