Resources: Instructional Gaming
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The field of instructional gaming is still growing and forming. There are a vast quantity of resources available for people interested in understanding good game design, and even more for people interested in becoming good game players, but resources for people interested in specifically implementing instructional gaming in their classrooms, virtual or otherwise, are a work in progress. Below is a brief list of some resources:
Publications
- Gee, J. P. (2003). What videogames have to teach us about learning and literacy. New York: Palgrave Macmillan.
This book speaks strongly about the real strengths of games, and how they can effect learning. This book is currently shaping the dialogue of what games can and should do in the field of education.
- Salen, K. & Zimmerman, E. (Eds.). (2005). The game design reader:
a rules of play anthology. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press.
From the MIT press release, "Thirty-two essays by game designers, game critics, game fans, philosophers, anthropologists, media theorists, and others consider fundamental questions: What are games and how are they designed? How do games interact with culture at large? What critical approaches can game designers take to create game stories, game spaces, game communities, and new forms of play? "
- Poole, S. (200). Trigger Happy: Videogames and the Entertainment Revolution . Arcade Publishing.
An only slightly outdated recap of games, the industry, and cultural movement.
Web Resources
- Joystick101
A portal for articles and discussion of gaming and education, constantly updated.
http://www.joystick101.org
- Water Cooler Games
Self described as "a forum for the uses of videogames in advertising, politics, education, and other everyday activities, outside the sphere of entertainment"
http://www.watercoolergames.com/
- Games & Professional Practice Simulations
The portal for UW Madison's GAPPS group, a cross-discipline academic organization interested in the development and investigation of games & learning.
http://www.academiccolab.org/initiatives/gapps.html
- Terra Nova
A weblog focused on virtual worlds and how they relate to sociological, economic and academic interests.
http://terranova.blogs.com/
Gamer Resources
- GameFaqs
A collection of community generated documents outlining strategies for playing and winning games. It is invaluable not only as a gaming resource, but a fascinating example of gaming community and collaboration.
http://www.gamefaqs.com
- 4-Color Rebellion
A Nintendo-centric news portal that covers contemporary games news, with an editorial lean towards non-conventional gameplay exploration. Essentially, gaming news that isn't focused on first-person shooters.
http://www.4colorrebellion.com/
- Evil Avatar
A gamer insider site, Evil Avatar is a gaming news portal that offers continuous game news as well as frank discussion from the perspective of "hardcore" players as well as industry insiders.
http://www.evilavatar.com
Conferences
The last two years have brought dozens of academic, government, and industry conferences focused on the academic study of games, a substantial portion of which are dedicated to games and learning. Noteworthy U.S. industry conferences include:
Although the latter was founded in the United States , there are or have been similar conferences in Europe, Japan, and Australia. Academically, there are at least a dozen relevant conferences every year including:
The Games and Learning research centers at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, the University of Southern California, the University of Texas-Austin, and the University of Wisconsin-Madison are becoming more established, and are formalizing into degree programs at the undergraduate, master's and doctoral level (for more on such developments within academia, see Carlson, 2003, and Schiesel, 2005).
Guest Lecturers
Dan Norton is a co-founder and designer for Filament Games, an educational games company.
Kurt Squire is an Assistant Professor with the Educational Communications and Technology Division of the Department of Curriculum and Instruction at the University of Wisconsin-Madison.