Your objectives for this course are to
- explore definitions of important concepts such as game and fun
learn about the origins and historical development of video games,- expose yourself to a broad range of games,
- gain experience recognizing and interpreting basic game elements (goal, risk, fiction, emotional engagement, rules, outcome, values, consequences, close playing, etc.),
- develop an awareness of the complex cultural context within which games exist (children’s culture, geek culture, women’s issues, political issues, economic issues, aesthetic issues, etc.),
- and ultimately, to discern the core cultural values represented in a particular game.
To that end, you will:
- play several games on the syllabus, read three books and additional shorter articles as assigned,
- complete quizzes and exercises to ensure that you are keeping up with the readings and to evaluate your progress,
- participate regularly in classroom and web-based discussions, and
- write a formal research paper (minimum 10 pages).
Neither ability to “win” a game nor programming/design talents are germane to the subject of this course.
At the end of this course, you should be able to
- Demonstrate competence in the critical reading of complex cultural texts (including games, cultural responses to games, and the academic study of games)
- Engage intellectually with your peers (in person and online)
- Write a college-level paper that appropriately uses primary and secondary sources to defend a non-obvious claim (without minimizing or neglecting opposing or alternative views)
—Dennis G. Jerz —Video Gaming (EL 250; January 2006) (Seton Hill University)
From the syllabus for the course I’ll be teaching starting Monday. It’s a three-credit online course, compressed into three weeks.
For the first time, I’m going to be making extensive use of our course-management system (for multiple-choice questions and to handle the details about whether a student has submitted an assignment on time).
An even number of men and women have enrolled in the course. Tomorrow I’ll create blogs for those students who haven’t had me before.
I’ve never taught an all-online course before. I’m used to a teaching style that depends heavily on open discussion, but I’m offering a lot of discussion prompts and multipart written exercises. Naturally I hope the student blogs are a vital part of the course, but I think it’s also important to have a backchannel, so that neither I nor the students feel like we have to perform in public all the time.
View Comments
The biggest problem has been dealing with the discussion prompts I've posted to our CMS. When students submit a new set of answers, the system records a 0% -- and factors it into their running total -- so that a student can spend hours doing another online unit and find their score immediately goes down as a result!
Fortunately most of those online workbooks are behind us now, as students start looking ahead to bigger exercises and their final research paper.
Good luck with this! Teaching online can be a daunting task, but in the past 3 semesters, I've gotten used to it. 3 weeks is a short time, but as long as the calendar is clear, your students should have a good time!
Wow... looks promising. I'll need some time to look into it, though.
Have you thought about services like Gametap? http://www.gametap.com/home/game_titles/index.jsp
I haven't tried it, but it seems like an interesting concept and would elminate the software issues you're worried about. Also, there's a "free trial" option.
It looks like it's heavy on the console and arcade titles, but Zork, Adventure and several other "Classics" are there. This would help you cover the emulated titles. They seem to have plenty of atari 2600 and Commedore64 titles.
Thanks, Bobby and Matt.
The games are interspersed with all the assignments on the course syllabus, sometimes integrated with a study question (that is, "Play the game on this website and answer these questions about it.") I'm handling technology problems by requiring students to play web-based games (including the Strong Bad series, with "Secret Collect" and "Thy Dungeonman") because I didn't think I'd be able to spend time remotely getting historical emulators to work on each student's individual machine. In the middle of the course, I've given the students a short list of games that I figure they won't have too much trouble finding on their own.
http://blogs.setonhill.edu/DennisJerz/EL250/013519.php
In the final week, they get to pick their own game to focus on.
Part of me really would like to have the whole class do a deep reading of "The Dig" or The Grim Fandango or The Longest Journey, or spend a few months working on a character in EverQuest. But the pacing of a 3-week course simply won't allow that sort of thing.
Wow! Sounds great. Do you have a list of games your students will be playing available? How are you handling the software requirements of the course?
Good luck, Dennis! The course sounds awesome!