On games and learning

A session at the recent International Conference of the Learning Sciences (ICLS) in Indiana presented the work of the games research group at the University of Wisconsin-Madison. David provides a concise (10 minute) explanation of epistemic games and their importance for education, using Urban Science as an example. The session is available on video.

Writing to Formula

While playing Wisconsin Science Journal and Science.net, players took on the role of journalists: they interviewed sources, uncovered background research, copyedited each others’ stories, responded to copyedits, and revised their stories with their readers in mind. Just as journalists do, these reporters wrote stories about scientific topics in order to inform their communities.

During the process of writing, copyediting, and revising their stories, Science.Net gameplayers begin to develop the skills, knowledge, and values of journalists. When they began the Science.Net game, our players were middle school students – but they quickly became journalists.

Byline – Current research

ByLine is being redesigned for our next session of Journalism.net, which is in planning to take place during 2007. This redesign is guided in part by data collected during Science.net – the design study we conducted during the summers of 2005 and 2006. The redesign is also guided by an ethnographic study of a journalism capstone course in reporting which took place in the spring of 2006. For the 2007 Neighborhood.net game, we anticipate between 15 and 25 middle school players will play the game as part of their school curriculum for approximately 40 hours.

Press play: designing an epistemic game engine for journalism.

Hatfield, D., & Shaffer, D. W. (2006). Press play: designing an epistemic game engine for journalism. Paper presented at the Paper presented at the International Conference of the Learning Sciences (ICLS), Bloomington, IN. http://epistemicgames.org/cv/papers/hatfield_shaffer_icls_2006.pdf
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