Doug Thomas: Teaching (not so long ago) in a Galaxy Far, Far Away: Using Star Wars Galaxies in/as the Classroom
new journal coming out – Cultures in Games

taught 14 students in this class

the game is profession-based, half of which have to do with social interaction rather than exploring, killing, etc.
provides a significant social basis for play

showed a video invitation he received for a party to celebrate a one-year anniversary for entertainers – a LOT of dancing
– all of this has nothing to do with the game itself or Star Wars; build their own cantinas for parties
“biggest party in the galaxy”

course goals:
– three distinct points of view – designer, player, and critic - in order to look at the way communities are created
– games as objects to think with

one student got married 4 times in the game over the semester

challenging assumptions:
– fun/learning binary; we tend to hold those terms in opposition; we usually say it’s okay to have fun as long as you’re learning; flip this to say it’s okay to learn as long as you’re having fun
– play/teaching dichotomy

Thomas went from being in a class to being in a game
– traditional assumptions about classroom roles and behaviors
– the idea that people are having fun in the classroom makes it suspect
– course material as primary
– most interesting transformations came from experience - watching students become players

if you give people groups, they will view everything through them
play as expertise
blurring the binary distinction
– fun and learning as indistinguishable
– student anxiety: “we didn’t want people to think we were just playing games.”

students who weren’t the “best” students turned in the best midterm papers he’d ever read

from teacher to ???
– forced him to rethink the role of the teacher
– was anxious about the class throughout the semester because it was so unfamiliar; “but they aren’t learning anything;” the students “got” it right away, though, and knew exactly what they were learning
- theory testing and theory breaking
- read Murray’s “Hamlet on the Holodeck”
– haflway into the semester, the students started saying, “What would Murray say about what just happened to me in the game?”

conclusions:
– play creates expertise
– taking play seriously violates everything we know (or at least feel) about student and teacher roles; it’s uncomfortable when you’re no longer the leader with all of the knowledge
– principle barriers are faculty, not students; they immediately understood what was important about the experience (gender, social networks, embodiment, etc.); readings gave them something to push back against – they dialogued against it, which was very different and was engaging

Joshua Fouts: Public Diplomacy and MMOGs: Rethinking Foreign Policy, Cultural Understanding, and Peace through Play

Why MMOs?
– one ot many networks (developer to community)
– many to many networks (networked communication systems)
– one to many networks (player to community)

Stephen Gillett: Guild Building is Skill Building: How guild building leadership & management skills learned in MMORPGs transcend into the real world of a startup company

represents the 20something specimen of all of this
grew up around games

mom & dad didn’t know he had a 200–person guild or that he was learning basics in ten languages in Ultima

was told that the things he did might seem totally normal to him, but they’re not normal business practices
noticed that the skills of the guildmaster were the same as being a CEO
– raising money/funds
– had to incorporate
– had to come up with a mission statement
– had to keep the talent
– recruitment of talent
– ceremony and rewards systems were very similar

entering the workforce with several years of managing a guild workforce gave him an advantage

worked at c|net and now Yahoo

Connie Yowell: Respondent, (a non-gamer) from the MacArthur Foundation

response to Stephen:
we don’t have much understanding of adult learning
don’t have much on how all of this transfers, but Stephen just noted how this transferred for him; preparation for future learning
the concept of “stolen knowledge” – is it enough to have that knowledge without knowing you have it?

response to Doug:
role of the teacher is to be able to move the student from concrete experiences into a body of knowledge; it’s a continuum
“are they learning anything” is a fundamental question, and we need to understand those moments
games allow us the opportunity to rethink all of this

response to Joshua:
how do we maintain these communities through conflict?
the notion of trust and security; the role of “soft power”
as you become a member of a community, you gain “collective efficacy” – can we get this in public policy?

Doug: thinks players see race as a user interface issue
thought it was great that the game included the full range of “colors,” but once they got into the game, they didn’t see a single person of color
no discussions about this are happening