Systems Thinking
Watch scholars James Paul Gee and Kurt Squire on situated and embodied learning, and systems thinking
Games and Education Scholar James Paul Gee on Video Games, Learning and Literacy
Kurt Squire on Civic Engagement Through Digital Games
Systems thinking enables people to look at problems in new ways that lead to new solutions. A system is a dynamic number of interconnected and interdependent parts that function to support a whole. When one part changes, the stability and sustainability of the whole system is affected. Systems range from physical, economic, political to social, cultural and environmental.
Playing and creating games, allows students to approach problems by recognizing relationships and patterns between components that provide an organizational framework for understanding the whole system. Systems thinkers develop self-confidence and self-agency through interacting with games that empowers them to address complex problems in their lives and the greater world.
Systems Thinking Habits of Mind
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seeking to understand the big picture
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seeing patterns and trends in systems
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recognizing how a system’s structure causes its behaviour
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identifying cause and effect relationships
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surfacing and testing assumptions
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finding where unintended consequences might arise
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finding leverage points to a change a system
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resisting making quick conclusions
More Information? Download:
IOP Q-Design Pack on Systems Thinking
Gamedesk + Epicenter Game Jam at the d.school
ARIS Global Game Jam 2011
Watch the following video to get a sense of how game jams are practiced:
Additional Resources on Game Jams:
Game-Jam Your Classroom: Andrew Miller
Students as Designer: Game Jams!
Student Authorship: Creating Games
Ubiquitous open WiFi and improving data plan rates will improve the connectivity of mobile games and interactive storytelling in the near future. The promises and potential of learning and creating meaning by creating games without coding experience on a variety of devices will be realized in a few short years. This improved public accessibility will leverage the sharing of student-generated games with locative capabilties creating opportunities outside of the classroom that connect content, narrative and place with rich media.
Game Jams for Mobile Games
Game creation events will proliferate as mobile connectivity improves. Game jams - like music jams - are short sessions of organic group collaboration and improvisation that do not rely on pre-planning. Teams are challenged to design a game in a short period of time, such as 1 or 2 days.
Engagement increases when the conditions of game jam are constrained, such as:
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duration (typically 48 hours)
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time on specific tasks (e.g. planning, storyboarding, “making”)
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theme (e.g. sustainability)
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components (e.g. an digital artifacts like a common video, website or images)
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mechanisms (e.g. an auction)
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role (e.g. a character in a story)
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game environment (eg. Flash, Java, ARIS, Taleblazer)
When the time period is over, participants playtest each other’s games. Everyone is provided with feedback, then return to their own games to edit and refine their designs. At the end of the game jam, teams present their game to all participants.
The 0th Indie Game Jam
The first game game took place in Berkeley in 2002 as a game design and programming event to encourage experimentation and innovation in the game industry.
Constraints like time, theme and game environment often result in valuable lessons learned which could otherwise take months or years to emerge in regular practice.
Today, the game jam concept has expanded to and transformed into less formal play events and educational activities where designers, artists and students work collaboratively to create, test, fail and iterate game prototypes. Most jams cater to all skill levels.
The White House Educational Game Jam
Game Jams continue to grow in number and exposure. In October 2014, The White House invited developers, educators, academics and students to participate in their first ever game jam. In March 2015, the United States Office of Educational Technology sponsored its first national jam in Austin, Texas.
Activity 2
Choose ONE of the discussion topics below and post your response under "comments section" (not "review section"). Please indicate the question number at the beginning of your post.
Click here to go to the Activity 2 post on the 522 Wordpress site
You are also responsible for replying to a minimum of one person's comment.
Question 1:
Explore the various applications and digital game based learning programs provided on the OER. Discuss an application or game that you could personally use in your line of work? Are there any digital games, that are not listed that you have used with success? Please give further detail.
Question 2:
James Gee and Kurt Squire contend that games develop systems thinking as well as generate interest and engagement in subject domains and societal issues through the process of playing them over time. Do you feel these goals justify their use in education, or will the next generation of game have to include some element of assessment by design to be considered legitimate learning tools? Explain.
