What a special few weeks, …time seems to be flying! So much to reflect on, and in the midst of it all, we have this wonderful Easter-week break to share with family and friends.
This post will be a bit long since I am bridging the week before Påske with a forecast for the week after Påske. Keep scrolling down for all the necessary information for the end of March and the beginning of April for #NetNarr Norway!
The week before Påske
Many thanks to all of you for attending my installation opening for Textransformations on March 20th. It was very special to share my work with all of you, and I think we all had a good time at the opening.
The amazing installation of @MiaZamoraPhD !
“Like leaves falling from the trees, we are shedding these old frameworks, and growing something new” cit. #NetNarr @netnarr #textransformation pic.twitter.com/Qw4cLza5HS— Giulia (@Giulia_B96) March 20, 2018
Students trapped in the networked narratives of @MiaZamoraPhD's exhibition #Textransformations.@netnarr #netnarr pic.twitter.com/fkNM3keH0K
— Rune Hansen (@kreasjon) March 25, 2018
Empathy games
In lecture on Thursday March 22nd (slides here) we spoke in more depth about empathy, and pondered the question of whether or not a game can induce an empathetic understanding. We thought about empathy as a skill – a skill which allows one to imagine oneself in a situation. Empathy games may train that skill by encouraging players to create new contexts depending on the storyline and interactivity experienced in the video game. We played Spent, Syrian Journey, and Bad News in class, and and some of you tweeted out some very thoughtful #NetNarr responses to these games:
Q1: I played Spent. It made me think how lucky i am to be living in Norway. #netnarr https://t.co/J8OHiNTmxj
— Roj Ferman (@FermanRoj) March 22, 2018
#netnarr Q1 So, I chose Bad News, I found it quite entertaining. But I thought the seriousness of the matter of fake news got a bit lost in the chase for followers.
— Evy-Ann Bjerga (@SnowCherrie) March 22, 2018
The experience in Bad News does create a sense of concern. When you do something like spread a blatant lie and people take the bait so easily, you might only think it's a game. But then you read political threads on Twitter and see the same stuff actually happening. #netnarr
— Petter Villanger (@PetterVillanger) March 22, 2018
#netnarr
I played Spent. It did a great job at making me feel the despair of being trapped in a system that doesn't want you to succeed.— Elias Siljan (@eliassiljan) March 22, 2018
There are so many other thoughtful comments in our #NetNarr stream. It’s worth checking it out.
Some catch up announcements:
-Just to help keep the tally on your blog posts thus far, your 7th blog should have been posted by now (Påske). If you need to do a little catching up, now is a great time to try!
-Your midterm exam (which is accessible on the mitt.uib system) is now live/open, and will stay open for you to complete (on your own time) until Friday April 20th. It is an “open book” exam, and reflects what we have covered thus far in the course. Please make sure you complete this midterm exam before April 20th at midnight.
Påske
Wow! This week is one Norwegian tradition that I truly love. Hope you are all enjoying it too.
The week after Påske
On Tuesday April 3rd, I will be flying to Berkeley CA, and I will be there until Sunday April 8th. I am presenting some work at the Center for New Media at UC Berkeley. That means that we will not be meeting for lecture on Tuesday or Thursday the week after this break. Still, there is a great “field trip” for those of you who were able to sign up. Your classmate (and #NetNarr resident game developer) Patrick Solbue will meet all of you who have signed up. Please meet with him directly after Rolf’s Dikult 104 lecture on Tuesday April 3rd, and he will act as guide to Rain Games Studios. Thank you to Patrick for setting this up!
The overall plan for the week (April 3-7):
**I have materials and some tasks for all of you to work on in lieu of our lecture time together next week. The below plan is the requirement for all #NetNarr students while I am away at UC Berkeley:
- If you haven’t already, please watch the Studio Visit on Gaming & Learning we recorded last week. It is a good follow-up to lecture last week when we started considering “gamification” and “serious games”:
2. For more on empathy and games, surf and check out some of these resources (-some light reading to compliment the overall empathy theme):
- Empathy Games: birth of a genre? (CONTROL500)
- Classifying Serious Games: the G/P/S model (PDF, chapter by Damien Djaouti, Julian Alvarez, Jean-Pierre Jessel)
- Games For Change
- Serious Games (MIT Game Lab)
- Serious Games Society
- Video Games & Violence – White House Propaganda & Games for Change Response (via Keegan Long-Wheeler)
- The risk of games that seek to create empathy (Gamasutra)
- 9 Mistakes to Avoid When Designing Educational Games (Maha Bali, DML Central)
- Is Your Empathy Determined by Your Genes? A new study of twins explores where empathy comes from: nature or nurture? (Greater Good Magazine)
3. Please play one of the following games, and consider how effective it may be in imparting empathy. (**Please note – playing one of these games requires a small purchase, so do a little research and choose the game you are most interested in. Each of these games is critically acclaimed and should be worth a bit of your time). When playing your chosen game, please consider the procedural rhetoric involved in shaping your game experience. Think about how the game works:
4. Your blog # 8 should be posted by the close of the first week in April (by Sunday, April 8th). You can write about the field trip or the above Studio Visit, and one or more of the empathy games listed here.
I will see you in lecture on Tuesday April 10th. Until then, I will be checking our #NetNarr stream daily and keeping up with your #NetNarr learning there. Please be sure to tweet some pics from Rain Games on Tuesday 3/4!!
Best,
Mia
