Were there any notes from the Digital Archives session?

Gamification: taking principles of game design and applying it to other activities and professions to make them more engaging/bearable/fun.

There is controversy and conflict about the topic and how it relates to students.  The Escapist’s “Extra Credits” video on the topic was used as an introduction (link for Video Essay )

Software for Digital Humanities using game design principle.  Game created by Michelle created level badges that equated to badge to grade.  Her game requires players/students to interact with each other via social media where they play roles of prominent characters and interact in character.  Scored based on liked and disliked posts.

This sounds like an actual game, rather than a limited use of “gamified” techniques

Might introducing game principles take focus away from other pedagogical objectives? Shawn Doyle raised concerns about the time needed to test and create games, rather than using their principles and ideas.

• • It is important that gamification doesn’t just provide a way to “game the system” (in which the game structure does not sync/fit with existing course goals
• What happens when our students start hacking the game?
  • When there are no additional incentives, then the game is the only thing
  • Cheating is always a problem when students don’t see the value of the course content itself
• What about examples of gamification in the humanities?
  • Working with gifted high school students, one approach is to give them “missions” that are focused on principles of positive psychology, as opposed to providing ways to “game the system.”  Also, this is not the core mechanic of the course; it is one element among several.
  • A Media Studies/Theatre team-taught course used several of these kinds of principles (drawing on Lee Sheldon’s course designs), and while some elements seemed to work well and engage some students well, others were either actively detrimental to learning or inconclusive.  More trials need to be conducted and reviewed.
  • Jane McGonigal has some examples in her book, Reality is Broken.
  • Katie Salen’s Quest to Learn pilot school in NYC
• Thinking about student motivation, wanting to know “what my grade is” at any given moment is a powerful motivator. The “Bartel Test” is discussed; breaks MMORPG players into  social, achiever, explorer, and killer.  The test is used to explain why people play.  Could it help explain why students try or do not?
• Gifted students often are hesitant to take on challenges where they might loose/fail.  Created missions to reinforce positives to provide motivation.

• With teacher education, the feedback can be competency based, with the motivator pushing being that they know they’re preparing for a professional position after graduation.  Concerned, though, that if we make all the achievement focused on small gains, we might lose students’ attention and focus on the larger picture.  How do we balance those elements?
  • Making education a game changes what education is; removing the intrinsic value of why you’re participating in education removes something very important
  • Possible to create “levels” within content where passing/achieving a certain level or skill it opens up new levels, challenges, and skills.  They included a revision structure so students could revise and retry.
  • Concerns were expressed about grading and achievement solely based on XP points, game skills, and levels missing loses the personality and individuality.

  Gamification requires a carrot, lots of them for extrinsic motivation.  If this is used then there is never any intrinsic motivation.  We can miss the “why”  “why am I doing this?”

  • What about just doing work because it needs to be done?  Learning to work hard when you don’t want to?
    • A lot of games try to find ways to make meaning for drudgery.
      • Seinfeld’s calendar for work
      • 10,000 hours theory and The Dan Plan
    • McGonigal wants to imagine a world in which there is less drudgery
• Games in education is not making education a game.  Where does the line between gameplay and work get drawn? Work ethic and stress do not need to go hand in hand.  Changing the meaning of work, changing goals is where games can help.
• Instead of thinking about faculty making games, what about asking students to design their own games?
  • Global Kids
  • Geocaching: for many, it’s about the journey; for others, the outcome (racking up numbers)
  • Younger students (primary and secondary) are more likely to engage well with simple and/or black and white objectives in games than students in higher education
• Have game design principles and game structures always been a part of education and learning?
• It should be more about “what did I learn today?” than “what will get me the A?”
• James Paul Gee’s 32 Principles
• Game strategies are more than simple rewards and levels; practice, challenge, motivation, personalization all contribute to what make games engaging

• Concluding texts
  • Gee’s interview for the New Learning Institute
  • Prof.hacker post on gamifying your course website
  • Ian Bogost’s critique of gamification

What is the definition of social reading?:

Reading and analyzing texts collaboratively

• possible tools: good reads, social tagging (i.e. flickr)
• Ancient jewish concept of Midrash of collaboratively commenting on holy texts by scholars
• Comment Press–WordPress plugin for collaboration, annotation, alternative to Google Docs, must be run on your own server, comment on specific blocks of text.
• Why use Comment Press or like technologies? Connecting students to scholarship of analyzing particular portions of text, close reading, giving students ownership.
• Assessing students’ reading ability. Requiring students to write in books, text, direct interaction with text. Example, students that aren’t allowed to write in text, never given opportunity to have meaningful interaction with text, on deeper level than surface story. Deeper level, at zone of proximal development. Important as instructor to start at students’ knowledge base.
• Using social tools with students, do instructors lose control of class? In good or bad ways?
• What would an assignment look like that involved collaborating on a single piece of text?
• Example of collaboration via twitter: The Atlantic Book Club using #1book140
• Tool: Diigo for collaborating, marking up digital artifacts.

Social Media in the Classroom

• Facebook groups-interacting with Students, discussion board
• Facebook pages connected with Twitter to display on WordPress
• Historical Role playing using Facebook accounts, ex-students playing the roles of slaves, Nat Turner, evangelical preacher.
• What makes a classroom social?
• Technology as a second avenue for participation. Students have different preferred modalities. Some students uncomfortable with public speaking but more comfortable with writing.
• Activity example, taking poems by Robert Burns and rephrase into tweets. How does that change the text? And force students to reflect…socially?
  
• What does technology do to allow students to understand/reflect about the medium? How should students reflect on their social interactions in these kind of learning spaces?
• Early adoption stage, how do we get early adopters to say this has value, there’s an obstacle, but once you get past this obstacle, you can assimilate it into your learning.Tech is spread by word of mouth, by faculty members adoption rather than workshops. Better to invite faculty, rather than push out onto faculty. Seeding technology.
  
• Gathering questions via web form before class. Asking students: What is your top question?
• “Just in time teaching” related to using Google Docs or Google forms.
• Using Google Docs to teach summarizing articles, vetting writing, what counts as a good summary? Opening up the classroom to students.
• Letting go of control to students with social media, at what point do you need to turn it into a lesson of what are valid sources of knowledge? Value of stepping in when you need to. Teaching students how knowledge is constructed. How then are misconceptions constructed? Must be careful about teaching students public dialog.
• Gerald Graft–Teaching the Conflict. Allowing students to have a voice.
• Exercise experiment via Dave Carroll (@davidcaroll): backtoschoolforgood.daveandteena.com/2011/06/04/prof-hacker-blog-post-how-sociable-are-you/
• Digress.it: digress.it/
• FB for faculty, friending students? wait until you don’t have a class or until grades are turned in. Check privacy settings. What does friend mean on FB? It’s a verb now.
• Some schools have specific policies for social media, FB friending.
• Openbook.org: search engine for public updates on FB.

• Using digital portfolios in a department whose chair is highly tech-phobic (refuses to use email, etc.).  How do you deal with a situation like that?
  • (Faculty engaging student with digital tools are primarily lecturers in the dept.)
  • Perhaps the tenured faculty could hold a meeting in which they openly identify the advantages/disadvantages of print and digital media
  • Her behavior is not rational, so trying to persuade her otherwise is unlikely
  • If your Dean is supportive, then he/she can put pressure on the dept. chair to make incremental changes
  • Bringing in recent grads who are working using digital tools to show the benefits of these tools
• How do you encourage faculty who seem to be interested/intrigued by new digital tools, but also seem to be reticent to take the time to learn and then integrate them into their pedagogy?
  • (And some people think they know more than they do)
  • Is having someone on staff with broad familiarity of applicability of tools to higher ed pedagogy crucial/central to disseminating these tools and practices?
    • Jay ___: I am that here at St. Norbert’s.  Staff are much more likely to attend workshops than faculty.  How do I get them to come in?
      • Blake: took long time to feel like they were worth attending.
    • Mentoring new faculty could be a way to encourage attendance
      • There needs to be incentives on both sides for it to work, though
      • Cross-departmental mentoring helps new faculty see connections between disciplines
  • Why isn’t there a “help desk” for integration of digital tools into pedagogy?
• In building inter-disciplinary minors organized around digital networked media, there is a huge coordination problem.  How do you balance resources, including hardware, software, and participants time?
  • Finding the right collaboration tool is probably important: meetings may not necessarily be the best way to get something like that going.
    • Email is also not the best; it must have a group collaboration component.
  • Does anyone use collaborative software within their department, perahps even in lieu of dept. meetings?
    • Sharepoint, though it’s a pain (and Microsoft empire).
    • Google Docs…
      • Working on such projects with colleagues crosses into territorial issues about authorship
      • There needs to be some kind of understanding about the appropriateness of such changes
      • It can be wonderful, in that your colleagues(s) are like little elves who come in to help you further your work, just when your energy is flagging
    • Facebook Groups’ new mechanic allows for friendships to develop more casually (can be closed, notifies you when new posts arrive)
  • What about a retreat during the summer to work out the logistics?
    • You might even be able to get day-rate funding from your institution as an incentive
    • Or perhaps a grant
    • (It seems like support community-building
• How is hardware shared on different campuses?
  • Shared pool: priority-based; some campus groups have higher priority
    • better equipment, but sometimes less access
  • Library controlled: reservations are first-come, first served
    • limited number of devices (laptop, ipad)
  • Media Studies dept. controlled: single faculty member, loans made on casual basis
    • Easy to get access because single faculty member is open to it, but can be a drain on his time
• Availability of IT resources can be very limited on some campuses.  Is anyone familiar with the WW3 network?
  • It’s an attempt to build a Web around scholarly tools only
• One prominent issue often raised when institutions consider making significant changes is focusing on changing/updating the Humanities (as opposed to Sciences and Social Sciences).  How do we keep Humanities faculty from hearing that focus articulated as “in the future, you will all become Media Studies faculty”?
  • Strength in Numbers: early adopters participate in pilot testing, and then they become advocates of ways to use those tools and practices in pedagogy.
  • If you say, “everyone will need to know this,” it’s less effective than if you provide colleagues with assistance with ways to introduce change
  • Again, face to face gatherings help to build community
    • (like Final Cut Pro User Groups)
    • Allowing people to give a “like” or thumbs up by regularly posting about such gatherings to a blog or listserve seems to really help approval rates

Here is the handout I will be using for this bootcamp.  If you’re not attending this bootcamp but would like to participate and contribute here are some ways to get involved:

One of the things we will be doing at this boot camp is “Asking” geographic questions as they relate to digital humanities. Take a look at the questions people come up with and feel free to post your own.

We will also be adding to a google spreadsheet any datasets that people have come across that have been particularly useful to them.  If you have a great resource to share, PLEASE add to the list!