Recap: THATCamp Games 2013

THATCamp Games:
epic win.

I drafted this post while flying back to Albany NY from Cleveland, where I participated in the second THATCamp Games unconference, hosted by the Baker-Nord Center for the Humanities at Case Western Reserve University. If you're unfamiliar with the concept of the unconference, imagine an event which combines the scholarly rigor of an academic conference, the energy and focus of a trade show, and the gloriously unselfconscious enthusiasm and fun of a sci-fi convention. THATCamps happen all over the country, with different topics and themes, so check out their main site if you want to find out more: chances are good there'll be one in your part of the country, on a topic relevant to your discipline.

I attended last year's (inaugural) THATCamp Games at the University of Maryland University College, and learned an incredible amount about game design in education - just at the time I was about to teach my own Dungeons and Discourse intro philosophy course for the first time. The experience was powerful enough that I knew I'd be back again; and indeed, I planned to attend this year as soon as the dates and location were announced. But the plot thickens: the organizers contacted me and asked me to run a workshop on the first day. How cool: not only was I attending again, but now I had the chance to share some of my own ideas and experiences. My workshop addressed the topic of using an LMS as an edugaming platform, something which has a broad appeal to faculty who work within such software.

The range of sessions ran across three tracks - Course Hacks, Digital Hacks, and Cardboard Hacks - from RPG design for courses to gaming assessment to physically constructing board games to brainstorming opportunities for growing institutional support for edugaming. Our keynote speaker, Prof. Anastasia Salter, presented a fascinating talk on the history and future directions of the field, and I got the chance both to reconnect with colleagues I'd met last year and to meet and collaborate with many new colleagues with similar and/or complementary interests and projects.

One of the first cryptic clues.

Lest this start sounding like a generic panegyric to a humdrum conference, however, let me remind you that the theme was Games ... and we surely did practice what we preach. There was a great deal of time, space, and opportunity built into the event - quite intentionally! - so that we could run a rousing 3-hour session of Battlestar Galactica, or a quick half-hour of Pandemic. And overlaying the entire event was a mysterious ARG-style meta-game, with an ancient threat, a mysterious Order, and cryptic clues scattered across multiple media, from videos to flyers to tweets to exhibits in the Cleveland Museum of Art.

I've said it before, and it bears repeating: deep engagement and motivation are exactly the things we always say we want in our classes - and these are exactly the things we can approach effectively by understanding and applying game design principles to what we do. I can't wait to start planning for my next course using what I've learned from my colleagues at this year's THATCamp Games!

Pesce d'aprile!

...Okay, so the title is really only there because of today's date, rather than any relevance to the content of this post. :-)

Game-based learning (#GBL) is the idea that we can (a) identify and articulate the elements which make a game successful, compelling, and fun, and (b) apply those elements in our practice of teaching and learning.

What this is not: Oregon Trail or Number Munchers. Now, I loved playing those two games, but in all honesty, they were simply fun games which happened to involve some of  the same content as math and history classes. They weren't designed to teach - and I certainly didn't learn from them! Neither of these games would have been in any way appropriate as the basis for a curriculum.

It's all about structuring content to maximize engagement and motivation - and primarily intrinsic motivation (though careful use of extrinsic motivation has a place too!). We have no problem acknowledging that we want to achieve these goals when we teach. But it's a leap for a lot of us to realize that using gameful practices is a realistic and authentic means to do so.

I recommend two three books for any colleague who's interested in getting a general introduction to the topic of GBL:

• Gee, J. P. (2003). What Video Games Have to Teach Us About Learning and Literacy. New York: Palgrave Macmillan. ISBN 978-1-4039-6538-7
• McGonigal, Jane (2011). Reality Is Broken: Why Games Make Us Better and How They Can Change the World. ISBN 978-1-5942-0285-8
• Prensky, Mark (2001). Digital Game-Based Learning. ISBN: 978-1-5577-8863-4

Of course, so much of the ongoing and contemporary scholarship on this topic is happening in primarily electronic media. For my colleagues who are a bit more comfortable with, and open to, taking seriously research conducted outside the forest of dead trees, try some of these:

• The Principles Behind Game-Based Learning
• KQED blog: 10 Surprising Truths About Video Games and Learning
• TED Talk: Tom Chatfield on 7 Ways Games Reward the Brain
• MIT's Education Arcade
• NYU Game Center

Have fun!