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Follow the evolution of this project here: http://outfind.ca/tag/knight/

I am very pleased to announce that our project, called Indie Games Licensing, was awarded a Prototype Grant as per the most recent Knight News Challenge. I am absolutely thrilled and thankful towards the Knight Foundation and all my partners for this incredible opportunity to “leverage libraries as a platform to build more knowledgeable communities.”

Without further ado, here is a short video presenting the initial prototype we will be delivering at the ALA Annual Conference in San Francisco:
[youtube https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8iDXd5Y-3oo&w=560&h=315]

UPDATE as of May 19th 2015: The Knight Foundation had originally planned to have us present our prototypes at the ALA Annual Conference in the Summer of 2015, but that is no longer the case. 

The latest issue of the peer-reviewed Syllabus Journal just came out, with a special issue on teaching with videogames:

We are pleased to announce the publication of a new special issue of Syllabus Journal (4.1) on “Teaching with and about Video Games.” Syllabus Journal is a peer reviewed venue through which academics can publish syllabi, toolbox assignments (shorter, modular assignments that can be imported into any course), and articles on teaching.

The “Teaching with and about Video Games” offers 15 articles from international authors in three categories, and can be found here: http://syllabusjournal.org/

Table of Contents
Introduction by Jennifer deWinter and Carly A. Kocurek

Teaching about Games are syllabi for courses that teach game studies, game design, serious game design, and novel interface design (think new controllers), and include:

* Video Game Studies by Judd Ethan Ruggill
* How to Play Games of Truth: An Introduction to Video Game Studies by Bryan Geoffrey Behrenshausen
* Novel Interfaces for Interactive Environments by Robert W. Lindeman
* Educational and Serious Game Design: Case Study in Collaboration by Jon A. Preston
* Introduction to Game Design by Nia Wearn

Teaching with Games are syllabi that teach disciplinary content in multiple fields using games as a text, such as creative writing, history, rhetoric, composition, and literature. These include:

* Representing the Past: Video Games Challenge to the Historical Narrative by Stephen Ortega
* Learning Through Making: Notes on Teaching Interactive Narrative by Anastasia Salter
* Video Games as a New Form of Interactive Literature by Anne Winchell
* Writing in and around Games by Wendi Sierra
* Hints, Advice, and Maybe Cheat Codes: An English Topics Course About Computer Games by Kevin Moberly

And finally, we have collected together five toolbox entries that act as short modules (1-day to 2-week assignments) to be incorporated into classes and workshops.

* Teaching Network Game Programming with the Dragonfly Game Engine by Mark Claypool
* Root of Play: Game Design for Digital Humanists by Andy Keenan and Matt Bouchard
* Alternative Reality Games to Teach Game-Based Storytelling by Dean O’Donnell and Jennifer deWinter
* “Continue West and Ascend the Stairs”: Game Walkthroughs in Professional and Technical Communication by Stephanie Vie
* Annotated Bibliography for Game Studies: Modeling Scholarly Research in a Popular Culture Field by Cathlena Martin

This collection, we believe, represents the depth and breadth of video games in academic discourse. Not only do they add to the literature and pedagogical approaches in game studies, but these contributions highlight the interdisciplinary nature of game studies in history, computer science, literature, social science, and so forth.

Very best,

Jennifer and Carly

I’ve just discovered these recent videos from the University of Alberta’s Office of Student Judicial Affairs.

Here are the three videos:

[youtube https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8Bx5DAqTPhU&w=560&h=315]

[youtube https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7U20JqG2Ghs&w=560&h=315]

And this one, a plagiarism rap!
[youtube https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bT6S4ERI0o8&w=560&h=315]

A new report from the UK highlights 10 trends or new techniques in education that may have a profound impact on how we teach and learn. Academics from the Institute of Educational Technology and the Faculty of Mathematics, Computing and Technology at The Open University offer us the Innovating Pedagogy report, the third such report released to date.

Here is the outline:

Massive open social learning : Free online courses based on social learning
Learning design informed by analytics: A productive cycle linking design and analysis of effective learning
Flipped classroom: Blending learning inside and outside the classroom
Bring your own devices: Learners use their personal tools to enhance learning in the classroom
Learning to learn: Learning how to become an effective learner
Dynamic assessment: Giving the learner personalized assessment to support learning
Event-based learning: Time-bounded learning events
Learning through storytelling: Creating narratives of memories and events
Threshold concepts: Troublesome concepts and tricky topics for learning
Bricolage: Creative tinkering with resources

I’ve had the opportunity to watch a few great videos from Vimeo’s film school and I got some great tips on producing great footage with low cost tools.

This new release from the good people at EDUCAUSE seems interesting. It is called the Learning Space Rating System (LSRS) and only covers formal spaces (e.g. classrooms) for now, but will eventually will allow the evaluation of informal learning spaces, such as libraries.

I am listening to a podcast of a 2005 EDUCAUSE session at their annual conference entitled How E-Learning Policies Can Reduce Faculty Workloads and Keep E-Learning Courses Running Smoothly.

The speaker is Shirley Waterhouse, the Executive Director,
Center for Teaching and Learning Excellence at Embry-Riddle Aeronautical University. Their website also showcases many projects and initiatives pointing to best practives. She also is the executive director of
eLearningGlobal (this site provides details about her book).

7 Policy topics (from the podcast, toward the end)
– Daily routine: exchanging with students, email notifications, submitting assignments
– Students privacy: consent and sharing information with 3rd parties
– Email policies: answering emails, manage students expections wih regards to answers, discussion policies (will the instructor read everything)
– Assignment policy: when due, format, etc. (do it beforehand)
– Tech help policy: where and when to get it (e.g. what happens if the LMS is down when I want to subit my assignment)
– Code of conduct: student discussion, etiquette, netiquette, innapropriate, etc.
– Intellectual proprety issue: copyright, ownership, sharing

Her book and articles cover these topics in greater detail. These items seem more like the kinds of things a course outline or general procedure would cover. But they are interesting nonetheless.

Recommends the copyright resources from Indiana University.

I’ve just submitted (with Bart & Prem’s assistance) a submission to the Knight Foundation News Challenge to “transform libraries” with digital indie games. Please have a look at the submission – I can still edit it on Monday or Tuesday, comments welcome:
Digital indie games licensing for libraries
Also, do send it around the ‘net – the more views & “applause” it gets, the better.

A must read: Clay Shirky’s verbose and well argued post on “Why I just asked my students to put their laptops away”. Clay Shirky is an author and academic interested in digital and social media.

In the same line of thought, I really liked this podcast (in French) of Montréal tech journalist and consultant Martin Lessard with Sébastien Wart who works for the Montréal school board as a technologist. They refer to the SAMR model (aka: Substitution Augmentation Modification Redefinition Model) for employing effectivee technological tools in the classroom. According to the Technology Is Learning website (where Martin Lessard point to), the SAMR model developed by Dr. Ruben Puentedura  :

Substitution Augmentation Modification Redefinition Model

I really enjoyed this short clip from the good people at Educause about 4 ideas to reshape higher ed:
[vimeo 105581244 w=500 h=281]
This is the gist of the talk:

I also really enjoyed this paper about three possible futures for higher ed: one where universities are either virtual or blended; one where digital technology offers a kind of renaissance of creation where storytelling, game design and social media seamlessly integrate into a learning experience; and the one where health care takes over (I didn’t like that one so much).