Recent posts for Urban Science

Maria revisited

I recently gave a guest lecture in an undergraduate teacher training course on campus. I spent 45 minutes talking about epistemic games, and specifically my work on Urban Science, and then answered questions from the 30 students. Not surprisingly, the students were interested in the demographics of epistemic game players, buying the games and implementing them in their classrooms, and curious about the long-term effects of epistemic gameplay on achievement. When I addressed the last topic, I told the story I previously wrote about here, the story about Maria’s social studies assignment and her creative solution to the task. In the middle of telling the story, one of the students emphatically raised her hand and shouted out, ‘Was that last year?’ I told her it was and the student went on to say, ‘I was in that class! I was observing that class and Maria’s assignment was phenomenal! I totally remember her work!’
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Epistemic Games Video

As researchers studying new media, it only seemed appropriate to let people know about our work using well, new media.

This short video gives an overview of our work on Urban Science and other epistemic games as part of the Macarthur Digital Media and Learning Project and the National Science Foundation.

In these games, players have a chance to learn 21st century skills by playing as urban planners, engineers, journalists, and other professionals in the knowledge economy.

I suppose next we’ll need to make an epistemic game about making epistemic games….

When people get in the way

Bagley, E.S., & Shaffer, D.W. (2009). When people get in the way: Promoting civic thinking through epistemic game play. International Journal of Gaming and Computer-Mediated Simulations. 1(1), 36-52.

http://epistemicgames.org/eg/wp-content/uploads/Bagley-published-IJGCMS.pdf

David Williamson Shaffer speaks on NPR

In 2008, David participated in a broadcast about video game research on National Public Radio (NPR)’s The Infinite Mind program. In this episode, “Taking Games Seriously”, he speaks about epistemic games and how they can be used to prepare children for competition in our global economy. Later in the program, Epistemic Games group members Gina Navoa Svarovsky and Padraig Nash were joined by a student who has played the epistemic games Digital Zoo and Urban Science to talk about the games’ design, what it is like to play the games, how they are different from traditional videogames, and the benefits gained by playing them.

If you haven’t already installed Real Player, get it here.