Desinging To Learn

The affinity space project featuring Unity Community as part of INTE 5320 Games & Learning, UC Denver. Please provide comments here in the blog and hypothes.is for review. Please respond to at least one question from each of the following question sets aligned to the criteria of our affinity space project. A. Observing the affinity space: What observations about game/ing communities and cultures are shared? What does it mean to be an insider? How do you know? And how would you describe this space to an outsider? What are the cultural norms – the means of interaction and discussion – that are prominent in this space? And why? B. Contributing to the affinity space: How did your peer first begin contributing to the affinity space? How did other members of the affinity space respond? How did the nature of your peer’s contributions change over time? And why? What insight about games (and games and learning) did your peer learn through her/his contributions? C. Ref...

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:The_sims_2.jpg The continued scholarship and research, as part of the Games and Learning course at UC Denver , has lead me to explore adult learning, simulations, and gender and identity as it concerns gaming. For the most part, videogames and gaming cultures have been the focus. While I searched for articles related to these topics I discovered “ Gender and Identity in Game-Modifying Communities ” by Hanna Wirman in the Simulation & Gaming journal as part of Sage journals published in 2014. In this article Hanna describes her research based on email interviews with THE SIMS 2 players in Finland. She also described how the media received THE SIMS 2. Finally, Hanna discussed the marginalization of THE SIMS 2 players (Wirman 2014, 71). Hanna wrote her Phd. dissertation on “Playing The Sims 2” so you can bet this article is an incredible resource on the subject. I was interested to see how Hanna presented her research findings compared to wha...

Introduction As part of the graduate course work in INTE 5320 at University of Colorado Denver , and continued scholarship in games & learning, I’m sharing my experiences as a participant in an affinity space about games and games & learning. This is an ongoing project focused on affinity spaces and participatory cultures with syntheses of theory and the works of James Paul Gee and Elizabeth Hayes “Nurturing Affinity Spaces and Game-Based Learning.” Background I’m a gamer, game artist, and wanna-be game creator or developer. I’ve “paid my dues” so to speak as an artist in the game industry for six plus years (see example of work here) . There were moments of incredible satisfaction and joy in work. But since the mobile game market exploded (sometime between the iPhone 3 and 4), I can say my interest in the types of games I’m willing to be part of has dramatically declined. I started to ask myself why? Why would I want to spend my day making sprites for monotonous a...

What are Play Journals? As part of the Games and Learning course and study with University of Colorado Denver Information and Learning Technologies Master’s program, students will participate in both shared and individual play sessions. These play sessions are part of “learning by doing” and reflection necessary to understand what it means to be a learner through playing games. The play journals are a synthesis of scholarship and reflection on play per the chosen game. Playing Hearthstone Hearthstone is a single player, card, turned based, strategy game that can be played against an artificial intelligence (AI) opponent, in “Solo Adventures.” It can also be played against other players over the internet including friends on your Battlenet list. Hearthstone is available on a computer and most mobile devices making it very accessible, and it’s free to play! Playing the game in solo mode will initially unlock cards and other heroes. This serves as a sort of tutorial that mus...