Last week, I was involved in the organization of International Games Day @ Your Library. Basically, a group of people from our AUC (American University in Cairo) library found out about this international event and invited a several of us from different departments who were interested in participating in it. We could do whatever we wanted, as long as it involved games.
We had several meetings and divided up the open spaces in the library for different purposes. Our University Academic Computing Technologies department participated by bringing in digital games and also designing the poster and a large snakes & ladders physical game outside the library. Some people in the team also brought in some board games for anyone in the AUC community.
I participated in two ways: I displayed some student-created games from past semesters I had taught, and I invited some Egyptian game designers to play-test their games with students. Most of these game designers have been working with the UNDP (United Nations Development Programme in Egypt) on creating games for social change. I invited my own students (undergraduates learning about educational game design) to spend a couple of hours at the event instead of coming to class.
I have recently adopted a strong stance towards encouraging students to become producers and not just consumers of knowledge. I don’t just mean that they “make” things (they do), but I also want to show them other Egyptians who are doing things. I wanted them to have opportunities to learn about the processes behind the polished games you see on the shelf. Many of the games children here play are imported, like Monopoly or Cluedo, or Egyptianized versions of those games, rather than original creations from this region. It can be really motivating for students to see games developed for the local context by Egyptians.
It was an amazing learning experience for me, let alone my students. I still haven’t read all their reflections on their blogs, but I could see the sparkle in their eye as they tried a new game, and I could hear them interviewing the game designers about their process, and giving them feedback on their games.
One particular game that got a lot of attention was “Sign Heroes” which teaches sign language. Students crowded around that particular game and you could see people smiling and laughing all the while. It was a fun game, people genuinely learned something new, and, more importantly, I think the game has potential to change player attitudes towards people who are deaf or hard of hearing: players get a sense that they could learn to communicate better with them if they tried.
There was a game called Baladna (our country) by an Egyptian game design company called Weladna (our kids). Every semester, I invite them to come to my class, to play the game with students, and later to play the student-created games. This semester, we could not have them in our regular class, so I played the game with them in class. However, the students’ enthusiasm for the game was much greater when they played it with the game designers themselves. Something to keep in mind for the future.
One of the meta things that happened to me during this day, is that I sharpened my own game evaluation skills. The game designers were play-testing and asking everyone for feedback. It made me more careful about how I evaluated each game, both for its educational value, its dynamics/aesthetics, and whether they aligned with the learning goals of the designers. I am hoping, then, that my students’ ability to judge the quality of a game has improved through the process of giving constructive feedback to the game designers andlaterblogging their reflections on recommendations for improvement after they had seen several. It even inspired me to create a game to sum up the process of analyzing a game in terms of what it is meant to do, how it is meant to do it, and why - and to expand my game to incorporate several of the other games I play in my class in the process, like my “Name the Game Game” and “Hack-a-Game”. It made me realize that I change these games every semester as I learn by playing them (like play-testing).
My colleague Sherif Osman sent out this tweet during the event, and I noticed Ana Salter favorited it.
I was reminded of Ana’s visit to Cairo last April where we had a slightly similar event and she gave lots of really useful feedback to student game designers. (She wrote about that event here on ProfHacker.)
I now realize that one of the greatest benefits of International Games Day was that my students got to interact with games in a state of not-yetness - not yet established, not yet complete, open to improvement and evolution. Just like learning should be.
Did your campus participate in International Games Day? Are games part of your pedagogy? Please share in the comments?
