New Media Faculty Seminar: Fall 2010 Week 12

It's been two weeks since our last podcast covering the New Media Faculty Development Seminar. Two weeks ago the Baylore group discussed Sherry Turkle's essay on the the psychology of game play in Video Games and Computer Holding Power (pp 499-513 in The New Media Reader; also found online as a full excerpt from the New Media Reader site). The loca facilitators brought in perspectives on the economic impact of video games, which has been outselling all other forms of entertainment for some time. Gardner noted amonf the student sin his first year seminar, it was apparent that a majority of them were arriving with four or more years of extensive game experience, usually in Massively Multiplayer Role Playing Games.

One of the facilitators brought in an XBox and provided a detailed demo of Fallout 3 , a game that is rich in its first person narrative

The group also watched the YouTube video on the history of video games,through a series of rapid screen captures of games from Pong to World of Warcraft:

The group discussed how Turkle's essay was able to talk about both thr positive and negative aspects of game play, and the interesting dynamic of games creating and edge of the seat experience that can be considered relaxing by its players.

This past week's reading was "Learning Webs," a selection from Ivan Illich's Deschooling Society that can be found online at http://deschoolingsociety.digress.it/learning-webs/ Among the materials the facilitators brought to the Baylor group were D'Arcy Norman's notes in personal learning environments and the video of a 7th grader describing her personal learning environment:

They also watched Sugata Mitra's powerful TED talk showing how informal learning worked in a most unlikely place (see the Hole in the Wall Project site for more details)

In discussion of these examples that are modern examples if Illich's concepts., the group struggled with the acceptance that changes were needed, but were also overwhelmed at how that could occur. They also took the discussion wider, talking about "deschooling society" and pondered what role computer technology might play in bringing out this new form of learning.

Gardner singled out some great blogs posts in the NMFS network coming from Houston Community Colleges, St Laurence University, Montery School of International Studies , and McLennan Community College.

 There is no scheduled seminar this week, but the reading for ext week, the last of the seminar is unusual in form--  Scott McCloud's "Time Frames" found on pp 711-736 of the New Media Reader (not available online, the book  is well worth a purchase!).