Game Development Reference
In-Depth Information
exception. This student was in both of the first two multiplayer classrooms.
She pointed out that once her guild discovered she read and studied diligently,
they could all relax. Still, other guild members occasionally were able to come
to her aid.
How did the switch from farming typos and mistakes in the
“
Theory and
Practice of Game Design
�
class to glossary building in
“
Multiplayer Game
Design
work out? Not so well. Players were pleased to prove their knowledge
was greater than the textbook
�
s. And the exercise of finding the mistakes forced
them to read carefully and learn some spelling and grammar along the way. The
glossary proved to be little more than tapping into their firsthand knowledge or
collecting data from the Internet. Unfortunately, topics with so many errors are
hard to come by! I used glossary building only one more time.
'
As before, the reading presentation quests were delivered to the class by their
fellow students, with questions and comments from me. Again, these players
relied on PowerPoint for the most part. I was determined not to repeat the last
class, which often read their bulleted lists aloud. So I coached them on how to
deliver PowerPoint talks and to find new and innovative approaches. Most
students began supplementing their talks with illustrations drawn on the
whiteboard and YouTube videos, as a few had before.
Then a breakthrough: One guild, Guild-a-Bear, built their presentation as a
game! They started with a sophisticated PowerPoint template found on the
Jefferson County Schools in Dandridge, Tennessee website, credited to Mark E.
Damon. They would present two or three slides and then seamlessly switch to a
version of So You Want to Be a Millionaire ?
where players would race to
answer multiple-choice questions based on the small slice of material they had
just covered. Winners got candy. They had the full attention of their classmates
for an hour. It was awesome! Another guild, The Posse, wrote a script for part of
the presentation and acted it out. Beautiful!
—
It
s important to note that in both cases, the material covered was clearly
presented. Because of the uniqueness of the presentations, retention seemed to
be improved as well. On the midterm, the material covered by So You Want to
Be a Millionaire? was nailed by almost everyone who had been present on the
day of the game.
'
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