Spotlight on Digital Media And Learning

Greg Trefry: A Shared Learning Process

Concluding our series about Games and Learning, Project Manager Greg Trefry talks about what he’s learned from the games kids have built with GameStar Mechanic and how the project is making him re-think some of his own preconceptions about game design.

Robert Torres: Gamestar Mechanic’s Learning Potential

Robert continues his discussion about working with young people in NYC. He describes watching kids develop “design literacies” first-hand, and then invites a few of his students speak for themselves about the games they are creating.

Robert Torres: Games and Learning Spaces

This March in New York City, workshops began with 5th and 6th graders on Gamestar Mechanic. In this post, Robert summarizes some key student observations and concludes by asking how the process can help educators re-imagine learning.

Alex Games: The Social Nature of Game Design

Alex Games continues his discussion of the team’s work with youth around game design.  He shares observations about the power of peer review and group collaboration for the young game designers.

Alex Games: The Power of Game Design

Alex Games posts on his experiences working directly with young people on game design in Wisconsin. He includes examples of how games can inspire and motivate traditionally disengaged students.

Current Theme: Games and Learning

Over the past week, we have featured several researchers and designers MacArthur has funded to work on games and learning, with a special focus on the Gamestar Mechanic project. This series will continue this week.

Betty Hayes: Learning from Kids’ Conceptions of Game Design

In Betty Hayes’ second post she discusses determining how to assess “design learning” and shares reflections from observing kids play with Gamestar Mechanic.

Betty Hayes: Assessment and Curricular Models in GameStar Mechanic

Betty Hayes discusses the work of the GameStar Mechanic team in demonstrating the value of game design for learning, particularly the project’s strengths in developing language and literacy skills.

Katie Salen: Gamestar Mechanic Project FAQ Part 2

We began testing Gamestar Mechanic with kids using an extremely rough interaction prototype. This prototype modeled the basic game making activity we were after, but lacked most of the features envisioned for the final application. In order to build a prototype our team had to reach some consensus about the values, knowledge, and practices the game would model. The following post discusses some of the concepts we ended up including.

Katie Salen: Gamestar Mechanic Project FAQ Part 1

As Jim noted in his last post, over the next week members of the Gamestar Mechanic team will be sharing some of their thoughts on the motivations and ideas for the project, as well as some initial challenges and revelations that have emerged during the development process. In order not to leap too directly into the middle of things, here is a short FAQ that will help contextualize the posts to come:

James Paul Gee: Getting Young People to Think Like Game Designers

This post starts off a discussion of the GameStar Mechanic project. GameStar Mechanic is a game which players play by making and sharing games. The purpose of the game is get young people to think like a game designer.