Games?

This paper draws upon existentialism, play theory, and game studies and makes use of first-person insights on Pocket Planes (2014) in order to address questions pertaining to the nature of freedom in single-player computer game play. On one hand, this paper could be read as a critique of Pocket Planes. On the other, it focuses on Pocket Planes as a case through which to examine the usefulness of the idea of ‘free play’ for the description of the interactions we have with single-player computer game artifacts. First, I shall briefly introduce Pocket Planes to give the reader a context, and then proceed to cross-expose concepts from Fromm’s dualistic notion of freedom with ideas of play from Hendricks and Fink. I shall then analyse how the experience of playing Pocket Planes matches with this constellation, and proceed to discuss what the analysis
could possibly tell us about freedom and play on a more general level.

Our research proposes a narrative approach based on informant design methods to build casual educational games for children. A mobile phone game was developed and shows that the proposed method has promising potential so far. Future work will evaluate the game and refine the methodology.

This paper provides a rationale for a class of mobile, casual, and educational games, which we call UbiqGames. The study is motivated by the desire to understand how students use educational games in light of additional distractions on their devices, and how game design can make those games appealing, educationally useful, and practical. In particular, we explain the choices made to build an engaging and educational first example of this line of games, namely Weatherlings.
Further, we report results from a pilot study with 20 students that suggest that students are engaged by the game and are interested in learning more about academic content topics,
specifically weather and climate, after playing the game. Research should continue to determine whether Weatherlings specifically does increase learning in these areas, and more generally to determine whether any learning gains and similar results with regard to engagement can be replicated in other content areas following the general model for game design.

At present, methods for the optimal use of two approaches to computer game-based learning in school to enhance students’ learning, namely, computer game play and game design, are obscure because past research has been devoted more to designing rather than evaluating the implementation of these
approaches in school. In addition, most studies emphasize human-computer interaction; little work examines teacher-student interaction. This article aims to uncover the pedagogical usability of these approaches, in terms of the purpose, value, and alignment with school curricula, by reviewing and reconceptualizing them from the view of a wide array of scholarly work. To address these, the pedagogical functions of game play and game design are first reviewed and then reconceptualized. The findings indicate that game play is purposeful in acquiring specific knowledge or skills; game design is best for integrated and critical learning. Game play  supports transited and transacted curriculum development, whereas game design promotes the transformative curriculum. Particular situations in school that apply to these two approaches, along with highlights of teachers’ roles in their
implementation, are also discussed.

The paper intends to develop a student-centered and school-based method to incorporate computer game play (GP) and game design (GD) activities into school by discovering students’ views about why and how to incorporate. The paper first critiques the current GP and GD activities, which are designer-centric on a touch-and-go basis, falling short of making student-centered pedagogy a long-term version of usage. Activity theory is adopted as a framework to formulate and conceptualize our research questions, specifically, what are students’ perceived significance and projected ways of integrating GP–GD activity into school? The report here discloses the qualitative data of four focused groups with 20 students, extracted from a larger 3-year project. Students are exposed to either the GP or GD activity, are interviewed about their perceived outcomes, and project the purposes of their next participation if they are given free choices. The findings identify that the significances are complementary but the purposes are in synergy with teachers’ didactical approaches. On the basis of the findings, the future pedagogical implications of incorporating GP and GD activities into school contexts similar to the Singaporean context are suggested.

Uma discussão que tem sido repassada ultimamente é se games podem ser considerados arte. Levando em consideração que sim, proponho uma pergunta mais específica: os jogos tabuleiro, que em inglês são chamados constantemente de “abstract games” (jogos abstratos), e que são contínuamente referidos como os jogos portadores da essência mais pura (que carrega unicamente os conceitos primordiais dos jogos; exclui história, ilustração, enfim, outras linguagens), podem ser considerados - dada sua nomenclatura como coisa abstrata - arte abstrata?

Mit diesem Titel liegt eine veröffentlichte Magisterarbeit vor, deren redaktioneller Beschreibungstext auf dem Buchrücken einen „Blick über den Tellerrand hinaus“ verspricht. Dieses Versprechen soll sich durch drei Leitaspekte einlösen, die den Einfluss von virtuellen Welten auf das menschliche Verhalten fokussieren, zweitens das Suchtpotenzial und die Isolation von der Außenwelt thematisieren und drittens die neuen sozialen Komponenten beleuchten, die durch die ‚Begehung’ virtueller Welten ermöglicht werden.

Estudo sobre a utilização metodológica de tecnologias no ensino de História. Com base nas contribuições da Nova História, os jogos eletrônicos são apresentados enquanto recursos psicopedagógicos por representarem situações-problema na compreensão dos conteúdos de forma contextualizada, crítica e globalizante propiciando uma formação para o sujeito histórico, não apenas conteudista e essencialmente conceitual. O trabalho contempla uma pesquisa de cunho qualitativo, focada na análise do jogo The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of the time. A abordagem enfoca a análise do conteúdo imagético do game a partir de pressupostos da semiótica, análise do discurso e da relação entre História e Literatura. Com isso, busca apresentar elementos do imaginário medieval presentes no jogo eletrônico que possam ser utilizados na transposição didática do conhecimento histórico referente a esse período nas aulas de História. O estudo mostra que os games podem contribuir para uma intervenção psicopedagógica na abordagem sobre medievalismo no Ensino Fundamental. O jogo The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of the time evidenciou elementos que aproximam o aluno do medievo: um contexto histórico distante da contemporaneidade. Com isso, representa um importante mecanismo para o ensino de história mediando a relação ensino-aprendizagem numa perspectiva significativa e problematizante.

More than ever before we’re consuming news in strange contexts; mixed into a stream of holiday photos on Facebook, alongside comedians’ quips on twitter; between Candy Crush and transit directions on our smartphones.

In this environment designers can take liberties with the form of the news package and the ways that audiences can interact. But it’s not just users who are invited to experiment with their news: in newsrooms and product development departments, developers and journalists are adopting play as design and authoring process.

Maxwell Foxman‘s new Tow Center report, Play The News: Fun and Games in Digital Journalism is a comprehensive documentation of this world.