Research/Design,” Is The

The colloquium is free and open to University of Washington Program: students, faculty, staff, and community. 8:00-9:00 AM Registration & Welcome 9:00-9:45 AM Keynote “Structured Signifiers and Infinite Games: The Keywords for Video Game Studies working group, in Serious Play @ Microsoft,” Donald Brinkman, Microsoft Research Program Manager, Games for collaboration with the Critical Gaming Project at the Learning, Digital Humanities University of Washington and the Humanities, Arts, 10:00-11:15 AM Session I “A Video Game Alternative for In-Home Thermo- Science, and Technology Advanced Collaboratory Energy Savings” by Sarah Churng, Stefani Bartz, Stephen Rice, & Nick Stoermer (HASTAC), is supported by the Simpson Center for the “Increasing Novice Learners' Engagement in an Online Programming Game” by Michael J. Lee & Humanities. For more about the Keywords group email Andrew J. Ko “Investigating Knowledge Transfer through [email protected] or go to http://bit.ly/dqlF4E Gaming: A Study of Implicit-to-Explicit Knowledge Extraction Promoted through Collaboration in Portal 2” by Michelle Zimmerman & Jeremy Stalberger The Keywords for Video Game Studies 11:15-11:30 AM Break 11:30 AM-12:30 PM Session II colloquium invites game scholars, artists, “Leet Noobs: The Life and Death of an Expert Player in World of Warcraft” by Mark Chen designers, developers, and enthusiasts to “Let’s Plays and Internet Content About Games” by Solon Scott, Michael Pfeiffer, & Vince Blas participate in roundtable discussions, 12:30-1:30 PM Lunch/Break 1:30-2:30 PM Session III presentations of individual and “Imaginary John Cage, No. 1 (for 12 Videogames)” performed by John Russell & David Baker collaborative work, scholarship, and play. "Hey, Listen! An Examination of the Importance of Audio in Gaming” by Bennett Schatz This year’s colloquium, broadly themed by 2:30-2:45 PM Break 2:45-4:00 PM Session IV: Lightning Talks the keywords “research/design,” is the “Games for Health: Past, Present, and Future?” by Alan Au capstone event to a year-long series of “Finding it Hard to Breathe in the Cloud” by Alenda Chang workshop sessions democracy, time, “Examining Game Feel in Journey and Shadow of the Colossus” by Blaine Doherty “Practicing Paidia” by Eliot Hemingway altplay/fandom, gold farming, and "Complexities in Evaluating the Effectiveness of Games for Learning" by Theresa Horstman hack/mod. The colloquium, now in its “Gaming Gender: Systems, Literacies, and Play” by Merritt Kopas second year, hopes to foster the growing “The Problem of Lore in Contemporary Game Design” by Terry Schenold engagement with what it means to study 4:00 PM Closing “Project Epiphyte,” Donald Brinkman or make or play digital games. RESEARCH/DESIGN Keywords for Video Game Studies Colloquium Saturday May 19, 2012 8-4 PM Communication 202 University of Washington Seattle 8:00-9:00 AM Registration & Welcome PROGRAM 9:00-9:45 AM Keynote “Structured Signifiers and Infinite Games: Serious Play @ Microsoft” Donald Brinkman Microsoft Research Program Manager Games for Learning, Digital Humanities What is a badge? Is it a certification? Is it a mile marker? Is it some form of currency? Perhaps it is just a badge? Badges are all of these things and none of them. They are structured signifiers that have the potential to transform the way we learn skills and record experiences. The ‘badge-o-sphere’ is currently a chaotic and disconnected space but it is rapidly beginning to congeal into a unified repository for actionable analytics. We will discuss how badges are evolving and how Microsoft is exploring their potential. 10:00-11:15 AM Session I “A Video Game Alternative for In-Home Thermo-Energy Savings” Sarah Churng, Stefani Bartz, Stephen Rice, & Nick Stoermer Division of Design, School of Art, University of Washington Our presentation is about a revolutionary home thermostat interface that uses video game technologies to engage behavioral modiﬁcations for energy saving habits among occupants. The gaming aspect of the redesign encourages long-term energy-saving habits among individual users, and promotes positive social change among communities of dwellers. Residential thermostats control 9% of the total energy use in the United States and similar amounts in most developed countries (Haiad et al. 2004). Many building landlords and agents choose to install programmable thermostats because of their assumed energy savings, as established by the Energy Star Program. However, several recent ﬁeld studies have found no significant savings in households equipped with programmable thermostats compared to households with manual thermostats (Haiad et al. 2004, Shipworth et al. 2010). Moreover, the details of how occupants actually use them have been largely ignored. In fact, most home occupants generally operate thermostats manually, rather than relying on their programmable features, and almost 90% of respondents from a 2011 preliminary study reported that they rarely or never adjusted the thermostat to set a weekend or weekday program (Meier 2011). We take as one source of inspiration the interface of the Toyota Prius hybrid car, which enables drivers to improve their driving efficiency. The visual user interface communicates with the engine control module of the car and outputs an "energy monitor" with graphical flow data of current energy consumption, and a "consumption screen" for logs over the individual user's average consumption. Our thermostat interface redesign adopts this model of goal directed behavior as a solution for home energy cost cuts, by empowering the user to engage with perceived control over transparent methods for energy saving. We extend the model further by using Ian Bogost's tenets on the technology and cultural aspects of video gaming, to foster fun user experience and inter-user play for sustainably long- term habit-forming goals toward energy cuts. “Increasing Novice Learners' Engagement in an Online Programming Game” Michael J. Lee & Andrew J. Ko Information School, University of Washington Many novice programmers view programming tools as all-knowing, infallible authorities about what is right and wrong about code. This misconception is particularly detrimental to beginners, who may view the cold, terse, and often judgmental errors from compilers as a sign of personal failure. It is possible, however, that attributing this failure to the computer, rather than the learner, may improve learners’ motivation to program. To test this hypothesis, we present Gidget, a game where the eponymous robot protagonist is cast as a fallible character that blames itself for not being able to correctly write code to complete its missions. Players learn programming by working with Gidget to debug its problematic code. In a two-condition controlled experiment, we manipulated Gidget’s level of personification in: communication style, sound effects, and image. We tested our game with 116 self-described novice programmers recruited on Amazon’s Mechanical Turk and found that, when given the option to quit at any time, those in the experimental condition (with a personable Gidget) completed significantly more levels in a similar amount of time. Participants in the control and experimental groups played the game for an average time of 39.4 minutes (SD=34.3) and 50.1 minutes (SD=42.6) respectively. These finding suggest that how programming tool feedback is portrayed to learners can have a significant impact on motivation to program and learning success. “Investigating Knowledge Transfer through Gaming: A Study of Implicit-to-Explicit Knowledge Extraction Promoted through Collaboration in Portal 2” Michelle Zimmerman, Learning Sciences, University of Washington & Jeremy Stalberger, Microsoft Thirty-eight middle school students ages 9-15 are taking part in participatory action research (Langhout, & Thomas, 2010) investigating gaming in the classroom. This part of a larger design-based (Baumgartner et al., 2003) research project is in the second cycle of its multiple iterations and redesign that will span the length of the school year. The longer-term goal of the study is to investigate ways children come to develop the ability to identify their own implicit learning as they progress through the game, Portal 2, communicate that learning leading to reciprocal interdependence (Lew et al., 1986; Skilton et al., 2008) while engaging in socially mediated learning (Vygotsky, 1987a, 1987b) and verbal communication over a technological device (Mercer, Wegerif, & Dawes, 1999). Further iterations of the design-based study will examine implicit to explicit knowledge extraction and physics learning transfer from Portal 2. Children need to be able to make implicit learning that occurs through gaming explicit as they verbally identify knowledge gained in order to communicate effectively in collaboration over a technological device. Results from the first iteration in May 2011, revealed the necessity of training in this area and literature confirmed how those conclusions apply in collaborative work in the presence of a technological tool including science simulations (Mercer, Wegerif, & Dawes, 1999). This is the primary focus of the current iteration of the design-based participatory action teacher research, as well as a greater understanding of the implementation process and challenges of getting commercial gaming into the classroom. In order to establish asymmetric pairs for students to play Portal 2 in cooperative mode where positive and reciprocal interdependence (Lew et al., 1986; Skilton et al., 2008)

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