Beyond the Page Digital Storytelling through Games

SMART Teachers Conference 2012

See Share Shape the Future

Cathie Howe Macquarie ICT Innovations Centre

Professional Learning & Leadership Coordinator Manager Macquarie ICT Innovations Centre

Who am I?

DEC & non-DEC schools across NSW Students K-12 Teachers K - 12 School Executives

DEC Regional staff University students Academic partners Industry Partners

Our Community

What do you want learning to look like?

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• Higher levels of thinking

• Creative /critical /divergent thinking

• Open-endedness • Group interaction • Variable pacing • Variety of learning • Debriefing • Freedom of choice

• Real problems • Real audiences • Real deadlines • Transformations (rather

than regurgitation) • Appropriate evaluation

• Abstractness • Complexity (inter

relationships) • Variety • Study of people • Study of methods of

inquiry

• Student centred • Independence valued • Agile • Open & accepting • Complex (rich variety of

resources, media, ideas, methods, tasks)

• Physical/virtual

Learning Environment Where students

learn

Content What students

learn

Process Thinking

processes used to learn

Product Result of learning

Maker Model

What could learning look like?

Imagine having our students being so

engaged in a complex, goal orientated

activity, that self-consciousness

disappears and time becomes distorted

and they do it, not for external rewards

but simply for the exhilaration of doing!

“Digital Storytelling is the modern expression of the ancient art of storytelling. Digital stories derive their power by weaving images, music, narrative and voice together, thereby giving deep dimension and vivid color to characters, situations, experiences, and insights.” Leslie Rule Digital Storytelling Association

What is a digital story?

Elements for the creation of classic digital stories:

Point of view

Dramatic Question

Voice

Pacing

Soundtrack

Economy

Emotional Content The challenge… How to get students to display them in their own stories?

Example| Google Chrome

Example | Google Search Stories

Chris Swain Associate Research Professor

“Video games are increasingly recognised as becoming the literacy of the 21st century”

Why use games to tell stories?

A unique platform to address essential skills for learning: • creativity and innovation • critical thinking, • communication, collaboration • iterative problem solving • information, media and ICT literacy

Video Game Facts In Australia:

92% households have a gaming device

95% homes with children <18 have a

gaming device

47% of gamers are female

Average age of video game players is 32

57% of gamers play every day

88% of parents who play games, play with

their children Key Findings DA12 Bond University/iGEA

Video games have more story telling potential than any other medium

Invested in story at a personal level Interactive

Live the experience

Make decisions

Choose own path

Positive Emotions Relationships Meaning Accomplishment

P.E.R.M.A Dr. Martin Seligman

What do we learn when we play, design and build games?

Problem solving skills &

negotiation

Narrative skills & transmedia

navigation

Judgement, analysis & strategic thinking

Communication skills & networking

Non–linear thinking patterns

Improved attention, vision &

cognition

WILL YOU SAVE US?

Where do you start?| Good Game Design

Intuitive play Decision making

World Goal Challenge Story

Player feedback Difficulty curve

The Next Step: Core Loop

Staring Position: New World -what does it look like?

Main Character:

Who am I? Where am I?

Goal: What is the main goal of the game?

What do I have to do to achieve this goal?

Reward: What is the reward

for doing this?

Challenge/ Obstacle

What is stopping me from achieving

my goal?

Solution: How do I overcome

the obstacle?

World Map

Example | Video Game Design

The world under nuclear attack. While humanity has found a way to “upload” itself to a virtual world and launch into space to avoid extinction, one of the creators of this virtual world wasn’t able to make it into the virtual world on time. Out of anger, she unleashed a virus – Vira X – which the player must defeat. Jacen was inspired both by the programming experience, and by the movie Tron.

2011 Kodu Kup winner: Jacen Sherman Game: The Vortex

Over the years the Kodus have made some break throughs in technology. After crowding their planet they turned toward the only thing they could, space. They travelled to different planets populating them and mining precious resources. After exploring a new planet they found something. It was a Golden Apple. After finding the apple the Kodus took it back to one of their planets to study it. One day they came into contact with a group of aliens of many species. They demanded the Kodus to give them the apple but the Kodus resisted. The aliens waged war against them, destroying their civilizations and planets. The Kodus managed to keep the apple safe and fled to a far away planet. They called this planet, New Hope, as a reminder that they still had something left...

Kodu: New Hope: by bwilliams

The successful organic flow of narrative over a host of platforms, each one excelling at what it does best.

Alison Norrington accomplished novelist,

playwright, and journalist

Originally published at www.thedigitalshift.com

What is Transmedia story telling?

Unfolds over time and on multiple platforms,

Connects technologies, languages, cultures, generations and curricula within a sweeping narrative

Becomes increasingly interactive and game-like

Highly collaborative

Takes advantage of participatory nature of online environments

Example | Transmedia story

Alternate Reality Game (ARG)…an interactive story-

based game, delivered through multiple “real world”

modes (i.e., text, phone, Internet, print, and others)

within which players must participate interactively

and work collectively to solve “real world” problems

the story presents. http://janetclarey.com/2012/01/13/args-part-1-a-good-fit-for-ld/

What are Alternate Reality games?

Elements of ARG

Participatory storytelling & collaboration

Multimodal play over time (online & real

world)

Use of collective intelligence (cognition,

cooperation, coordination

Solving ‘real world’

problems the story presents

Janet Clarey Spinning the Social Web

Project Leader Ms Kate Farrow

Year 10 students created an alternate reality game played by 120 Year 7 students over 3 consecutive school days.

Year 7 Global Citizenship Project

Students as Learning Designers Manly Selective HS

Example | Alternate reality game

Interactive Technologies

polls survey

images

audio

wiki

forum

video blog

maps

Digital posters

Game engines

puzzles

codes

Some technologies that support digital storytelling through games

Resources: http://bit.ly/QWIaHF

Core principles of how games work that can transform learning. They: 1. Create a need to know organising learning around solving

complex problems set in engaging contexts.

2. Offer a space of possibility through the design of rules for learners to tinker, explore, hypothesise and test assumptions.

3. Build opportunities for authority and expertise to be shared and distributed, i.e. learning is reciprocal among learners, mentors and teachers.

4. Support multiple overlapping pathways towards mastery

Professor Katie Salen

Reimagining learning through games

Do games have the power to solve the world’s problems?

What if we immersed our students in

designing games to tackle the world’s

most urgent problems?

Photo by xJason.Rogersx’s

“What will it take to move classroom literacy practices and instruction into the 21st century?

It will take teachers who are skilled, excited, passionate about the effective use of ICT for teaching and learning.

It will take a curriculum that integrates new, exciting

literacies and instruction.

It will take courageous and bold initiatives that include yet unimagined information and communication

technologies and these will result in the development of unimagined new literacies.”

Associate Professor Kaye Lowe

Active

Self-directed

Goal orientated

Authentic

Interest driven

Just-in-time

Summary

What learning should look like

Be interactive

Provide ongoing feedback

Grab and sustain attention

Have appropriate and adaptive levels of challenge

Multiple pathways to success

Be agile

Summary

What learning environments should look like

catherine.howe@det.nsw.edu.au

http://au.linkedin.com/in/cathiehowe

@cathie_h

@macict

http://web2.macquarieict.schools.nsw.edu.au

Macquarie ICT Innovations Centre Building C5B, Macquarie University NSW, 2109 Ph | 02 9850 4310

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