Video Games Workshop 2016

Saturday, April 16 9:30 am - 5:45 pm

Common Room (Ground Floor)
Department of East Asian Languages and Civilizations
2 Divinity Ave.
Cambridge, MA 02138

Workshop Description

Video games have become a significant component among the arts and industries of global popular culture, with reported worth of $44 billion annually, worldwide. Players encompass a wide age range and nearly equal ratios of women and men. Games played in a specific cultural context may be studies as producing meanings generated in part from the cultural heritage of the society within they were created or where they are played. Playing video games may contribute to the formation of personal identity, and multiplayer games can create new forms of technologically mediated socialization. The production of a successful game can require years of work that brings together artists, engineers, and computer scientists in a creative nexus. Clearly, video games can be studied from a variety of perspectives.

Students are increasingly eager to have Japanese video games integrated into course curricula. With varying degree of students' knowledge of video games--some with significant experience and some with very minimal experience--that require hard hours of input to play and be mastered, it is a challenge for faculty to integrate these sought out materials into our syllabi.

This workshop seeks the opportunity to consider together how to help students interpret the content of games, how to understand their social and historical context, and how to integrate appropriate exercises into a course. Professor Rachael Hutchinson of the University of Delaware, specializing in pedagogical issues surrounding video games, and Professor Mikael Jokobsson of MIT's Game Lab will be joining the workshop to present on various components related to video games and the class room.

Program

09:30 a.m. - 09:45 a.m. Workshop introductions over coffee

09:45 a.m. - 10:45 a.m. Presentation, Rachael Hutchinson (Univ. of Delaware)

10:45 a.m. - 11:00 a.m. Coffee Break

11:00 a.m. - 12:00 p.m. Presentation, Mikael Jakobsson (MIT)

12:00 p.m. - 1:15 p.m. Lunch Break

1:15 p.m. - 2:15 p.m. Tour of Japanese Video Game Archive
& demonstration of pedagogical uses of immersive video
games by Marlon Kuzmick

2:30 p.m. - 4:00 p.m. Roundtable discussion: Drafting syllabi, modules, and
lectures Including Rachael Hutchinson (Univ. of Delaware),
Mikael Jakobsson (MIT), Franz Prichard (Princeton)

4:00 p.m. - 4:15 p.m Coffee Break

4:15 p.m. - 5:45 p.m. General discussion of issues in teaching video
games / teaching through video games, such as
selecting readings, game-play, writing exercise, designing
assessment criteria, obstacles and challenges