Games and Simulations, Pedagogy, Education and other

wonderfulness

CS4HS - SymposiumAugust 20, 2012

Where I think we are going…

• Introduction• Who’s here and what are your interests• Why games are important for society• Why games are important for learning• Why games don’t fit in traditional classrooms• Directions to explore for your projects

Who am I?

Bill Crosbie

Assistant Professor : Raritan Valley C.C. Game Design & Development

2007-Present

Co-Chair IGDA SIG - Education

Bill Crosbie

Previous 12 yrs – Rutgers University

Code monkey

New media specialist

Instructional designer

Who is here?

Teacher

Public/Charter/Private

Developer

Do you play games?

Do you think games are a distraction fromwhat is important??

Games are importantfor society

James P Gee

James P Gee

Games are importantfor learning

Challenging activity that requires skill

Merging of action and awareness

Clear goals and feedback

Concentration on the task at hand

Paradox of control

Loss of self consciousness

Time seems to ‘warp’

Experience becomes an end in itself

Summary of Flow

• Challenging activity that requires skill• Merging of action and awareness• Clear goals and feedback• Concentration on task at hand• Paradox of control• Loss of self consciousness• Time seems to warp• Experience becomes an end in itself

Why games don’t fit in traditional classrooms…

Why games don’t fit in traditional classrooms…

EASILY

not for teaching

Play is for Learning

Play is voluntary

Limited ability to set goals and direction

Learn through failure

Players will have a wide variety of emotional states

Encode meaning in gameplay

Need to be willing to let go of the reins

Directions to Explore

Play

games

Design

games

Creating games is NOT about

• Programming

• Art• Music and sound

• Content

• Technology

• Need good programmers• Need good artists• Need good audio

engineers• Need to understand the

content deeply• Need to understand all

aspects of your delivery technology

Come do a Game Jam

with us

Thank you!

bcrosbie@rci.rutgers.edu

Rvcc.crosbie@gmail.com

Twitter: @bcrosbie

Summary of Flow

Seven Ways to Design for Play

• Choose appropriate problems • Process, not content• Design for multiple tries and play styles• Open-ended systems• Change your evaluation metric• Iterative design process and testing• Don’t marry your technology