January 22, 2010 Archives

Minimum 6 pages, not counting the works cited list. Demonstrate your ability to respond substantially to the feedback I gave you on your draft.

Final participation portfolio, emphasizing your accomplishments since the previous portfolio. Follow the same format as the last two portfolios.

Emphasize especially

• your contributions to the online discussions of student-selected readings, games, and term projects
• your contributions to peer-led discussions

Post a link from here to your blog entry by 4pm.

And so it ends. 

Thanks for all your hard work and great conversations.  I look forward to evaluating your last few submissions.

As I've mentioned before, since a few students may be tweaking their creative presentations, you are all welcome to comment on each other's final projects over the weekend.  The final draft of Paper 2 is due on Monday. I've also asked everyone to participate in a final discussion question, posted in the GriffinGate forum.

We've learned a lot about our own tastes in games; about the complex, deep relationship between "fun" and learning; about the difference between playing for pleasure and playing for study; about the difference between writing a traditional review, writing a "new games journalism" essay, and an academic paper.  We've learned a bit about the history and development of video games, about what there is to say when we move beyond "it was fun/boring" and "here's how you play," to asking questions about who plays games and why; what society at large has to say about games and why; about mainstream blockbuster games, "serious games" for education and political change, modding, and indie gaming.  You've had the opportunity to discuss some big-picture questions, you have on occasion disagreed respectfully with each other and with me, and your blogs are a record of your developing thoughts.

If you liked the parts of the course that dealt with interactive fiction, blogging, and online presentations, I'll offer more of those this fall in "Writing for the Internet."  That's a prerequisite for the more advanced "New Media Projects," which is a studio course in which you'll learn a handful of tools and have the time to build a new media project. (Each year, about half the students in both of the courses choose to program an interactive fiction game, but informative or creative websites are other possibilities.)

You are welcome to return to your blog and keep updating it. (I may turn off the "comment" feature if your blog gets noticed by spammers and I see you haven't updated it in a long time. If you ever want me to turn the comments back on, I'll be happy to do so.)

Would anyone be interested in having a class reunion (can it really be a "reunion" if we've never met in person?) in the IT department's video game center?  If we had been running this course during the regular semester, we would have spent a lot of time in that room.

In the future, if you come across anything that makes you think of "Video Game Culture and Theory," I'd be happy to hear from you.