Workshops

 It seems like more communities are interested in using badges to mark people’s skills and accomplishments. In this session we’ll share an overview of badges being used in educational settings and informal learning environments. We’ll include a short description of the systems available (such as Mozilla Open badges). As a group we’ll discuss examples of achievement and badging systems in a broad range of video games and consider how these are taken up in other contexts. During our discussion we’ll cover some main perspectives related to badges (and gamification in general) such as Bogost, McGonigal, Halavais, and Deterding. Plus, badge making activity included!

Theresa Horstman is a doctoral candidate in Learning Sciences at the University of Washington, U.S.A.  She received her B.A. with a focus in philosophy from The Evergreen State College and her M.Ed. from the University of Washington.   Her interests include comparative analysis of video game and e-learning design methodologies and the correlation between the metaphoric process and creative process in designing instruction for virtual environments.  Theresa is also one of the organizers of THATCamp Epic Play and the Keywords for Video Game Studies graduate interest group at UW.

Sean Fullerton is a doctoral student in the UW Information School. His teaching experience includes years as an elementary school librarian, a middle school math teacher, and teaching high school English online. His interests include the design and social implications of technologies that let young people document skills and accomplishments and access learning opportunities beyond traditional school settings.

“There Must Be 50 Ways to Play A Video Game: How To Make A Let’s Play Of Your Very Own!”
Solon Scott

The players of games have revolutionized the way we understand consuming game media by recording themselves playing games and uploading these segmented playthroughs to Youtube with their own commentary dubbing over the game. This genre of online media is known as ‘Let’s Plays’ as in – The Player AND The Viewer play together. Thousands of ‘gamers’ have come together to host their own productions that document, analyze, and emotionalize games in a radically new way! Solon has been putting together Let’s Plays on Youtube for the last two years and has hundreds of videos online spanning every game genre ranging from Triple-A production sizes to covering small Indie games. His series of Let’s Plays focus on analyzing a game in a very thorough way from the design to the aesthetic, the score, and beyond. For this workshop, Solon would like to extend the tools of the trade and examine the constantly asked question: “Why would someone want to watch another person play a video game?”

Solon Scott is an undergraduate in his last quarter at the Comparative History of Ideas at the University of Washington where he studies games and play in critical spaces.  As a part of these studies he critically analyzes games using the Youtube subgenre known as “Let’s Plays” to dig deep into a wide range of video games.  Sometimes they are AAA studio releases, and other times they are small independently developed games.  Solon also designs his own games ranging from text adventures to theater games and even a few video games.