beyond the page digital storytelling through games
DESCRIPTION
Telling stories through games. Engaging students in digital story telling through designing computer games, transmedia stories and alternate reality games.TRANSCRIPT
Beyond the Page Digital Storytelling through Games
SMART Teachers Conference 2012
See Share Shape the Future
Cathie Howe Macquarie ICT Innovations Centre
Professional Learning & Leadership Coordinator Manager Macquarie ICT Innovations Centre
Who am I?
DEC & non-DEC schools across NSW Students K-12 Teachers K - 12 School Executives
DEC Regional staff University students Academic partners Industry Partners
Our Community
What do you want learning to look like?
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• Higher levels of thinking
• Creative /critical /divergent thinking
• Open-endedness • Group interaction • Variable pacing • Variety of learning • Debriefing • Freedom of choice
• Real problems • Real audiences • Real deadlines • Transformations (rather
than regurgitation) • Appropriate evaluation
• Abstractness • Complexity (inter
relationships) • Variety • Study of people • Study of methods of
inquiry
• Student centred • Independence valued • Agile • Open & accepting • Complex (rich variety of
resources, media, ideas, methods, tasks)
• Physical/virtual
Learning Environment Where students
learn
Content What students
learn
Process Thinking
processes used to learn
Product Result of learning
Maker Model
What could learning look like?
Imagine having our students being so
engaged in a complex, goal orientated
activity, that self-consciousness
disappears and time becomes distorted
and they do it, not for external rewards
but simply for the exhilaration of doing!
“Digital Storytelling is the modern expression of the ancient art of storytelling. Digital stories derive their power by weaving images, music, narrative and voice together, thereby giving deep dimension and vivid color to characters, situations, experiences, and insights.” Leslie Rule Digital Storytelling Association
What is a digital story?
Elements for the creation of classic digital stories:
Point of view
Dramatic Question
Voice
Pacing
Soundtrack
Economy
Emotional Content The challenge… How to get students to display them in their own stories?
Example| Google Chrome
Example | Google Search Stories
Chris Swain Associate Research Professor
“Video games are increasingly recognised as becoming the literacy of the 21st century”
Why use games to tell stories?
A unique platform to address essential skills for learning: • creativity and innovation • critical thinking, • communication, collaboration • iterative problem solving • information, media and ICT literacy
Video Game Facts In Australia:
92% households have a gaming device
95% homes with children <18 have a
gaming device
47% of gamers are female
Average age of video game players is 32
57% of gamers play every day
88% of parents who play games, play with
their children Key Findings DA12 Bond University/iGEA
Video games have more story telling potential than any other medium
Invested in story at a personal level Interactive
Live the experience
Make decisions
Choose own path
Positive Emotions Relationships Meaning Accomplishment
P.E.R.M.A Dr. Martin Seligman
What do we learn when we play, design and build games?
Problem solving skills &
negotiation
Narrative skills & transmedia
navigation
Judgement, analysis & strategic thinking
Communication skills & networking
Non–linear thinking patterns
Improved attention, vision &
cognition
WILL YOU SAVE US?
Where do you start?| Good Game Design
Intuitive play Decision making
World Goal Challenge Story
Player feedback Difficulty curve
The Next Step: Core Loop
Staring Position: New World -what does it look like?
Main Character:
Who am I? Where am I?
Goal: What is the main goal of the game?
What do I have to do to achieve this goal?
Reward: What is the reward
for doing this?
Challenge/ Obstacle
What is stopping me from achieving
my goal?
Solution: How do I overcome
the obstacle?
World Map
Example | Video Game Design
The world under nuclear attack. While humanity has found a way to “upload” itself to a virtual world and launch into space to avoid extinction, one of the creators of this virtual world wasn’t able to make it into the virtual world on time. Out of anger, she unleashed a virus – Vira X – which the player must defeat. Jacen was inspired both by the programming experience, and by the movie Tron.
2011 Kodu Kup winner: Jacen Sherman Game: The Vortex
Over the years the Kodus have made some break throughs in technology. After crowding their planet they turned toward the only thing they could, space. They travelled to different planets populating them and mining precious resources. After exploring a new planet they found something. It was a Golden Apple. After finding the apple the Kodus took it back to one of their planets to study it. One day they came into contact with a group of aliens of many species. They demanded the Kodus to give them the apple but the Kodus resisted. The aliens waged war against them, destroying their civilizations and planets. The Kodus managed to keep the apple safe and fled to a far away planet. They called this planet, New Hope, as a reminder that they still had something left...
Kodu: New Hope: by bwilliams
The successful organic flow of narrative over a host of platforms, each one excelling at what it does best.
Alison Norrington accomplished novelist,
playwright, and journalist
Originally published at www.thedigitalshift.com
What is Transmedia story telling?
Unfolds over time and on multiple platforms,
Connects technologies, languages, cultures, generations and curricula within a sweeping narrative
Becomes increasingly interactive and game-like
Highly collaborative
Takes advantage of participatory nature of online environments
Example | Transmedia story
Alternate Reality Game (ARG)…an interactive story-
based game, delivered through multiple “real world”
modes (i.e., text, phone, Internet, print, and others)
within which players must participate interactively
and work collectively to solve “real world” problems
the story presents. http://janetclarey.com/2012/01/13/args-part-1-a-good-fit-for-ld/
What are Alternate Reality games?
Elements of ARG
Participatory storytelling & collaboration
Multimodal play over time (online & real
world)
Use of collective intelligence (cognition,
cooperation, coordination
Solving ‘real world’
problems the story presents
Janet Clarey Spinning the Social Web
Project Leader Ms Kate Farrow
Year 10 students created an alternate reality game played by 120 Year 7 students over 3 consecutive school days.
Year 7 Global Citizenship Project
Students as Learning Designers Manly Selective HS
Example | Alternate reality game
Interactive Technologies
polls survey
images
audio
wiki
forum
video blog
maps
Digital posters
Game engines
puzzles
codes
Some technologies that support digital storytelling through games
Resources: http://bit.ly/QWIaHF
Core principles of how games work that can transform learning. They: 1. Create a need to know organising learning around solving
complex problems set in engaging contexts.
2. Offer a space of possibility through the design of rules for learners to tinker, explore, hypothesise and test assumptions.
3. Build opportunities for authority and expertise to be shared and distributed, i.e. learning is reciprocal among learners, mentors and teachers.
4. Support multiple overlapping pathways towards mastery
Professor Katie Salen
Reimagining learning through games
Do games have the power to solve the world’s problems?
What if we immersed our students in
designing games to tackle the world’s
most urgent problems?
Photo by xJason.Rogersx’s
“What will it take to move classroom literacy practices and instruction into the 21st century?
It will take teachers who are skilled, excited, passionate about the effective use of ICT for teaching and learning.
It will take a curriculum that integrates new, exciting
literacies and instruction.
It will take courageous and bold initiatives that include yet unimagined information and communication
technologies and these will result in the development of unimagined new literacies.”
Associate Professor Kaye Lowe
Active
Self-directed
Goal orientated
Authentic
Interest driven
Just-in-time
Summary
What learning should look like
Be interactive
Provide ongoing feedback
Grab and sustain attention
Have appropriate and adaptive levels of challenge
Multiple pathways to success
Be agile
Summary
What learning environments should look like
http://au.linkedin.com/in/cathiehowe
@cathie_h
@macict
http://web2.macquarieict.schools.nsw.edu.au
Macquarie ICT Innovations Centre Building C5B, Macquarie University NSW, 2109 Ph | 02 9850 4310
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