David – Page 8 – Play Make Write Think

Week Ahead: 2

January 20, 2020 David David's Posts

1/21

“The Landlord’s Game” 99% Invisible podcast

“What exactly is a game?” from Reality is Broken: Why Games Make Us Better and How They Can Change the World by Jane McGonigal

1/23

“Introduction” from Superbetter: The Power of Living Gamefully by Jane McGonigal

Play Depression Quest

1/26

Side Quest 2: What’s in your bag?

Before class on Tuesday, you should listen to the episode of 99% Invisible about the game Monopoly and read the chapter by Jane McGonigal that begins our theoretical discussion of what a game is and why they are powerful learning tools. We’ll spend most of class on Tuesday discussing and analyzing these two texts. As you listen to “The Landlord’s Game,” you should also pay attention to how the podcast episode is structured and listen for what they do to make a compelling podcast.

In Thursday’s class, we’ll read the beginning of the book Superbetter, also by McGonigal. We’ll talk about her insights into Post-Traumatic Growth in class. You should also play the online text game Depression Quest. Be prepared to discuss both your experiences playing the game and your sense of the game’s rhetorical situation — especially what are its purpose, audience(s), and genre. How is the game structured in order to achieve its purpose?

Over the weekend complete the second Side Quest, which is another kind of self-portrait, like the avatar. This time you’ll create a self-portrait by showing us what’s in your bag.

Gris on sale

January 17, 2020 David David's Posts

Gris is on sale at Gog for 50% off right now so it’s only $8.50. Sale ends on January 20.

I never said this to you, but Gog games are DRM free, so theoretically one of you could buy it and share it with your classmates and split the cost, if you are okay with doing that.

Side Quest 2: What’s in Your Bag?

January 16, 2020 David Side Quests

Due: 1/26

Tag: sq2

Find a relatively large empty space. Take your backpack, messenger bag, or whatever sort of bag you carry around with you regularly, empty all the contents out, and arrange them carefully so that they represent a visual snapshot of the stuff you tote around with you on a normal day. Then take a clear photo showing your bag and the stuff and upload it to your site.

Note that like the avatar or the literacy narrative, this too is a type of autobiographical composition. If you have something in your bag that is private, embarrassing, or for some other reason you don’t want it in the picture then make the editorial decision not to include it. Or vice versa: if you would like to assume a certain kind of persona then you might consider including items in your catalog that might be less than fully true.

Add some text to your post listing the items represented in your photo, preferably adding in a bit of explanatory and/or funny commentary along the way. This can be a paragraph of text or a list or whatever format seems most appropriate for you. When these sorts of posts are done by publications, like say The Verge or Timbuk2, they are often not so subtle efforts at product placement but for our purposes there is no reason for you to engage in such advertising games.

Along with the photo and your description of the items, include a paragraph reflecting on what it was like to craft a self-portrait through this photograph. How actually representative is this image of you as a person? What sorts of choices did you make in order to create the image? What was challenging about this assignment? Is representing yourself in a catalog of the stuff in your bag a type of writing? Why or why not?

Side Quest 1: Avatar

January 14, 2020 David Side Quests

Due: 1/19

Tag: sq1

Objectives:

Very basic photo editing
Introduction to the concept of Creative Commons
Uploading and publishing to your new WordPress site
Visual images as representations of complex conceptual topics

Avatar

Once you’ve created your web site, you need an image to represent yourself and/or your site for the class: an avatar. Your avatar can be whatever you want it be but try to create something that both reflects your personality and speaks to the topic for this class in some way.

Start by choosing one or more of your own photos as the basis of the avatar, drawing something yourself and scanning it, or finding one or more CC-licensed images on Flickr that you can modify. Make certain to keep a note for yourself of the URL for the photos you use if they are not your own.

Crop and otherwise edit the photo(s) in a photo editing application (like Photoshop or PicMonkey or Pixlr). You can create a layered or collage effect, if you’d like. Add your name on your badge in such a way that it’s legible — it can be your full name, just your first name, or the nickname you want to be called this semester.

Your final badge should be square and at least 512 pixels wide and high. Please make certain your badge is square so that it will fit into the design on the student sites page.

Publish

When you’re done, you’ll need to put the image two places, with an optional third:

First

Load the badge into your Media Library and publish it to your site in a blog post. (If adding it as a feature image means that the entire square image won’t display, then also insert the image into the post itself.)

Include information and links in the post about the source(s) for images included in your badge.

Write a paragraph or two about why you chose those images, what aspects of yourself and your interests are represented in your badge, and/or what difficulties you faced in creating the badge.

Please tag your post with the tag “sq1,” plus with any additional tags that you think are appropriate.

Second

Go into your dashboard to Appearance > Customize > Site Identity. Load the image as your site icon.

Finally

If you do not already have a gravatar, create a gravatar account and load your avatar there. From then on, your avatar will show up as your picture when you leave comments here and on other students’ sites.

Welcome to Play Make Write Think

January 13, 2020 David David's Posts

I look forward to working with you this semester.

Your homework to complete before we meet again on Thursday, January 16:

Read over this website very carefully as it constitutes the syllabus for this course. Note that the Syllabus page includes a number of subpages, covering such topics as: how to contact me; the course learning outcomes; the texts you need; attendance, participation, and other policies; and how you will be graded. There is also a calendar of readings and assignments; and posts describing the major assignments (podcast episodes, Fiasco role-playing game, and creating a game and designing a Kickstarter-style proposal for its further development) and minor assignments this semester.
Add this site to your bookmarks. Make certain that you can find your way back here, because you’ll be spending a lot of time visiting these pages over the course of this semester.
Respond to this simple survey so I can get some basic contact information and get to know you a little bit better.
Sign up for a basic, free WordPress site. (See further information below about choosing a name for your site.) Note: If you already own a domain and server space, come talk to me to determine whether you can use that instead of creating a site on WordPress.com.
Leave a comment on this post asking a question about the syllabus. Put the URL for the WordPress site you created in the “website” line on the comment form. If you want to receive an email every time a new post goes up on this site, check the “Subscribe to site” box before you submit your comment.
Reply to this survey form, which both asks some basic information I’ll need in order to manage communications with you and also asks some questions that will help me get to know you a little bit better.
Read Andrea Lunsford, “Rhetorical Situations” and “Reading Rhetorically” from Everyone’s an Author. Note that link will take you to the PDF that I’ve uploaded to our electronic course reserves, so you will need to login with your Emory netid and password to access the document.

A little more on naming your WordPress site

You can choose a URL based on some version of your name (i.e., janestudent.wordpress.com or johndoe.wordpress.com) if you’d like. Using a version of your name has the advantage that you will be building a digital identity on the web based on your name, which can be really helpful. On the other hand, it also means that this site that you’re building will likely come up near the top of web searches for your name, so consider whether that is something you would like.

If you don’t want to publish your coursework on a site with a version of your name, you can also use some sort of pseudonym for your domain name.

It is also perfectly acceptable for your domain name to be a short word or phrase that is easy to remember and spell, and which speaks to some interest of yours or an aspect of your character (for example: my friend Audrey Watters, a noted educational technology scholar and researcher publishes a site called hackeducation.com; Tanine Allison, a professor of Media Studies here at Emory who just published her first book entitled Destructive Sublime: World War II in American Media, uses destructivesublime.com as her domain name; or one of my favorite art and design blogs is called thisiscolossal.com). If you’re going to choose a title or phrase as your domain name, make sure you think about it very carefully so you don’t show up on one of those lists of the most unfortunate domain names ever, like the design firm called Speed of Art that ended up with a domain name that sounds like it’s about flatulence in a swimsuit. Note that in the case of your site, you’ll be publishing a page that’s a subdomain of WordPress.com, so if Audrey Watters were in this class her site might be called hackeducation.wordpress.com.

Kickstarter Proposal for Empathy Game

January 13, 2020 David Quests

Your group will design a game that aims to make the Emory community better. Then you will create a Kickstarter-style proposal for your game, in which you explain the problem that you have identified, the strategies your game will employ to alleviate that problem, and why this game is a worthwhile intervention that should be developed further.

Fiasco

January 13, 2020 David Quests

In groups of 3-5 players, you will play the role-playing game Fiasco. Each of you will receive an email assigning you to a group based on the times you told me you were available to play. You’ll need to find a place where you can meet and play where you can be sitting around a table together.

As your Fiasco group plays, make notes about which playset you chose, the setup information, the dice rolls for Tilt and the Tilt details chosen, and the rolls for the Aftermath and the result from the Aftermath table. This information will help you to reflect on the game session.

Reflection Essay

Length: 500-750 words

Due: 3/3

Then after the game is completed, each of you should write your own Fiasco reflection posts, in the form of an essay with complete paragraphs, not as a list of bullet point answers (500 – 750 words total). I’ve divided up the questions below along two lines, but structure your essay however is best for your argument. Your essay does not need to start with part 1 and then move to part 2. Ultimately, your reflection essay should be an argument where you explicate what you observed in the process, rather than a narrative.

As you reflect on playing Fiasco, I want you to think about the game session itself as a kind of writing while also thinking about the reflection on the experience as a writing exercise. In other words, for this assignment the primary text that you composed is the Fiasco game session and now you’re writing a reflective essay about that writing. Think about and explain in your essay how the game session itself and the reflection you are writing about it bring you to fulfilling the learning objectives for this course.

Note that there are way too many questions below for you to address all of them. You should read over all of them and spend some time thinking about each, then choose to specifically address the ones that will lead to the most thoughtful reflective essay.

Describe the Experience

Without just recounting the narrative in briefer form, describe what the game session was like. Identify some of the key choices that you made (for example, you should definitely indicate which playset you chose and identify the relationships you defined with the two players to left and right, at least) and give a sense of the type of story that you created with the other players in your group. Instead of retelling the story that your group wrote collectively, step back and consider the shape of that story and describe it:

What sort of story did you tell?
What sort of characters and conflicts did it contain?
How did the plot unfold?
What sorts of narrative moves did you all make together?
How did your Aftermath montage play out?
Are you proud of the Fiasco story that you crafted?
How was the experience of playing a tabletop RPG similar to, or different from, playing a video game RPG?

As you describe the experience, you should also explain your own feelings and choices during the process:

How did you feel at the start?
What were you expecting and were you surprised by aspects of the game session?
What sorts of roles did you individually take on during the game session?
Were there certain times when you were more active or more forceful versus other times when you sat back and invited others to drive the plot forward?
Did you take on particular roles during game play (were you the one always turning the story towards comedy? or the one always bringing darker elements in? were you the one keeping the group focused on moving the plot forward or always pulling off towards digressions? were you consistently narrowing or broadening focus?
Were you more interested in role-playing your character directly (acting the part) or in describing scenes from an outside perspective?

Pattern Recognition and Learning Outcomes

In your reflection essay, you should also identify patterns that you noticed in your own behavior and thinking and the story that you created. Identify which of the learning outcomes you fulfilled during the process of game play — name the specific outcomes, while providing at least a sentence or two explaining how this composition speaks to that outcome.

You might also address some of these questions:

Were the strategies, skills and procedures you used effective during gameplay?
Do you see any patterns in how you approached your role in the writing of this story?
How was playing Fiasco similar to or different from the other work you’ve done this semester?
What have you learned about your strengths and areas in need of improvement?
How are you progressing as a learner?
How can you apply the skills you used in crafting this Fiasco story to future writing projects? Where can you use these skills again?
What was the most interesting aspect of writing a Fiasco story?

Games Podcast

January 13, 2020 David Quests

Overview

This semester, we’ll all work together to produce a podcast series about games in which we’ll share our thinking with each other and with listeners outside the class.

Early in the semester, we’ll spend a class period developing a more specific plan for how we want to structure the series, coming up with a title for the whole series, and making some decisions about the process. We will also work together to record an introductory audio segment, which will go at the start of each episode of the podcast, and to design a logo and other visuals for promotion.

Here is the podcast planning document where we'll keep track of the schedule.

Read on for further details so you have a sense of what to expect.

Executive Producer

As instructor for the class, I will be the Executive Producer for the series. In this capacity, it will be my role to consult with the individuals responsible for any given episode, to provide some guidance in order to ensure that each episode maintains the standards of the whole, and to provide feedback on the production.

Producer

Each student in the class will be responsible for serving as Producer for one single episode. The Producer initiates, coordinates, supervises, and controls all aspects of the podcast episode production process, including creative, technological, and administrative. A Producer is involved throughout all phases of production from inception to completion, including coordination, supervision, and control of all other talents and crafts, and publication and promotion of the completed episode.

Assistant Producer

Each student in the class will also serve as the Assistant Producer for one episode. As the title suggests, the Assistant Producer helps the Producer to create a finished episode. The Assistant Producer will come in at the beginning, with initiation of the idea for the episode, and will help to think through how to bring the Producer’s ideas to fruition, including providing assistance with research, storyboarding, recording, and editing. The Producer is ultimately responsible for final decisions and should be the primary coordinator for the entire process, but the Assistant Director should be included as a collaborator in the entire process.

Line Producer

Each student will also serve as a Line Producer for one episode — the creative decision-making process is reserved to the Producer and Assistant Producer but the Line Producer serves to assist them where necessary. The Line Producer probably does not need to be involved in the initial planning and research of the episode, but can come in just before it’s time to record and help with final steps in the process. In your individual teams, you can decide reasonable boundaries around this role, but I’m imagining that the Line Producer can be responsible for technological assistance and overseeing the recording while the two primary producers are in the midst of generating the content for the episode — they can watch sound levels and listen in on headphones while the producers speak to check that the sound quality is good. Probably it’s too much to expect the Line Producer to be the primary editor for the episode, that’s something the primary producers should focus on, but the Line Producer can offer suggestions during the recording and editing process.

The Producer and Assistant Producer will be together as a team for two episodes, taking turns as to who is in charge between them. The Line Producers can rotate however makes sense with regards to availability.

Episode Rules, Structure, and Content

Each episode should be approximately 10-15 minutes in length. Once you deliver your part of the episode to me, I will add the series intro audio bumper, which will be the same for all episodes.

Your production will begin with the audio introduction for your specific episode, which will identify the title of the episode, its primary subject, and name the Producer and Assistant Producer. Then there will be the primary content of the episode itself, and finally a closing segment in which you thank your Line Producer for assisting you, provide credit for anyone else who was involved in the episode (for example, if you interview someone in the episode, make sure to name them in the close), provide the URL for the publication information for the game you’re analyzing, and let listeners know that you’ll provide citations for all of your sources in the episode description.

[More details here about the episode rules, once we decide on them as a class]

Conferences

For each episode, the Producer and Assistant Producer should attempt to schedule a conference with me in advance to brainstorm and discuss ideas and structure. I’m not going to make it an absolute requirement that you meet with me, in case schedules just preclude it, but if we can’t meet in person we have to at least touch base before you start recording. We can meet at whatever stage before recording is most useful for you — if you want to come in as soon as you know what your episode subject is and do initial brainstorming that’s fine, or you could also come in after you’ve done research and are pretty certain what the key aspects of your argument are. The goal of these conferences is for me to be in a collaborative space with you, where I can help identify questions or strategies that might be useful. I’ll also be ensuring that there is some consistency across episodes, so that the series as a whole coheres.

What you’ll need to turn in

Once your episode is completed, you’ll need to send me a finished MP3, including your episode intro, the body, and a close. I’ll add the series introduction and then publish it.

You will also need to provide the following, all of which I’ll publish along with the audio:

A square image that is the cover image for your episode. (Your image should be a creative visual image that represents your episode — please don’t simply copy & paste the logo of the publication you’re analyzing.)
A paragraph that describes your episode — it should both serve as a summary of the episode, covering the questions and issues that you address, and as an invitation that encourages an audience to actually listen to your episode. This writing should be clear, succinct, engaging, and creative.
A list of sources. Any source that you explicitly quote in your episode needs to be included, but you can also include other sources that readers would find useful if after listening they want to do further research on their own. The subject of your episode will probably greatly affect the number of sources you include, but I’d say you should have at least 3 and no more than 10 sources listed.
Image and/or sound credit listing, if applicable.
If you do interview another person in your episode, you will need to have that person sign a media release form and provide the form to me (I won’t publish the form, but I need to have it). Note that the media release form asks the person how they should be identified in the episode — please follow the wishes of the person you interview and use that name in the episode and in the close.

The Producer and Assistant Producer should each also write and publish to their sites a reflective blog post soon after submitting their materials to me.