Scott Nelson's blog

Game Controllers and Course Design

Scott Nelson — Tue, 26 Feb 2013 20:21:56 +0000

Author:

Scott Nelson

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Scott Nelson, 2013, CC BY-NC-SA

So, I've been thinking this week about controllers and controls. The Playstation 4 controller was announced, and there are some significant changes in the design that speak to the changing nature of gaming in general. The new controller has a touch screen and a color-coded light bar to identify different players. Most significant to this post, though, is the missing 'Select' and 'Start' buttons. Since the 1980s, these buttons have been standard on most game controllers, and Sony's decision to replace them with the 'Share' and 'Options' button signals a shift in video games' focus. Gamers have definitely noticed this seemingly small shift, with some making video tributes to the lost buttons.

The earliest computer games were somewhat solitary affairs -- a single human player competed against the computer. Later, with Tennis for Two, two human players could go head-to-head. Competitions in the arcade era focused on beating a high score set by another player at another time. Players had to be in physical proximity to one another to share a game. In the 1970s, though, that changed with the advent of online games where multiple players could compete simultaneously.

However, even through these changes, the basic controller signaled a particular interface with the machine. The relationship between the player and the game was highlighted. You could select from certain options and start the game. Sony's redesign shifts that relationship to one among a community of gamers. With a quick press of a standard button, gamers can share their experience with others through short screencaptures and broadcasts.

So what does this have to do with pedagogy? More than you'd initially think. My particular preferences as a gamer got me thinking about this shift and the design considerations that will surely follow. While pedagogues may not focus on these considerations, video game designers have made it a focus of significant study. Damien Schubert -- the lead designer of the Massively Multiplayer Online Role-Playing Game Star Wars: The Old Republic -- made it the focus of his 2011 Game Developer's Conference presentation. In designing for a game genre that by definition brings many people together, how can we still make space for the "lone wolves"?

At least in gaming, I happen to be one of those loners. I have a handful of Playstation Network friends who never hear from me, as I prefer to game alone. And I think World of Warcraft is boring. There, I said it. I'm sure other gamers will say that WoW really gets good after you begin raiding with others, but I just don't prefer that kind of experience. And game designers know that there's enough people similar to me that they should design with us in mind.

The same can be said for our classrooms. Digital Media production invites collaboration, as it can be too complex for a single student's workload. However, not all students thrive with those constraints. We should be careful to nudge students outside of their comfort zones, but also be mindful of the lone wolves out there. Not all students' careers will require them to collaborate often, and some web technologies are allowing us to work together, yet separately.

One way I mitigate these different learning styles is to design unit projects with options -- students can opt for simpler, individual projects, or for more complex group projects. The pull of the larger projects tends to be their "wow" factor. Some students would just prefer to make a video over a static image.

The other way is with something I call "Nelsonslist" (after the classifieds site Craigslist). I ask students to post on the course wiki a brief introduction to both their current digital media skills and skills they'd like to pick up. Students are then invited to network with others of similar interests. Over three years, it's worked quite well. Some students form affinity groups while others express their desire to work alone.

Though Web 2.0 technologies encourage us to share more and more of ourselves online, we can't assume all who participate in these communities enjoy posting their meals, high scores, and random thoughts. Lurkers make up an important part of those ecosystems, and we'd do well to keep them in mind when designing assignments.

In Defense of Winging It

Scott Nelson — Mon, 12 Nov 2012 02:55:09 +0000

Author:

Scott Nelson

Image Credit:

Scott Nelson, 2012, CC BY-SA

So far this semester, my best lesson plan wasn’t planned. In fact, it was purposely left vague and unformed just to see what would evolve. And with digital media, I would argue, these unplanned moments can be where the most instruction can occur.

This semester, I’m teaching Literature & Video Games, a literature course that compares the two media and the narrative experiences they provide. Students have already practiced close reading of both video games and literature, with individual students choosing their own analytical stances. Up until recently, I gave students a fair amount of structure for each assignment, with detailed instructions for completing close readings and analyses. Their latest assignment, however, was a straightforward, yet vague charge: create an eBook.

While writing about video games and pedagogy has seen an explosion over the past ten years or so, the field is relatively sparse when it comes to writing about the connection between literature and video games. I saw this dearth of materials as a prime opportunity to have students create a meaningful resource for others in the field. I also felt it was a great opportunity to explore a relatively new medium. Though eBooks are in many ways similar to webpages, they come with different audience expectations. For one, webpages have an implied responsibility to be updated regularly, while eBooks are more similar to their print cousins: they are updated through editions if ever at all. A resource like an eBook on literature and video games could provide a snapshot of a rapidly evolving discipline.

More importantly, though, this experiment performs a similar function to the artifacts it studies; it asks students to explore and play. Much like a video game, approaching a new medium is full of ludic moments of testing the limits and seeing how they respond. Because eBooks are relatively new, their conventions are not as firmly set as older media. Should they be thought of as more like books, with static content (like I indicate in the previous paragraph)? Should they use more dynamic interface metaphors like those of film and video games? Are they just a convenient way to experience text, or should they provide more interactive experiences?

All of these questions (and more) came out in the unplanned lesson. I merely told students that they would need to create an eBook on literature and video games, and it should be completed by the end of the semester. While some of the more structured lessons this semester have evoked lukewarm responses from students, this lesson had them engaged in a process of creativity and play. Students formed committees for producing the eBook, ranging from page layout to copyediting to copyrights to party planning (of course, they needed refreshments for their studio days). Students researched file types and programs for eBook production, venues for housing their publication, and issues surrounding copyright. Each student will be responsible for a chapter, but all will be responsible for producing a quality product.

We have an excellent resource at the Digital Writing and Research Lab for lesson plans. Innovative assistant instructors experiment with new programs or new approaches to older tools, and because of their efforts, we have amassed an invaluable resource. However, there are some aspects of pedagogy that don’t fit so easily inside a lesson plan. Maybe more significant than plans or lack thereof, teaching seems to require a flexible attitude, a willingness to deviate from the script and react to where the experience takes the class. And digital media, in particular, demands such an approach. Technology seems to delight in derailing the best-laid plans, but it also provides a responsive playground to test emergent hypotheses. The more I teach, the more I see my role as creating an environment where these emergent behaviors can evolve, and getting out of that evolution’s way.

Prototyping Procedural Rhetoric

Scott Nelson — Tue, 14 Aug 2012 02:13:20 +0000

Author:

Scott Nelson

Image Credit:

Scott Nelson's RHE 309K Students

For the final project in my RHE 309K: The Rhetoric of Video Games class, I had students work in groups to develop a game concept that uses procedural rhetoric to argue a thesis. The lesson plan can be found here, but the gist is they write a classical argument on a topic of their choice, and then present both why their thesis is the preferred position and how a video game arguing this position would work. I encouraged them to use use various multimedia authoring tools for their presentations, but was still surprised by the innovation and quality of the multimedia they created. Since there were only four groups total, I'll run through their basic ideas for the games.

Mix

Mix is a game about broken copyright laws and the stifling of art. The group decided on a puzzle metaphor for the game, on where the individual pieces represent other artists' work. What I found particularly innovative abut their game design was that each boss battle corresponded to a different part of the four-part test for fair use. The player actually fights fair use concepts, but later these concepts come back on the side of the player to defeat record companies.

Children of the Future and the Laptops of Doom

CFLD argues to students about the overuse of laptops in college classrooms. What I found particularly innovaive with their approach was to have a set of minigames dealing with attention and respect for the instructor. All of the minigames' win states point to the overarching thesis that using laptops in the classroom is detrimental to students' learning.The above screenshot is from the first minigame, and highlights the difficulty in processing information from simultaneous, varied sources.

Overparenting Mama

As the title suggests, this game is about overparenting, often called "helicopter parenting." Aside from the obvious visual rhetoric of a hovering mother, this game uses a unique point system to argue that letting kids fail is ultimately good for them.

War on the Homefront

War on the Homefront argues against the military's Individual Ready Reserve policies of extending contracts beyond the three years mandatory service. The group argued that similar to the "backdoor draft" of stop-loss policies, the IRR disturbs veterans' civilian life and unethically asks more of men and women who have already served their country. The innovation in this group stemed from their decision to use Little Big Planet as a presentation platform. The above screenshot shows Sackboy literally drowning in statistics about PTSD and tours of duty.

These screenshots don't really do justice to the robust nature of the students' presentations, as each group created a multitude of digital media to supplement their arguments. Some of the presentations contained the usual PowerPoint, but some used static images, video, and even working prototypes of the game using Game Salad or the Unreal Engine. In creating procedural rhetoric, the students pushed themselves outside normal conception of argument creation and used new media in novel ways. I'll be submitting all of their projects to TheJUMP, where hopefully they can be published at a later date.