Stealing Ideas

If you talk to us long enough, or hang around long enough, eventually you'll realize that one of the things we are prone to doing is stealing ideas from one context and applying them in another. Today is no exception.

A few moments ago, our friends at The Daily Wenzel, posted a comment and article on the nature of criticism, made within the context of computer gaming. However, within that posted article was a link to another article on how to analyze computer games from a game designers' perspective.

What we found inspiring was the brief discussion on pacing and interest (page 3). We have long been fascinated with the way games such as World of Warcraft or even MySims contain segments of the game designed solely to instruct players in how to play the game. We've argued that teachers need to explore this more in terms of creating more student-centred classroom activities with a greater degree of independence. Furthermore, the way that these games give their players the illusion of unlimited choice (go anywhere, do anything), but actually constrain them to a few options based on prior accomplishments is again something teachers can learn from.

Thus, James Portnow's simple act of describing the methodical rising and falling action of pacing and interest in games offers a similar discussion point. As Portnow suggests, the pace and interest is design to climb steadily over the length of a game. A game is broken down into levels, and a graph of the pace and interest would be mirrored for levels as well, with a peak just before the conclusion. Overall, as each level gets harder, the graph would steadily advance higher.

Imagine you are planning your course for the year: how do you take into account the pacing and interest for your students. Typically we find it easy to imagine that for science classes, the pacing and interest graphs would be relatively flat, day in and day out, punctuated only by the occassional lab, and rising with the advent of the unit exam.

What we would like to propose is something that follows more a levelled game approach. Students are informed at the beginning of the year of some kind of problem to investigate or solve, that would combine elements of all of the various units that make of the course. Then, within each unit, students would engage in a variety of problem-solving activities that could ultimately be applied to their year-end problem. These activities could provide the near-end interest spike that Portnow says game levels should have - what we do feel is certain though, is that this spike should not (and could argue could not) come from a unit end exam.