Recent posts for Featured
Unpacking the Digital Zoo: An analysis of the learning processes within an engineering epistemic game
Svarovsky, Gina N. (2009) Unpacking the Digital Zoo: An analysis of the learning processes within an engineering epistemic game, University of Wisconsin-Madison.
http://epistemicgames.org/eg/wp-content/uploads/svarovsky-dissertation-revision-v26.pdf
Reflections on the Barracuda: Doing what you don’t necessarily love
A lot of parents I know don’t play computer games with their children for the very obvious reason that they (meaning, the parents) don’t like to play computer games themselves. And that makes a certain amount of sense, until you think about all the other things that you do as a parent with and for your kids that you don’t like doing yourself.
I was reminded of this is a very concrete way last week when I took my daughter and one of her friends to a synchronized swimming meet for their team, which is the first synchro meet I had ever been to. I did it because this is something that my daughter cares about. Something that she wants to spend time on. An interest that I want to share with her, even if I don’t hold it as an interest of my own.
Now, please don’t get me wrong: I have nothing against synchro as a sport. But driving an hour and a half and sitting for over two hours to…
Oh, well, rather than trying to explain, I’ll just copy my liveblog of the event below, which I imagine is not that different from how many parents experience watching their first videogame. It was really confusing, and a lot of it seemed pretty trivial to me as an outsider. But it was fun for my daughter, and in the end brings us closer together and lets me help shape her experience of that part of her life.
For those who don’t want to read below the jump, the point is: as a parent we do all kinds of things that our kids love but we don’t. And just like the decision to go see the latest Disney movie, whether you as a parent like to play computer games is not the last word on whether your could or should play them with your kids.
Paging Dr. Gina
Congratulations to Gina Svarovsky, who officially became the first Dr. of Epistemic Games yesterday! Gina’s dissertation will be available on the website here soon, and she will be going on to work at the Science Museum of Minnesota in the spring.
Gina’s dissertation is one of the first studies to use Epistemic Network Analysis to look at the impact of specific parts of a game on the development of professional thinking. Her study of Digital Zoo found that interactions with clients and reflections in an engineering notebook play a key role in making the values and epistemology of engineering explicit for players.
As the first graduate student in the Epistemic Games Group, Gina was instrumental in helping to establish the research directions and practices of the group. We will miss her very much, wish her well in in future ventures, and hope that from time to time she will drop in with a post on news epistemic!
Learning from Urban Science without playing it
In working with the design team of Urban Science, I have developed a personal interest in urban regional planning. Although I have no role in designing the epistemic game Urban Science, the team members have demonstrated enough of the values in the game, so that I see the importance in the task of urban planning. The time I spend as the videographer, conducting interviews, editing and creating a demo for the game has given me a window of knowledge into the realm of urban planning. Also, as an anthropology major, I am exposed to the infinite amount of issues surrounding the human species, and it just so happens that city planning is one of them. The topics I have observed from working with the design team, combined with the topics I discuss in class have inspired me to consider pursuing graduate studies in the field of urban and regional planning. I would be particularly interested in working on the cultural aspects of city planning, such as interacting with interest groups to understand their wants and needs. Thanks to the Urban Science development team, I have discovered a new interest which could potentially be a fascinating career. That urban planning is a potentially more lucrative career than anthropology doesn’t hurt either.
André Rupp visits Madison
Last month André Rupp, professor at the University of Maryland, visited the Epistemic Games Group at the University of Wisconsin-Madison. Dr. Rupp, the Co-PI on the EAGER grant, participated in several discussions regarding the ideas and issues underlying Epistemic Network Analysis, while he was here. One meeting, with David Shaffer and Mike Gleicher, centered on a proposed method for converting adjacency matrices into coordinates in n-dimensional space and comparing them by calculating the distance between them. In effect, this method controls for the number of speech act occurrences by comparing frame shapes, rather than frame sizes. Another benefit of this method is the afforded ability to visualize learning trajectories.
Andre also experienced the joys of several of Wisconsin’s customs and culinary treasures during his stay, including–but not limited to–cheese curds and Old Fashioneds.
