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6 weeks MOOC +1 + SpringB + 8 wks class.
WEEK ELEVEN: 8 & 9 APR: how to do it while learning about it
RETURN HERE FOR WEEK TWELVE SCHEDULES @ UMD! Click HERE for Davidson's MetaMOOC around which this course began. Community members are welcome and appreciated for either or both meeting times!
A one-time unique experimental course for undergraduates, graduate students, faculty, and all! Customizable for level, credit, schedule, forms of presence! Contact Katie King (katking@umd.edu) for details!
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•T 4-6:30 (WDS 2101C): adaptive learning [link on Trends in Higher Education Guide, including adaptive learning and gamification from Rasmussen College]
we will investigate "adaptive" and "personalized" elements, as well as do a Latour-style Actor-Network analysis of the debates, tracking:
>places & events
>organizations
>stakeholders with interests
>individuals
>>views of the world & controlling values
>>>translation & composition
See Week 4 for Katie's example of such an analysis.
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•W 1-3:30 (WDS 2101C + around the offices)
the Wednesday group has planned out a series of topics, readings, and project orientation for the rest of the term: this week focuses on Digital Media and Games for Learning.
Link to Katie's class last term on Games & Virtual Worlds HERE.
Week Eleven – Week of April 7, 2014: Digital Media/Gamification; MOOC Pedagogy
THIS WEEK ON NOT YOUR MAMA'S GAMER!! From Alex Layne: http://www.samanthablackmon.net/notyourmamasgamer/?p=4892
I hope that Procedural Ethics serves this function to redefine what is and is not important when it comes to studying video games. While most popular methods of game scholarship starts and the procedures (ie. the video game) and moves forward, tracing player reaction (Sicart) and cultural implications (Bogost), Procedural Ethics argues that ethical research practices must also start at the procedure and move backward. Video games did not program themselves. They are the result of an enormous industry filled with ideologies, opinions, policies, norms, and so on. Can we really make an argument about how one of the most sexist games in recent memory, Duke Nukem Forever (Gearbox Software 2012), has impacted society without also talking about the fact that roughly 5.8% of Gearbox’s workforce is female? I certainly don’t think so. And while critiquing, engaging with, and discussing the representation of women in games is crucial, it should not be done while ignoring the actual women in the industry.
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Incredibly valuable resource now available at UMD: lynda.com. Info HERE. For your referral I've put a link into this site's link list (right hand side above) too.
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An online journal to keep your hand in for issues that have come up in our class! Here's a bit tagging Jane McGonigal: http://www.firstpersonscholar.com/tag/jane-mcgonigal/
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Higher Ed News this week:
http://www.thestate.com/2014/04/04/3368501/usc-upstate-facing-more-cuts-over.html
USC Upstate facing more cuts over gay-themed programming
COLUMBIA, SC — The University of South Carolina Upstate could have its budget cut again for another gay-themed program on the Spartanburg campus.
The school is hosting a symposium on gay topics that at one point included a lecture titled, “How to be a lesbian in 10 days or less.” The event comes a month after the House of Representatives cut $17,142 from USC Upstate’s budget for assigning freshmen to read an essay book on coming out gay in the South.
At least three state senators said Friday they are upset about USC Upstate’s gay-themed programming. They vow to not only keep the House’s cut but also slash more from the school’s budget next year.
“If they’ve got extra money sitting around to promote perversion, obviously they’ve got more money than they really need,” said S.C. Sen. Kevin Bryant, an Anderson Republican who sits on the Senate budget-writing committee.
The symposium was planned a year ago – long before lawmakers took aim at the 5,400-student school, said Clif Flynn, associate vice chancellor academic affairs for the university.
The conference cost about $11,500, said Reid Toth, the school’s department chairwoman of sociology, criminal justice, and women’s studies. About $5,000 was paid by the school and $6,500 was covered by private grants, she said.
The House funding cut, approved last month, was based on the cost of the reading program that assigned “Out Loud: The Best of Rainbow Radio” in the fall. The House also trimmed $52,000 from the College of Charleston for assigning freshmen another gay-themed book “Fun Home.”
Senators are weighing the state’s $24 billion budget now.
“I think it’s time that these institutions be held accountable,” Sen. Lee Bright, R-Spartanburg, said.
Bright, who is running for the U.S. senate, said many people in Spartanburg are upset about the activities on the USC Upstate campus.
“Higher education is becoming more about indoctrination and less about education,” he said.
Bryant and Bright were among 21 Senate and House members who voted against USC board members running unopposed during trustees elections this week because the Columbia flagship campus oversees Upstate.
Sen. State Mike Fair, who also sits on the Senate’s finance committee, said he voted against the trustees “to protest questionable campus activities at USC Upstate and the main campus.”
The Greenville Republican said he felt uncomfortable raising the issue because he loves the university, his alma mater where he was a starting quarterback and a trustee.
“It’s an absolute insult to the moms and dads who are paying for their children’s education at USC Upstate,” Fair said.
USC Upstate’s Bodies of Knowledge Symposium, slated for next Thursday and Friday, focuses on lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender and other sexual orientation issues and has stirred a typically conservative section of the state.
The college – which hosts a national conference on child abuse and an undergraduate research symposium highlighting students’ work – did not intend to stir controversy with the symposium, school officials said.
The theme is “an optional opportunity (for students) to explore some of these topics which they probably would not get to in a class or in another type of organized workshop,” Toth said.
Much of the outcry was over the planned performance by Leigh Hendrix of “How to be a lesbian in 10 days or less,” a comical story about coming out as gay.
But some people took it as an instructive performance, instead of a comedy, USC Upstate spokeswoman Tammy Whaley said.
The event was cut after community and political uproar.
Sen. John Courson, chairman of the higher education senate finance subcommittee, said his panel has not discussed cutting funds to schools because of gay-themed programs. The Richland Republican said he had a problem with censorship on campuses.
“I don’t think we should as a legislature micromanage exactly what is being taught and discussed in college,” he said.
If legislators start picking on one group, they could move onto others, said Ryan Wilson, director of S.C. Equality, which advocates for gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgender South Carolinians.
“These legislators say they are concerned about taxpayer dollars,” Wilson said. “What about my taxpayer dollars?”
Reach Cope at (803-771-8657.)
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