Pre-Conference Workshop M4
“Be a Game Changer!” Making Learning Addictive Using Game Design Thinking and Practices
Date Wednesday, Nov 30 Time – RoomTiergarten Price: 95.00 € Status: fully booked
Workshop leaders
Sylvester Arnab
Reader in Game Science, Co-Lead Research, Coventry University, UK
Dr. Sylvester Arnab is a Reader in Game Science at Coventry University, co-leading research at the Disruptive Media Learning Lab (DMLL). With more than 10 years research experience in simulation, serious games and gamification combined, his research interests include gameful, playful and persuasive designs that transform ordinary tasks into extraordinary experiences. As leader of Games Science research at the Disruptive Media Learning Lab, Sylvester is coordinating the EC Horizon 2020 BEACONING project which aims to foster ‘anytime anywhere’ learning using pervasive, context-aware and gamified techniques. He is also leading DMLL’s contribution to the EC H2020 C4Rs project and the Erasmus+ Gamification for Hard to Reach project. He currently has over 80 publications and has a portfolio with a total value of in excess of £7 million research funding. He is consistently ranked in the top 10 of the Gamification Guru Power 100 (Rise.Global). He delivers regular keynotes at national and international events related to serious games, gamification and technology-enhanced learning (https://sylvesterarnab.wordpress.com/speaking/).
Links
http://www.coventry.ac.uk/research/rese…http://dmll.org.uk/about/team/sylvester…
Helen Keegan
Principal Project Lead, Coventry University, UK
Helen Keegan is a UK National Teaching Fellow, currently holding a dual role as Principal Project Lead for the Disruptive Media Learning Lab (University of Coventry) and Senior Lecturer/Researcher at the University of Salford, MediaCity UK.
Her expertise lies in curriculum innovation using mobile and participatory media, with a focus on creativity, interdisciplinarity and playful learning. She is particularly known for her work on alternate reality gaming, digital cultures and identities, and the interplay between formal and informal learning. Helen works across sciences and media arts, developing partnerships and creative approaches to learning and collaboration, both in the UK and overseas.
As a regular international speaker, Helen has delivered keynotes and invited talks across Europe, the US and Canada, Australia and New Zealand, at events ranging from research seminars and academic conferences through to film festivals, BBC Global News, and the New Media Consortium at Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT). Alongside consulting and advising institutions on the use of social technologies in Higher Education, Helen has published in journals and edited collections including the European Journal of Open and Distance Learning, Selected Papers of Internet Research, A Manifesto for Media Education and the Handbook of Research on Social Software and Developing Community Ontologies.
Links
Luca Morini
Research Assistant, Coventry University, UK
I have a master in psychology, with a particular focus on learning and social-systemic perspectives, and a Ph.D. in Education and Communication obtained at the University of Milano Bicocca. My main area of research pertained the creation of games in informal participatory communities, both online and in real contexts, and its implications for the future of learning ecosystems. I am currently working on both H2020 and local projects at Coventry University, as to explore innovative, ethical and participatory ways to include game creation practices in learning institutions.
Links
Content
In this hands-on workshop, participants will be introduced to several Game Changers projects including the escape room-influenced EscapED, the card game What’s Your Story, the pedagogical toolkit Flipped In A Box - and of course the Game Changers Open Course (including Web TV). These case studies will be presented both for inspiration and also to demystify the development process. Participants will be guided on how to develop engaging game-based learning solutions that are focused on the message ‘technology enhanced, not technology led’. Embodying this message, the workshop will shed light on how to assess the learner’s needs and to adopt the right technology accordingly. The workshop will also discuss some of the most commonly used methods and tools for developing digital games that participants can look to apply in their own gameful developments.
Using a design sprint methodology, participants will develop core skills in collaborative and interactive games design and by the end of the workshop will have developed blueprints for their own gameful and/or playful learning experiences.
The Workshop will help participants in furthering their understanding of playful and gameful approaches to learning and, more in general, demystify the process of game design and development as something strictly hi-tech based (and therefore hardly accessible to many learners and teachers). This will in turn facilitate the development of participants’ game ideas, be they for serious games or for any other kind of playful implementation, and provide them with basic toolkits and frameworks for designing and implementing playful learning experiences, therefore promoting the emergence of a more playful, creative culture in their everyday contexts.
Agenda
PART ONE – setting the scene
- Introduction to Game Changers
- Game Changers holistic approach (the 4 layer model for game design considerations)
PART TWO – in practice
- Back to basics: paper based approach (storytelling and interactive fiction)
- Co-design teacher/student experience (digital tech example – setting scene for a hybrid approach)
- Hybrid approach: escapED (leading to a design framework to be used for the sprint)
PART THREE – hands on development
- Sprint
- Elevator pitch
- Voting
Target audience
- Educators who are interested in implementing playful/gameful approaches to their teaching and learning practice.
- Facilitators of organizational learning.
Prerequisite knowledge
The Workshop is oriented at giving even complete newcomers to game design a hands-on experience of how this systemic, iterative process works. The workshop will highlight the inherent value of collaborative game design thinking and practices as pedagogical and heuristic approaches, their deep potential for community and team building, and will explore their possible applications in a variety of learning/organisational contexts and through a plurality of transmedial technological supports and environments.
Outcomes
After the Workshop participants will be able to recognise and implement basic game design patterns and techniques, independently from the specifics of context and the technologies at hand, and to employ their newfound gaming literacy in the reframing of everyday organisational and educational issues. Participants will also be expected to be able to autonomously replicate (and promote transmedially) the experience in their own workplaces or teaching/learning contexts, promoting the emergence of playful/gameful cultures, conducive to innovative problem framing and solving practices.