Historically, ARIS Summits have been an incredible time of connecting with other educators, researchers and designers as well as the team that makes ARIS tick. During the action-packed day you will hear about where ARIS is going, hear stories from other ARIS educators and partake in workshops to power up what you are able to do yourself.
Collectible card games and its sub-genres are popular among both children and adults.
Their educational aspects have attracted attention from education community. These
games are not only engaging and social, but also encourage players to strategize,
communicate and make estimates. Some players spend endless hours designing, testing,
and refining decks. Others are constantly trying to complete and perfect their collections.
Yet others enjoy the camaraderie of the community, as well as mentor and mentee
relations. Some of these activities are useful in themselves, exercising logic and critical
reasoning. Others seem ripe for adaptation to an informal learning environment. In spite
of this, very few educational CCGs have been made. We imagine this workshop will
spark audience members’ interest to pursue design and development of such games.
We will first present some background on the topic of collectible card games (CCGs) and
its sub-genres. We will familiarize the audience with the educations aspects of these
games, and common pitfalls to avoid. For the majority of the remaining time, we will
collaborate and guide audience to make an educational CCG. During this process we will
give examples of successful CCGs, and discuss their design characteristics. We will
move on to a brainstorming session, followed by a division into smaller groups for design
work. Groups will then come back together to test the games. Time allowing, the division
and collective testing cycle will be run at least twice. We will conclude with parting
thoughts for how the game can transition to the digital realm: what mechanics and
dynamics would need modification without a tangible element, and possible mechanics
that could benefit from a lack of tangibility.
In this workshop we will explore how to use free digital games such as Fort McMoney and Inside the Haiti Earthquake to engage students in the social, political, economic and environmental issues related to complex topics such as oil development projects, disaster relief, and climate change. For example, the game Fort McMoney weaves in documentary footage as players take on the role of a reporter writing a story on the boomtown Fort McMurray and the adjacent oil sands development project in Alberta, Canada (www.fortmcmoney.com). Workshop participants will experience the games firsthand through guided gameplay and will contribute to a discussion about how to use the games effectively in the classroom in a variety of subject areas and grade levels (free student activities will also be provided). Please bring your own device and headphones - the games are compatible with Windows, Mac and Chromebook devices (Fort McMoney can also be played as an App on iOS). For more information please go to www.changegamer.ca.Bio:
Mike Farley has been teaching middle and high school Geography and Social Studies for 14 years in the Toronto District School Board and currently at University of Toronto Schools. He has been using digital games with his classes for over 10 years, and in 2013 founded ChangeGamer, an organization comprised of teachers and academics who are passionate about game-based learning (www.changegamer.ca). In 2014, the Royal Canadian Geographical Society (RCGS) presented Mike with the 'Innovation in Geography Teaching' award, the highest honor for Geography teaching in Canada.
Research shows that digital games are an ideal vehicle to engage students and help
teachers assess more frequently and more effectively. Embedded assessments
immersed in games gives teachers actionable data and promote feedback.
Additionally, students are motivated by game reports that provide greater
understanding of challenges and successes.
But for learning games to live up to this promise, a few key questions must be asked.
What are the design features that educational game developers think about when
integrating assessments? What is valuable information for both the student and the
teacher? How do you prove mastery? These questions, along with a new study from
the A-GAMES Project, will be discussed with Classroom, Inc. and BrainPOP—two
organizations designing, developing, and distributing learning games. Participants
will examine Classroom, Inc.’s literacy-based digital learning games and BrainPOP’s
game-based assessment tools including SnapThought and Sortify.
Both of these organizations were involved in the research study from the A-GAMES
Project, which includes useful findings for game developers, researchers studying
the impact of learning games, and educators who can learn about integrating games
into the classroom. Leveraging the expertise of these two organizations, along with
the new research, this hands-on workshop will focus on building a student-centered
approach to learning through effective use of formative assessments found in
learning games.
Overview of Workshop Procedure & Format
Classroom, Inc. and BrainPOP will first present on how games are designed the
teacher in mind—from alignment with rigorous standards to reinforcing
lessons—as well as with the student in mind by seamlessly weaving assessments
into game experiences and providing feedback.
As a group, attendees will play the digital games, examine data from a sample class
in an online teacher dashboard, and formulate next instructional steps. During the
session, we will brainstorm the conversations that this data can spur between
teacher and student. Participants will discuss how daily classroom demands can be
addressed using game-based learning, as well as potential barriers that might exist
and how to overcome those barriers. Using the case studies from the A-GAMES
Project, BrainPOP and Classroom, Inc. will facilitate the discussion noting the major
findings and engaging participants on their own feedback after exploring the games.
In this workshop, our team of professional game designers and researchers will help in-service educators review and reflect on the role of storytelling in both education generally and game-based instruction specifically. We will begin with a workshop-wide, reflective exercise during which participants will share the personal stories they most value from their time spent in and out of the classroom (10-15 minutes). This will segue into a discussion about the way stories have been told and used historically as well as what they represent with respect to creating a “time for telling” (10-15 minutes).
The facilitators will then have participants split into three rotating subgroups given the opportunity to play three different educational games: a card debate and language learning game, a text-based roleplaying game, and an educational gaming experience grounded in a virtual world. Participants will have approximately 15-20 minutes to explore each game with facilitation provided by one of the three workshop leaders. Once the full rotation is complete (approx. 45-60 minutes), the larger group will rejoin to discuss the storytelling opportunities afforded by each game experience and how—even without modifying their instruction—teachers might think differently about the type and quality of stories emergent in their individual classrooms (15-20 minutes). The final 10-15 minutes will be dedicated to answering questions about the topics covered during the workshop, game design/instruction, and contemporary games research.
While we strongly believe that narrative, game-based lesson design is worth adopting, we recognize that the likelihood of a teacher modifying their instructional approach based on a single workshop is quite low. That is what makes this proposed experience different: rather than sidelining the pedagogical techniques teachers are already comfortable with, it repositions them in a way that allows skilled teachers to continue doing what they do best while acknowledging new, researched perspectives on how the notion of storytelling can inform best practice—an immediately actionable outcome.
This panel presentation will consist of a collection of Wisconsin educational innovators using games and digital media to engage students and enhance learning. Hear their stories, learn from their dynamic examples and participate in lively discussion!
A Movable Game Jam is a model for helping youth develop higher order thinking and creation skills through the process of game design. The model was collaboratively developed by 12 organization in the NYC Hive Learning Network. The model is specifically designed as a one-off, 3.5 hour after-school activity. The model is also scaffolded by a live document of best practices (bit.ly/GameJamGuide) and a community of educators dedicated to contributing their knowledge to that document. We have currently run 7 Movable Game Jams, reaching over 200 youth and sharing 22 unique activities in the Game Jam Guide. We are actively trying to spread the model to more cities and expand the community of Movable Game Jam educators.
A Movable Game Jam event has three parts: an introductory activity to the principles of game design, an open design period, and a shareout. The majority of the event is spent in the open design period in which four stations are set up, each featuring an organization running a game design activity. Each station involves creating or hacking some aspect of a game, and can be completed in an hour. Every aspect of the event is “movable”- each time the event is run, it is at a different host organization, with different stations run by different organizations featuring different activities and/or game authoring tools.
This workshop has two goals: familiarize participants with the Movable Game Jam model, and empower and inspire them to run Movable Game Jams in their own cities. To accomplish this, our workshop lets participants experience a mini game jam. Participants will be briefly introduced to the presenters and the Movable Game Jam model (15 min). Participants will then experience a mini game jam, first by doing an introductory activity to the principles of game design (45 min), and then by engaging in three sample stations that feature game design activities from the Game Jam Guide (40 minutes). The last 20 minutes will be a debrief, introducing the Game Jam Guide and the professional development benefits to educators in running this model, and opening the floor for questions.
The Movable Game Jam is intended to be a highly collaborative model, and thus this workshop will offer something for almost anyone interested in game design as an educational tool. Schools or community organizations can act as host for these events, and educators, graduate students, faculty, and/or game designers can act as facilitators for particular stations. The event works best when collaboratively run by facilitators with very different backgrounds, so that the facilitators learn as much from working with each other as students learn from the facilitators. Depending on their level of expertise in game design education, the facilitators can use existing activities from the Game Jam Guide or develop their own activities from their favorite game design tools.
Phylo (http://phylogame.org) is a project that began as a reaction to the following nugget of information: Kids know more about Pokemon creatures than they do about real creatures. Phylo is also: (1) a card game that makes use of the wonderful, complex, and inspiring things that inform the notion of biodiversity; (2) an exercise in crowd sourcing, open access, and open game development; and (3) a tool that enables easy generation of classroom biodiversity decks.
This hands-on workshop will introduce participants to this online resource, and will also provide teacher access accounts so that they can learn how to use this tool in their own classrooms. This includes a guided step by step tour on the nuances and logistics of creating classroom DIY decks that will be playable and expandable with the rest of the Phylo system. By the end of the workshop, we hope that the collective efforts of the group will have created a beta deck!
0:00 - 0:10: Introduction to the projectHigher Education Participants are welcome.
Participants should come with a laptop or tablet device with online access.
Participants will receive account access to the Phylo project website so that they can continue using it in their own settings/classrooms.
How can you leverage the excitement, joy, and learning fostered in the commercial games kids play in their free time? How can at-home games be used in school? Join this workshop to explore how we can connect kids’ love of commercial games traditionally not considered “educational.”
Participants explore three games for kids covering topics ranging from grades 6-12: Journey, FTL: Faster than Light, and Little Big Planet 2. Through deep dive case studies and hands-on exploration, participants identify ways they can utilize commercial games with students, blurring the line of home/school, commercial/educational, and leisure/learning.
A 2014 national study on teaching with digital games (Takeuchi & Vaala) reveals that, of 694 K-8 teachers surveyed, 26% don’t use digital games with students, and just 8% of “game-using teachers” say their students play commercial games adapted for educational use. When they do, only 25% of the time are they used to teach students, and 20% to practice material already learned. The authors ask the question, “Why aren’t K-8 teachers using games created for general audiences?”
This workshop will address these issues related to commercial games and learning, exploring with teachers how they can integrate popular games into their curriculum. Starting with a straightforward goal to reach the distant mountain peak, Journey explores complex concepts like life, death, and partnership, weaving them into a metaphor which can translate to ELA, character education, and social studies units. FTL: Faster Than Light is a strategic role-playing game where players control a ship and crew. A challenging game, with fiery wrecks more likely than successes, it builds problem solving skills around failure, re-evaluation, decision-making, and interdependence of systems, many skills valuable in STEM learning. Little Big Planet 2 combines creativity, physics and Rube Goldberg-esque components, and a creative community, making it great for maker environments and STEAM.
Participants will: Explain the benefits and challenges of using commercial games in educational settings. Identify ways to integrate popular games, including Journey, FTL: Faster Than Light, and Little Big Planet 2, or other commercial games, into specific lessons or curriculum units, helping to achieve learning objectives around STEAM, ELA, and social studies. Create a Lesson Flow, a tech-rich lesson plan that integrates games to support learning objectives.
This project seeks to marry theories of situated cognition to the big data movement by connecting clickstream data from technologies in isolation to key forms of multimodal data available from their contexts of use. Using a data corpus gathered from a five-day game-based implementation of the STEM game Virulent (targeting cellular biology) during an event called Game-A-Palooza, we are combining multiple analytic strategies commonly considered incommensurate: educational data mining, learning analytics, qualitative coding, quantification of qualitative coding, discourse analysis, natural language processing, and standard classroom assessments such as pre-/posttest measures and attitudinal surveys. Data include clickstream telemetry data, individual and group discourse, individual and curricular artifacts, classroom assessments, and online forum postings. In this presentation, we review the project goals and preliminary findings from the study, highlighting not just the progress we’ve made but also the significant challenges to this work. We discuss the benefits and drawbacks to analysis across heterogeneous data sets and our current attempts to better situate telemetric analyses and thereby provide more complete model for big data analysis, one that includes both talk and play data equally or, where not possible, identify find its limitations so that future “data rich” attempts on learning might be better informed by the limitations of technology-rich but talk-poor data sets.
Designing Tenacity
Mike Beall, John Binzak, Craig Anderson, Lauren Wielgus, David Azari, Jennifer Dalson, Kurt Squire, Constance Steinkuehler
The Tenacity project is a collaboration between meditation experts and neuroscientists at the Center for Investigating Healthy Minds (Richard Davidson, Director) and game designers and learning scientists at the Games+Learning+Society Center (Constance Steinkuehler and Kurt Squire, Directors). Our goal was to facilitate and support the practice of mindfulness through a digital application and ultimately research the behavioral and neural effects. The nature of this interdisciplinary work is exciting and groundbreaking, but creating an engaging experience that stays true to the practice of meditation comes with its own challenges. Unlike most games and digital applications, the goal of meditation is not easily mapped to standard “win” states common to games. Practicing mindfulness is, in a way, somewhat orthogonal to the idea of earning a high score, beating a boss monster, or obtaining some rare drop. Rather, the goal here is to let go of the win state itself and instead become more self-aware and thus master not the game system but your own mind. Standard design elements that make a game engaging were, over repeated iteration in this project, reined in or stripped out entirely so as to stay true to the main “verb” within the game – self-regulation of one’s attention rather than seduction by a well-designed and “sticky” digital stimulus. Once our builds reached the hands of our adolescent participants, however, engagement was sorely lacking. Even when we reframed the builds as “gamified apps” with an achievement system but no core game mechanics per se, our target audience of teen- and tween-agers wanted something more recognizable, engaging, and sticky. In this Worked Example, we discuss our game design and redesigns in terms of telemetry data extracted from kleenex tests and a two-week experimental trial, the questions and conclusions we have now about this effort, and how we’ve shifted not only graphics and game mechanics but core audience.
This worked example describes the evolution of game design from multiple perspectives (learning, assessment, and engagement). Using the description of one design problem, it illustrates the push and pull among the perspectives, and a situation where they come to similar conclusions for different reasons.
Coffee: A Misunderstanding is an interactive play created as part of Squinky Kiai’s MFA thesis work. The way the game works is that two audience volunteers are called up and asked to read from a mobile device, which dynamically displays dialogue lines and stage directions. Meanwhile, two additional audience volunteers are given a mobile device on which they can select from a menu of choices that appear at key decision points in the story. It’s a combination of multiplayer Choose Your Own Adventure and improv theatre, resulting in a play experience that’s every bit as awkward as the story it’s trying to tell.
Working in the White House is a unique experience that affords many lessons – in politics and bureaucracy of course, but also in technology innovation and its role in the national policy conversation, building partnerships on someone else’s budget, the roles of broadcasting and convening in moving agendas along, and where to find a good sandwich late night on Pennsylvania Avenue. Working as the so-called national “fun czar,” however, is singular indeed. Viewing the overall landscape or ecosystem of games for impact at the national level from the White House point of view yields a person real insight into who the major players are, what their value propositions happen to be, what missed opportunities lie hidden still waiting to be exploited, and where the barriers and frictions within the ecosystem lie. This fireside chat will be a post-mortem discussion between Constance Steinkuehler and Mark DeLoura, two former senior policy analysts in the White House Office of Science and Technology Policy who were hired to advise on games for impact at the national level, on the state of play in games for learning and society. We will candidly discuss our individual and shared insights into this growing sector in plain terms, getting beyond the hype, hoopla, and talking points.
We apply this theoretical framework to a one year PL program, in cooperation with a mid-sized rural school district. We report the design justification for: 1) ‘Just-in-time’ training/support services; 2) an intentional-informal communities of practice; 3) teacher prompted mini-workshops; 4) an online web resource; and 5) data-driven PL evaluation. Mixed method findings indicate PL is significantly more effective at teacher appropriation of ideas, positive teacher efficacy, and is scalable within existing resources and budgets.
In our current prototype, the students begin in a classical world that is governed by laws found in our everyday experiences. Here, they encounter potential and kinetic energies, the conservation of energy, the predictability of position, and the continuous nature of energies allowed. They later move into a nanoscale environment in which energies are quantized, electrons can tunnel through potential barriers, and only probabilities are known. The juxtaposition of these two worlds enables students to compare classical and quantum mechanics.
In this moderated panel session, GBL designers and researchers from across the country will strategically discuss issues of player goal emergence, complex player-game-environment interactions, and how games/game mechanics can and should be leveraged across education during the next decade. It is our hope that it will be a great first step toward finding our GBL princess in the right Koopa-guarded castle.
Crooked County‘s lineup is unusual, but it’s one that works for the band’s outlaw, rough-and-ready style. Rather than having just one drummer within its ranks, the group’s hard-driving sound is backed by a pair of them, and lead vocals are contributed by three members. Toby Purnell and Kurt Squire co-founded Crooked County in 1998 in Bloomington, IN. Purnell can be found on vocals, mandolin, and electric guitar, while Squire plays harmonica. The pair met earlier in the decade when they both played with the Indiana bands Big Mule, Preacher Preacher, and the Mary Janes. Drawing inspiration from Bill Monroe‘s bluegrass music and Willie Nelson’s country sound, they decided to strike out on their own as Crooked County. The band also includes Jason Purnell, Toby Purnell’s brother, on acoustic guitar. Merrie Sloan contributes vocals, bass, and guitar, while Josh Bennett adds vocals and bass. The dual drummers are Travis Olsson and Mark Minnick. Shortly after establishing Crooked County, Squire and Toby Purnell began working on Whiskey Burns, the group’s 1999 self-released debut. The album featured Jeff Farias on bass. Soon the band added Bennett, Jason Purnell, and Minnick for live gigs throughout the Midwest and Southwest. Farias moved on, settling in Phoenix, AZ, and eventually asking Crooked County to record for his company, Rustic Records. The label issued the band’s second release, Drunkard’s Lament. Like Toby Purnell and Squire, drummer Minnick also spent time in the Mary Janes. Toby Purnell also played previously with a group known as Ma and Pa Kegle, where he first met Sloan. Drummer Olsson devotes time to a punk group named the Opposition.
Check out their music on SoundCloud.
