Prioritising Participation over PerformancE
ANZAAE Conference 2014
15-17 July 2014 | AUT, Auckland NZ
James Manning, Senior Lecturer
Media Design School, Auckland NZ
PArticipate!
Follow along!
Welcome feedback!
Add your own comments!
OR
Takeaways
Community is everything!
Overview
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Concerns x 3
-
Possibilities x 3
-
Actualities x 3*
*actually one, with three parts
Concerns
- Gamification
- "Finished" products
- "Gaming the system"
1. Gamification
"Gamification is the process of taking something that already exists – a website, an enterprise application, an online community – and integrating game mechanics into it to motivate participation, engagement, and loyalty."
1. Gamification
Often confuses extrinsic incentives (rewards) with intrinsic motivation (fun).
Deterding, S. (2012). Paideia as Paidia: From Game-Based Learning to a Life Well-Played.
Keynote, Games Learning Society 8.0, June 15, 2012, Madison, Wisc., USA.
2. "Finished" Products
Overly focused on (end) goals.
Objectives over Processes.
Results over Methods.
2. "Finished" Products
Playful (re)design of systems.
"From game interventions in systems
to the gameful redesign of systems."
Deterding, S. (2012)
3. "Gaming THe System"
Negative rather than positive connotations.
Bending or breaking the rules (for personal gain).
- Disruptive (Entrepreneurial)
-
Seeking alternatives
- Testing the boundaries
- Finding new methods
(These sound like an ideal student to me.)
Possibilities
- Spreadable Media
- Produser
- Craftsmanship
1. SpreadAble Media
"If it doesn't spread, it's dead."
Recognises the spreadability of media (content) heightened in the Network Age enabled through the digital ecology.
Unified exp. --> diversified (localised) experiences
Prestructured --> open-ended activities
Distinct roles --> collaboration across roles
Jenkins, H., Ford, S., & Green, J. (2013). Spreadable Media. New York: New York University Press.
1. Spreadable Media
Power of the community to shape and evolve content.
The "Hive Mind" or "Collective Intelligence."
"...collective intelligence is mutual recognition and enrichment of individuals rather than the cult of fetishized or hypostatized communities." (Lévy 1997, 13)
Folksonomy, social bookmarking e.g. Pinterest.
Lévy, P. (1997). Collective Intelligence: Mankind's Emerging World in Cyberspace. NY: Plenum Trade.
2. Produser
Prod(uctive) User (Bruns 2008).
Recognises the productive role of the users within "information communities." (15)
Connection of content and context:
Bruns, A. (2008). Blogs, Wikipedia, Second life, and Beyond: From Production to Produsage. New York: Peter Lang.
2. produser
"The social, collaborative basis of the content creation communities engaged in produsage also indicates [...] the object of the communal effort is almost always as much the development of social structures to support and sustain the shared project as it is development of that project itself. ..."
2. Produser
"[...T]he information (knowledge, creative work) prodused by the community therefore exists not in abstraction from the social context of its development [...] but exists only as directly embedded in such contexts, as a temporary artefact of continuing social processes of developing, extending, negotiating, and evaluating this shared content."
(Bruns 2008, 23)
3. Craftmanship
"...an enduring, basic human impulse, the desire to do a job well for its own sake." (Sennet 2008, 9)
"joined skill in community" (51)
Vocation = work done not as a "finished end," but as participation in the craft itself (263).
Sennet, R. (2008). The Craftsman. New Haven, CT: Yale University Press.
3. The Next Level
Group-authored web-log (blog).
Content controlled by students.
Publicly facing (regulatory).
Separate from mechanisms of assessment.
Wordpress 3.9.1 using
BuddyPress 2.0.1,
bbPress 2.5.4, Disqus Comment System 2.77
3. The Next Level
Students asked to regularly post content (as part of curricula).
Disqus commenting system utilised to comment upon and respond to each others' posts.
Forum to present ideas, opinions, discuss WIP (extra-curricula).
BuddyPress utilised to emulate social media platforms, form & maintain groups, chat with others etc.
3. "Informed Opinions"
Introduce six topics, respond to three questions as reasoned arguments e.g. "Are videogames inherently sexist?"
Through discussion online, collectively ascertain the value of:
– their own contribution;
– the contribution of others;
– the assessment process itself.
– the contribution of others;
– the assessment process itself.
3. Student Feedback
"I found the prospect of publishing posts on the blog helped me think more deeply about what I was writing." (70% agreed)
"I found that being able to read and comment upon other peoples' posts, helped me think about my own." (87% agreed)
"I found writing blog posts helped me better understand the Assignment Brief and Assessment Criteria." (64% agreed)
"I found the prospect of posting my ideas on a public forum intimidating." (41% disagreed, 35% agreed)
3. The Future
Artificial separation of assessment from contribution (although implicitly connected).
Devise a way to integrate assessment model within, rather than alongside, community activity.
e.g. Assess students ability to collectively create learning resources.
THANK You FOR PARTICIPATING!
James Manning, Senior Lecturer
Media Design School, Auckland NZ
Prioritising Participation over Performance
By jimaroonie
Prioritising Participation over Performance
Prioritising Participation over Performance: Encouraging game development students to engage critically through the development of an online community. Presentation given at the Aotearoa New Zealand Association of Art Educators (ANZAAE) 2014 Conference, 15-17 July 2014, AUT, Auckland, New Zealand.
