IGDA Education SIG

Photos from GDC

2008-02-25T17:40:00.000-08:00

Here are some photos from the IGDA Education SIG Summit at GDC:

http://www.flickr.com/photos/goldfile/

It was great seeing so many of you this year, save the date for next year March 23-27, 2009

New Curriculum Framework Posted

2008-02-22T13:47:00.000-08:00

We have made available the new IGDA Curriculum Framework, version 3.2 beta! You can download it right here.

Welcome back to school....

2007-08-21T11:37:00.000-07:00

This is a repost of my most recent listserv update:

A new semester is upon us and the SIG is busy, very busy…

But before I lose your attention with my extremely long note, we are looking for a database development person to help us put our internship program on the website. If you are interested, please contact Stephen Jacobs (sxjics@rit.edu).

Before I tell you about my and the SIG’s summer, what did you do with yours? I think it would be great if we hear about your summer games or projects... so if you feel it is appropriate, post and discuss on the list.

Summer 2007

Well for one, I moved from beautiful Tahoe to wonderful Eugene, OR. Yes, I have left the ivory tower and have gone to work in the game industry. I hope I am more than cultural anthropologist and become a real contributor. Thankfully what I am doing directly involves education, but in addition to my academic oriented work, they have already thrown me into a product group deciding what the next new technology the company develops. I sit in there with artist and programmers and engineers asking myself, how do I fit in? What I have found is that it is all about collaboration and working as a part of a team. It wouldn’t matter if I was a pastry chef, they would find a way to take that expertise and utilize it create something new. Everyone is equal on the team, each brining their own expertise and passion for games to the table. It is an amazing process and I can only stress that putting your students into team environments is going to be key for them succeeding in this industry. Do it early in your programs, because we should have had them doing this since the students started school at 5 years old. But since we only get to influence them at age 18, we have to break a lot of bad habits they have developed, (like doing everything on their own). Put them in teams and make them work together.

A lot of work regarding the curriculum framework has been accomplished over the sumemer. I want to thank Dr. Yusuf Pisan and Dr. Magy Seif El Nasr for their great work and continuing effort. We did get some great syllabi and we are analyzing what everyone has done with the framework over the past four years. It is really great to see so many educators using the framework as the instrument it was designed to be (which is a reference, not a bible).

Speaking of the framework, Tracy Fullerton, Magy Seif El Nasr and I presented at this years SIGGRAPH in San Diego. The name of the session: So you want to start a game program… we had 80 people attend (and for the last session on the last day, we felt that was a great attendance). We discussed the key points of the curriculum framework and emphasized the soft skills. I think our session was well received, there were a ton of questions, etc… everything from what type of math do students need to what game engine should we use? I know that there are a lot of people that need our help and experience in putting their new programs together, I hope many have joined the listserv.

I have asked to have a link to the SIGGRAPH slides (they are a rather hefty 16MB); I will share the URL with everyone as soon as I know it.

As for the rest of the summer, I am going to Asia to speak and meet with industry and educators about the framework. First stop is Shanghai for GDC China, I am doing a talk called Finding a Job and Carving your Niche in a Quickly Globalizing Video Game Industry. Then I get to go to Beijing and speak to several universities about their growing programs and helping them develop their curriculums (hopefully in sync with our framework). Then this globetrotter is off to Singapore where I hope to meet with more educators developing game programs. In addition, I will be attending and speaking at GC Asia, again the talk will be about getting a job in the industry. To round out this Asian tour, myself, Tracy Fullerton and Magy Seif El Nasr and I are going to attend DiGRA in Tokyo and we will be presenting a game design workshop. I am rather thankful that I won’t be talking about getting a job again and get to teach basic design principles. All of these talks and workshops are given to represent the work we have done with curriculums, class ideas and case blats we have shared with those of you that are already members of the SIG.

I know I will miss being a professor, so any time you want me to come visit, give a workshop, teach a class, talk about anything (other than getting a job), email me. No really, I do know a lot about getting students prepared for entering the workforce, so if that is what you need, I would be happy to help you prepare your lectures or give you my slides, or even deliver the info in person. I hope to be traveling around the US this fall meeting as many educators as possible. I would love to visit Boston again and work with them to develop a consortium. There are over 90 educators in the Boston area in some game related work. To me that is amazing and exciting, we should expect to see some great things coming out of the Northeast. I have been asked by some schools in New York State to do something similar with their academics in games (early November). The SIG’s focus with this outreach work is to get everyone talking with one another and hopefully collaborating on projects and/or research together.

I want to wish everyone a great and successful year. I hope your classes are full of students that are excited to learn, creative and hard working. I hope you plan on attending GDC in 2008, remember it is the week of February 18th. I know that Derric Clark is hard at work making sure that our program has something for everyone, be it those starting programs or those experienced game educators that are looking for professional development. We will be having two tracks and our own site outside of GDC, so we don’t have to close registration before the early bird discount is over this year. We also plan to make the two-day workshop affordable, no breaking travel budgets on my watch. You will only need to get a classic pass, not a gigapass and a seperate pass for our workshop. We will be posting news related to that as soon as arrangements and the website are up and ready to go. I have blocked reasonable priced hotel rooms ($100-150 a night) to also help reduce the cost of attendance.

I want to thank everyone who has been a part of the listserv and our community as well as any of the SIG’s activities, thanks for helping and volunteering.

Sincerely,

Susan

--

Susan Gold

Chair, IGDA Education SIG

"We don't receive wisdom; we must discover it for ourselves after a journey that no one can take for us or spare us." -Marcel Proust

MacArthur Grant Awarded to Institute of Play

2007-06-25T08:35:00.000-07:00

Exciting news! Katie Salen, who is on the advisory board for the Education SIG, just received a MacArthur grant of $1.1 million for the Gamelab Institute of Play. The project is going to create a new school for 6-12 grade with a pedagogy based around the idea of gaming literacy ("the play, analysis, and creation of games"). The plan is to open the school in 2009. Go check out their website for more info: it's a very interesting project.

Darius Kazemi
Technology Co-Officer

Boston

2007-04-22T17:57:00.000-07:00

One of my biggest passions is trying to bring people together in our community. I think by deepening and broadening a collaborative community within local, national and global educators is fundamental to the success of our growing genre. Not only is it nice to know that we are not alone in our academic goals, but in most issues that arise we go through the same ups and downs… be it funding, being taken seriously or just general challenges. It is the reason why I turned to the IGDA when I started teaching in games in 2001.

A few weeks ago I was asked to participate in the city of Boston Mayor’s office one-day conference to develop strategies that support the growth of Boston’s Game Industry. Since I was on my way to Boston I thought I would try to meet with local educators working in games, so I did a little investigating. Mind you, Boston is thick with colleges and universities, but I managed to find close to 90 educators working in some aspect of games. They have enough people to start their own special interest group. I called the meeting to see if they were interested in developing some sort of consortium, or sandbox to work within. A place where they could possibly create an environment for low-risk experimentation or just work collaboratively. After pulling together this list, I emailed everyone and invited them to a meeting. Although the invite went out with short notice, I got 30 people to the table. I was so exciting to see the growing interest in game education. What amazed me was that most everyone in the room did not know each other… yet. I was so pleased to find out that so many of those around the table were here just so that they could meet one another.

Keeping that in mind, I very much want to ask all those willing to call, email their neighboring institutions. Start to build a few bridges to your neighbor schools. We are not inventing the cure for cancer here, games are only made as a product of collaboration. I would like to see our community build friendship and alliances before the summer break comes. I know this is a lot to ask for the end of the semester, but is there anything you can do to build upon what you have in your college? Could a collaboration expand and help one another? Art schools, contact the technical schools and vice versa.

As Dr. Alice Robison of MIT’s Comparative Media Studies program said of this past Friday's meeting, “The fact that all of us were committed enough to gather for this meeting is a testament to our willingness to collaborate.” I think each of us sees the potential benefits in creating these bridges. So please, be like one professor at one institution said to another educator, I have always been interested in talking to someone from your school; “I should walk across the street.”

Susan Gold
IGDA Education SIG Chairperson

GDC07: Game Studies

2007-03-06T14:45:00.000-08:00

Kurt Squire , UW-Madison, discussed video game studies as an increasingly accepted field of study. For working groups, he posed questions such as: What are the best practices for studying games? What effective pedagogical models are emerging? How do teachers balance the needs for understanding the technical aspects of the medium with the demands of scholarship?

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Beth A. Dillon

GDC07: Curriculum Framework 2

2007-03-06T14:43:00.000-08:00

In working lunch II, participants discussed various ways to design a program using the current curriculum framework, focused on typical university constraints within disciplines.

Each group discussed:
Discipline structure: how to offer courses within disciplines and across disciplines
Bridging the gap between disciplines
Problems for one discipline to talk to another, resistance from different sides
Should game programs be in different disciplines or form their own interdisciplinary unit, if so how?
How do you see the courses in the framework distributed across disciplines or within what form of interdisciplinary structure do you see them fit best?

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Beth A. Dillon

GDC07: Teaching Methods

2007-03-05T14:40:00.000-08:00

Tracy Fullerton introduced the topic of teaching methods (powerpoint) for a working session challenged to "develop brand new curriculum for an emerging field of study in a learning environment which is already overtaxed and arguably ineffective" and "blaze through some interesting out-of-the box thinking."

Reports from each working group are included as Comments and Powerpoint:

Community building
Collaborative projects
Managing the scope of student game projects
Building interdisciplinary student teams
Assigning games as “texts” for game studies courses
Issues in building & maintaining game libraries
Models for inter-institutional collaboration
Balancing theory and practice
Competitions and festivals as learning objectives

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Beth A. Dillon

GDC07: Design Workshop

2007-03-05T14:34:00.000-08:00

Nick Fortugno from gameLab held a workshop (powerpoint) to bring fundamental game design into the context of designing educational games. Somewhere at the heart of design, Fortugno asserts, are people considering the system: the players and how players interact with variables. “Games are systems,” commented Fortugno, “built out of rules. Out of that comes play.”

Fortugno points out that players introduce themselves to a set of rules they negotiate with. Games have a relationship with aspects such as competition, goals, accomplishment, cooperation, collaboration, and mapping between pleasure and frustration.

In a learning game, Fortugno argues, the player response to content is focused on learning as opposed to emotional feedback. However, when designing educational games, key questions need to be faced: How does that response work? What’s the potential for it? What do we do to achieve it?

In his own classes, Fortugno often has his students play the 20 questions game. During the workshop, groups kicked off the interactive hands-on portion of the session by playing Dungeon Attack, a non-digital prototype, where much laughter was had!

Who killed the card monsters?

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Beth A. Dillon

GDC07: Curriculum Framework Roundtables

2007-03-05T11:56:00.000-08:00

In working lunch I, guided by Magy Seif El-Nasr, participants were divided into groups led by SIG representatives to discuss and revise the current framework. The goal is to recommend revisions to the 2003 Curriculum Framework looking for problems: holes, insufficient detail, ambiguity and repetition.

Reports from each group are included as Comments:

Critical Game Studies, led by Tim Langdell
Game Production: Programming, led by Tom Carbone
Game Production: Design, led by Tim Roden
Game Production: Visual/Audio Design, led by Joseph Arnayosi
Game Production: Management/Development Process, led by Christopher Erhardt
Business of Gaming, led by Kevin O'Gorman
Game Production: Writing and Interactive Storytelling, led by Ron Weaver
Game Production: Technical Art, led by Laurie Torelli

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Beth A. Dillon

GDC Excitement

2007-03-02T10:57:00.000-08:00

Well it seems that I am not a really ardent blogger, but I am trying. I am getting so excited about the upcoming SIG’s Curriculum Workshop at GDC as well as the rest of the conference. There is so much that is going to be going on that week, I hope my head does not spin off. The actualization of our community, everyone working together towards common goals at the workshop is going to be very inspiring. Also, meeting people that I have only corresponded with, or getting introduced to people that I’ve read about… is also really exciting for me.

I think the one thing that I want to make sure happens is that everyone knows that the SIG’s goals are really simple… providing resources to educators, be it in the form of curriculum guidance, discussion forums, book opportunities or professional development. Essentially, I want the SIG to be the one stop shop for Educators and their needs.

I am looking forward to seeing everyone at the conference… until next week…

Susan
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Prof. Susan Gold
Chair, IGDA Education SIG

Certificates

2007-02-07T07:10:00.001-08:00

My institution has just approved an undergraduate minor called Digital Media and Game Design. Because we are the only public university in central/northern New Hampshire, our mission includes providing educational opportunities for the regional community, primarily adult learners. Our community education office just asked my department whether we would be willing to package our minor into a certificate program. In other words, people from the regional community who are not matriculated as students would be able to come to the University, take the 16 credits that comprise the minor and leave with a certificate in Digital Media and Game Design. There are lots of logistical questions to be answered before we agree to offer this certification and I personally feel a bit mixed about it. But I was wondering whether others have experience with such programs or have opinions about the value of such programs. What kinds of questions should we be asking ourselves as we determine whether to offer the certification?

I forgot to sign this--Cathie LeBlanc, Plymouth State University, Plymouth, NH

Sold out.

2007-02-02T16:09:00.000-08:00

The GDC 2007 Education Workshops sold out just as the early bird registration deadline hit. On the one hand, of course I'm happy to see we're sold out. On the other, I know it's in part due to venue constraints.

I've been running into this "sold out" issue a lot lately. The game day for the First Nations Technology Conference happening on February 22 in Vancouver, BC is overbooked as well. But there's still more interest and we have to turn people away!

And why? Venues.

I feel like, in the event management world, I'm the indie, and the venues are the retailers. And while venues do exist to support events, I had a much better time putting together the Northwest Games Festival at the Native American Student and Community Center in Portland, Oregon with the help of the American Indian Science and Engineering Society than currently in Vancouver, BC with a hotel.

I'd like to find ways to use more institutions as venues for game education events, to allow for lower costs and higher attendance flexibility. Because spending upwards of $1000 per table with a cloth on it for an expo makes you realize why conference registration fees are so high and also makes you a bit annoyed about being limited in how many people can register.

Beth A. Dillon
Communications Director

Workshop and other Lists

2007-01-28T12:58:00.000-08:00

I just wrote a really nice letter to GAMESNETWORK list as they had a very long rant on the cost of attending conferences. I truly understand what they are saying, the cost of attending GDC is very expensive, there are no academic discounts (and trust me, I asked them to give us a price break, even pleaded). Personally, I do not feel that we are ready for our own conference, we are still but a few volunteers. In truth, I really feel it would be better to have regional conferences that will also target students as well as educators - it will help on keeping down the cost of travel as well as providing opportunities for making inroads to educators that are hiding out there, (have no budget or a really tight budget).

There are a few options out there for those that unable to purchase a GIGA or VIP pass to GDC. One, there is the tutorials only option, good for Monday & Tuesday's IGDA Education Curriculum Workshop for $600 (less if you are an IGDA member). Two, there will also be online support, GDC broadcasts a lot of their sessions as well as the possibility of us using a software like Breeze to provide online interactivity (still working on this).

Bottom line, it is getting really close to the early bird discount deadline of January 31, 2007 to get the best price if you are attending the conference. I hope that the readership will be enticed to attend. Besides our big push to work on our curriculum framework, there are so many other things that the SIG wants to do, but we need you there to help us get these ideas off the ground. I hope that there will be attendees that want to discuss the possibility of our own journal as well as many other ideas we have on the back burner (accreditation, sabbatical programs, etc...).

GDC is going to be an exciting time for the SIG, we hope you will be there.

Susan Gold
IGDA Education SIG Chair

Teaching "Creating Games"

2007-01-23T07:19:00.000-08:00

Looking up at the dark, nighttime New Hampshire sky, a friend once told me that learning the names of the constellations would take away the “magic” of that sky.

Two students in my first year student seminar called “Why Do People Believe Weird Things?” told me that they were glad that they had learned how to evaluate arguments but they hadn’t expected the class to be so “serious”.

These two conversations come to mind as I prepare to teach a general education class called “Creating Games”. The class will be “serious” in the sense that the students will have to reflect on their experiences with games to try to figure out what makes a game work. I think this reflection will add to the “magic” of games but I know that a lot of people will disagree. One of my main goals in this class will be to get students to see that thoughtful examination of a game and its mechanics can enhance our enjoyment of that game. The last thing I want to do is make students feel as though we are taking the fun out of playing games.

I wonder what other folks do to ensure that the process of education adds to the enjoyment of gaming.

Cathie LeBlanc

Moving Forward

2007-01-14T17:06:00.000-08:00

Having received many queries from educators in regards to accreditation for their degree(s), I have decided to try to tackle the question. There are many reasons why there should be some type of accreditation. Equally there is discussion about how time consuming, costly and difficult the accreditation process is to establish and achieve. I have only gone through accreditation as a faculty member writing various reports, however, I do recall that it is a very stressful and exhaustive process for departments as well as the institution. Another consideration is that our particular genre, being interdisciplinary, has other factors that may govern components of our curricula. There are of course those that feel that there should not be game degrees at all, or at least not until graduate school.

Accrediting bodies in the United States operate to ensure that students in educational programs receive an education consistent with standards for entry into practice in their respective fields or disciplines. I have received several reports from educators that there are many game programs popping up all over the world – to primarily cash in on the boom. How do we protect students from these types of academic vultures who grab the money and give students little in the way of academic value?

What if we were to develop something as simple as IGDA APPROVED? Establishing basic criteria based on our developing curriculum framework. Something like this I can imagine, as it would have minimal guidelines that would allow for institutional autonomy and innovation. With a full-blown accreditation process, what benefits do you see that would outweigh the cost, time and effort? Which then begs me to ask, who should be the governing body that assess the quality of a specialized game education degree? As a SIG, we are run by volunteers, with no current need to have a budget. Accreditation would necessitate the need for a budget and a lot more work for volunteers above what I feel individuals could comfortably be asked to give. But who else would be qualified to create or stipulate what is considered the standards?

We also must factor in variables such as the multiple types of institutions involved in our SIG. I would like the membership to weigh in, as this topic remains very difficult for me to come to any clear decision. I would very much like to hear from our membership, especially those from outside the US. I would very much like to hear how this may or may not benefit them in their own countries. To me, I feel that the SIG should concern itself with teaching and learning as the primary focus. I ask you, does that ultimately result in setting standards?

Prof. Susan Gold
Chair, IGDA Education SIG

Highlights of 2006

2007-01-01T17:46:00.000-08:00

Now that 2007 has rolled around, it's just the time to reflect on everything that happened in 2006 to lead us into the new year!

Programs, centers, labs, courses, conferences, events, projects, games, and more. What were your highlights during 2006?

Submit your highlights by Commenting.

Beth A. Dillon
Communications Director

GDC 2007 Workshop Site Launched

2006-12-04T12:30:00.000-08:00

I'm happy to announce that, thanks to our Chairperson Susan Gold, we have a website up for the IGDA Education SIG Curriculum Workshop at GDC 2007. It's a two-day workshop, running on Monday, March 5 and Tuesday, March 6.

You can go there to find out how to register, see the overview of the whole workshop, or even check out detailed session information for both days.

I'll be there, and I hope to see you, too!

Darius Kazemi
Technology Co-Officer

Reactions to an Open Letter

2006-11-20T17:26:00.000-08:00

On November 13, John Hopson, a member of Microsoft's Games User Research group, and a former academic researcher, published an article on Gamasutra called We're Not Listening: An Open Letter To Academic Game Researchers. You can read the original article for yourself, but I wanted to recap some of the responses we saw on the IGDA Education SIG listserv.

(For the full conversation, check out the threads in November archives with "open letter" in the title.)

The initial, swift response from Joshua Gross was caustic:

Here's my translation: "We expect researchers to do high-risk development with very practical and applied results. We expect them to produce magic bullets. We aren't willing to support their work in any way, with information, access, money, etc. We will look at anyone trying to succeed as an academic with disdain. We won't offer any reward to anyone achieving what we want, not even acknowledgment. We don't get why researchers aren't producing what we want."

He went on to note he felt that "the article was extremely one-sided. It was entirely a 'you know what your problem is'-type statement."

J.R. Parker took a cynical stance:

I see the game industry as much like the movie business was in the 30's and 40's. There's a studio system, stars, controlled funds, bright lights, and glitz. I no longer expect industry to be interested in my game technology work, and I care about that much less than I used to. One day they will lift their heads and look around. Either they'll be interested then, or not. There's little I can do to speed up the process of evolution.

And Craig Lindley said:

I'm not really sure what the article is supposed to be about, other than providing advice to a small community of inexperienced researchers who would really rather be game developers.

My recommendation would be: quit research and join a game company.

Ian Schreiber brought a fresh perspective to the debate.

I'm the opposite of Hopson, a developer who's just starting to get his feet wet in academia [...] There is a surprising amount of condescending attitude on both sides. Industry workers think of academics as failed game developers who couldn't cut it in the "real world"; academics look at developers as uneducated brutes who couldn't even bother to get more than a Bachelor's degree. Both sides are wrong, but reality is less important than perception.

At this point in the conversation, Susan Gold invited Hopson, the article's author, to the listserv. He expanded upon his arguments in the article, noting that

[s]ome parts of the industry are vastly more accessible than others. In particular, the “casual games” folks (web games, cell phone games, xbox live arcade, etc.) are in a much better position to experiment and try new things than most of the industry. Their projects are smaller and have more room for risks and experimentation than the AAA blockbusters[.]

Frans Mäyrä chimed in:

I can only hope that we do not only have a single-sided responsibility of over-busy academics to try and find the extra time to learn to "speak industry", but we will also see equal efforts within the over-busy industry folks learning to understand the world of science and scholarship. After all, it is those working daily in games development who have the best possibilities of seeing what are the opportunities and consequences of research results[.]

In the end, most participants in the discussion agreed that industry and academia need better communication. (Which is, incidentally, what the IGDA Education SIG is all about.)

Visits to Schools

2006-11-07T21:56:00.000-08:00

Over the past months I visited three different schools: Entertainment Technology Center (ETC) at Carnegie Mellon University (CMU), Computer Science Department at University of Iowa, and Computer Science Department at Drexel University. I had a wonderful time visiting these different units, each unit was unique in its own way.

Sept 27, 2006 - my visit to ETC CMU
I went to ETC to give a talk part of their Seminar series. During my visit, I met with different students and was given a breif introduction on the program, classes, and students' work. This was not my first time to visit ETC, but this visit was interesting, because I got more inside information about students' life and students' prespetive of the program.

One of the greatest strength of ETC is in its teaching methods, which rely heavily on project work. This is a great way to get students to learn by doing and do constant research on the subject of their projects. Students love it there. I think they have a great program and culture that is quite different from what you woud see in a typical university setting. Students tend to work long hours; they also are very self motivated.

I gave a talk about Lighting Design for games discussing a new lighting design system I am developing for interactive environments. The questions and discussions I had with students afterwords was great. One of the students there is working with me on designing or re-desiging the lighting system. I was amazed by the level of knowledge that students have and the different presectives they have on the work I presented.

In short, I had fun. I would advise educators and interested students to look at their program closely. It is very well designed.

Oct 26-28, 2006 - my visit to Computer Science Department, University of Iowa
Computer Science Department at the University of Iowa couldn't be more different than ETC. While ETC is more industry oriented and built around Interactive Entertainment, the Computer Science Department at the University of Iowa is academically oriented and doesn't have a games program or courses. However, I think they have really interesting people doing research in related fields that is interesting for game educators to follow.

I was invited by Prof. Joseph Kearny, who is just a great person to talk to. He showed me the lab he shares with Prof. Jim Cremer, which has a three wall cave with a bike in the middle. They are investigating when and how participants consider the road safe for crossing. They built a 3D environment with roads, and particular traffic patterns, which is projected on the three wall cave. As a participant you sit on the bike and basically drive: steer, peddale, turn, or break. I tried it. It was great.
It was actually fun to sit in the middle of the road and let the cars pass within you, virtually :)
Needless to say, I was not a subject in their experiment. But I think the work is great and is needed, you can learn more about their work at:
http://www.cs.uiowa.edu/%7Ekearney/

In my visit I met Prof. Juan Pablo Hourcade, whose primary research area is in creating interfaces that support creativity and collaboration. He showed me many very cool demos of interfaces he created for childern, including interfaces for storytelling and digital library. This was great to see. More at: http://www.cs.uiowa.edu/~hourcade/

Also during my visit, I met Prof. Chris Wayman whose primary area is computer graphics, specifically how to create interactive realistic renderings. Yes, we would all love to see his work in games. He showed me so many interesting demos, including real-time refraction as well as a project he is working on which approximates caustics effects in real-time. For more information, visit his website: http://www.cs.uiowa.edu/%7Ecwyman/publications/

I also gave a talk to the department, part of their seminar series. The talk was also on lighting design for interactive entertainment, although not quite the same talk as the one I gave at ETC. I had very interesting and completely different set of questions concerning culture and lighting effects as well as graphics questions - very different presepective than ETC, which was fun.

Nov 6, 2007 - my visit to Computer Science Department, Drexel University
That was a nice visit as well. I guess, I just get invited by all these wonderful people who make my visits super fun...
I was invited by Prof. Frank Lee, who is also a great host. He made great coffees for me, which was great since I drove out to Phili at 5:30am. I am not a morning person.

Frank's background is cognitive science but he is part of the computer science department. He is interested in games, interactive entertainment, and cognitive science. His group is working on very interesting projects that I am not sure I can speak of as they are still under way. But the group was great, I critiqued their ideas and they took the critique very gracefully and responded very well. I was impressed :)

Drexel is certainly an interesting place for a game educator to visit. They have a digital media program which is quite interesting. I met with Prof. Paul Diefenbach (http://www.pages.drexel.edu/~pjd37/) who is in charge of the Digital Media and Gaming area within Drexel. They have two courses targeted at game design and development, where they have teams of 16 students work on one project. That was interesting. The last time I had a team of that size, one team fell apart and the other survived till the end of the course and delivered. I think it needs a lot of work from the instructor to make sure the team does not fall apart. We talked quite a lot about team work and how to sustain it, accountability, assesement, etc. They also showed me many of the students projects, which were really interesting. The games seem to be, from a production 'visual' standpoint, simple, but very interesting from a design 'game play' point of view. The games themselves had complex internal models. Students modeled the worlds from scratch, animated characters, scripted characters' behaviors. Some groups delved deeper into AI, complex sound systems, and visual processing. Most of their demos are avaliable online: http://www.drexel.edu/academics/westphal/portfolio/
We also talked a little about how to cross between programs as this is one of the problems with universities : the rigid discipline walls. The digital media program seem to have been created with interdisciplinary work in mind. They also have great support to collaborate with Computer Science as well as other departments and schools. Some of the student projects are in collaboration with other departments such as medical, architecture, computer science, engineering, etc. I didn't have time to ask them specifically how they made this collaboration happen. It seems that there are many willing collaborators that make it happen.

I had fun visiting Drexel and I would have loved to stay more to assimilate all the demos and other information about the program and ask more questions, but had to drive back.

Magy Seif El-Nasr
SIG Curriculum Committe

Tech Meeting Round-Up

2006-11-07T11:20:00.000-08:00

Last night we had our SIG tech meeting. Attendance was the usual crew of Susan, Magy, Darren, and I.

The first topic we discussed was our progress on the Curriculum KB. We're done with our first round of testing, we have a new (hopefully easier) process in place for creating a new Course page, and very soon we'll be inviting the second round of testers to give it a whirl.

Next we discussed the creation of an Education Portal on the IDGA wiki. A portal is a single page that organizes all the information on a wiki about a particular topic. For example, see the Wikipedia Arts Portal. I'll be putting together the first draft this week.

Lastly, we discussed the GDC Academic Workshop, which was mostly Susan recapping the schedule that she and Drew have been working on. We have a bunch of great panel discussions lined up, including a panel on R&D within the game industry which I'm particularly excited about.

Darius Kazemi
Technology Co-Officer

GDC 2007: Academic Workshop

2006-10-31T14:45:00.000-08:00

The IGDA Education SIG is very happy to announce one of our initiatives is coming to fruition. At the upcoming Game Developer’s Conference we will be having an intense 2-day workshop that will focus on innovation and best practices in curriculum design and teaching methods for game development education.

There will be inspirational lectures, exploration of model curricula, case blasts, interactive hands-on sessions as well as great opportunities for networking and discussion throughout the workshop. We hope to present practical and philosophical advice for teaching in games. It is our hope that attendees will leave with useful examples and ideas on how to best develop and/or reinvigorate game development curricula in their institution.

As a community we have a lot to share with each other. There are those of you out there that want to impact the curriculum framework we are developing, this is your chance. We hope your wisdom and experience will help us shape this iteration of the framework. The workshop will provide opportunities for you to share in various case blasts and classroom teaching example that all of us can take home with us to try in our own programs.

As many of you know the GDC conference is put on by CMP and we (IGDA) have no control over the cost of attendance. The best price option is to purchase a gigapass – it includes the two day tutorial as well as everything else in the conference. The important thing to note is for the biggest price savings, you need to purchase your pass by January 31, 2007.

Here is the link to the workshop: https://www.cmpevents.com/GD07/a.asp?option=C&V=11&SessID=3843

If you plan on attending and feel that you have an innovative classroom exercise that you use in your own class and want to share it with your peers, please contact us.

I would like to take a moment and thank Drew Davidson and his committee for all of their hard work in developing such an outstanding workshop for us this year.

We look forward to seeing many of you at the workshop, please contact me with any questions.

Susan

Prof. Susan Gold
IGDA Education SIG Chairperson

Susan's Field Trip - final post

2006-10-30T11:50:00.000-08:00

So I am home from our LA trip, my apologies for not posting sooner. I must say the entire trip was exhausting, but no matter how tired I am, it does not discount the amount of information and cool things we got to see first hand.

For those of you interested in how I put this trip together, I would be happy to share the info on how I make it happen. One, we add a lab fee to the class to pay for the expenses. It is not an ordinary type of field trip – travel, food, transportation cost, all add up and would kill our department budget. However, the experience is so valuable my students are willing to pay the fee (this year the fee was $750). When I plan our trips I try to visit three places a day. Easier said then done, especially since I am not a LA native, nor do I know my way around that well. The other thing I use is Yahoo maps, (not that they are always right), but it gives me a really good idea of where things are located in relation to one another – very important. I also plan free time, to give students a little bit of time to explore the area on their own. This year’s student group may have gotten into a little mischief (trying to find a hookah bar), but they always showed up on time in the morning.

The other thing you might be interested in is how I get in to all of these companies. There is no easy answer, networking at conferences, is one way. My primary way is just cold calling and asking the receptionist who to talk to, labor intensive, but well worth the effort.

This year I worked really hard not to have duplications – it is true, once you see a hundred people working in cubes – everything looks pretty much the same. I think it is important to show students the different cultures. From a students vantage point they can visualize if they would want to work there. One of the questions I ask during our visits, do you have fun? Now, everyone says yes, but how they say yes and looking around at the faces of the employees is a true giveaway.

As for the last days of our trip, it was full of information. First off, Scot Boyd at R&H gave us the best tour ever. One Rhythm & Hues – John Hues was one of the first people to put computer graphics into film – The Black Hole was the first film with 10 seconds of CG. Second, R&H has a tremendous amount of history, we were shown everything from film editorial – including an antique moviola and flatbed editor, to their two 70 terabyte – one for storage and one for pipeline. R&H developed the first talking animals (Babe, Dogs & Cats and soon Charlotte’s Web). In talking to some of their artist, they suggested using Body Paint software because it allows you to paint in 3D. The visit was awesome as usual.

We also visited Infinity Ward at their new space. They are growing and I am looking forward to seeing their next game. At Infinity and many other places, they suggested that students have foundation art skills as software is easily outdated and methods will change. In our talks they suggested using forums like CG Talk to get feed back – as opposed to only relying on teachers and other students for critique. “There are always people that are better that you, put your egos away.” I think that is very sound advice. They suggested tailoring portfolios to fit the company they are applying to – even for internships.

Our last day was spent at The Post Group and USC’s Game Lab. I was really impressed with what Tracy and her team have done with their program. It is always hard to play show and tell to the competition, but in truth, it really isn’t. It is a good idea to show students what other students need to do for the degrees, raising the bar on what is needed to succeed.

I have tons of photos from the trip, if you are interested in seeing more, I’ll be happy to send you a few. I want to thank the following people for making the trip a huge success: Bary W Pollack – my co-chair, House of Moves, Activision, Naughty Dog, Imageworks, Blur, Lou Castle at EA, Scot Boyd at Rhythm & Hues, Infinity Ward, The Post Group and Tracy Fullerton at USC’s Game Lab – and of course my students.

Susan

Susan Gold
IGDA Education Chair

Susan's LA Field Trip, Day 2

2006-10-25T02:03:00.000-07:00

LA Field Trip
Day 2
Imageworks
Blur Studios
Electronic Arts

What a great day – but not a whole lot of stuff I can actually show you (NDA’s and all). We started at Sony’s Imageworks, one of the largest visual effects/post houses in the world. Now Imageworks is also doing full-length animated features as well – Open Season just came out at the end of September and Surf’s Up will be coming out in 2007. When talking to Steve Prawat, Imagework’s Senior Coordinator of Training & Artist Development we asked him what he thought was the best way to get into the industry – his answer… GAMES. Personally, I think this is a rather antiquated to think that the games genre is easier to break into than film. Maybe this might have been the case early on, but now I know that people in both of our industries are interchangeable. I personally know several people that have gone back and forth from games to film. Now with the NextGen graphics I think everything is equal.

Our second stop was to one of my favorite studios in all of Los Angeles, Blur. If you ever watch your game cinematics then you have seen Blur’s work (Warhammer 40,000, Hellgate London, Fight Club, Spiderman 2, Castle Wolfenstein to name a few). The reason I love this studio is due to their energy, atmosphere, creativeness and work culture, they really love what they do. We happen to be there for their daily game break (Battlefield and Quake). Everyone stops for 45 minutes each day to clear their heads and get any of their aggression out. Blur also has been working on a few of their own animated shorts – have you seen Rockfish? In the Rough? Gopher Broke? When are these guys going to make a full length feature?

The last stop for the day was Electronic Arts to meet with Lou Castle, (I think his title is VP of Creative Development). I met Lou a few years ago when he came to see us on campus. Lou is a true renaissance man, both artist and programmer (with a little business and entrepreneurship for seasoning). He shared with us some rather sage advice and was very encouraging to the students. The one thing that my students remarked upon the most was the importance to have young blood on the development side. Not just because they can sit in a chair modeling for 8-10 hours a day without complaining, but because they are the market for which EA targets in their games. Needless to say, we learned a lot on this visit to EA.

This is just a quick slide show of images – no video today.

Tomorrow we are visiting Rhythm & Hues and Infinity Ward.

Susan

Susan Gold
IGDA Education Chair

Susan's LA Field Trip, Day 1

2006-10-23T23:48:00.000-07:00

LA Field Trip
Day 1
Vicon / House of Moves
Activision
Naughty Dog

Our day started with a trip to the House of Moves (which was purchased by the MoCap camera maker Vicon). They are now one of the largest and well known Motion Capture studios in the country. I have visited Moves for the past five years in multiple locations – why? they keep needing to move due to their rapid growth. What was really fun was that we got to put a few students in MoCap suits and let them play in front of the cameras. Our hosts went all out and will even allow us to download our capture data. Currently Moves use several different softwares to do real time visualization and capture: IQ, Motion Builder and Diva. Vicon/Moves has been working rather tirelessly on software development and will be introducing Blade in the near future. We learned a lot about the advances in facial MoCap, did you know in Spiderman 3 they used 172 facial markers? I could not even imagine have 172 3mm markers stuck to my face. Now they even have 1.5mm markers so they fit even more markers.

We met Activision’s recruiters Patricia Bojorquez and Suzanne Whelpley for lunch. We had an opportunity to discuss the realities of landing jobs at Activision and in the industry. I am sure you are wondering if they had any pearls of wisdom for having our students land jobs in the industry? – finding people that work well in collaborative teams. This is something that I am told all of the time. I think this is something we should all work on with our students. On a very positive note we learned that Activision is trying to expand their internship program. Last year they had 50 internships at their various studios and corporate headquarters. They are hoping to grow the program over the next year. I hope to get Stephen Jacobs to talk to them for inclusion in our database of internships and coop’s.

Our last studio visit for the day was with Naught Dog. They are working on a new title that does not include Jak or any other stylized cartoon characters. It is a real departure for them, a real photorealistic world, it looks great and I wish them good luck. They too are in a growth spurt – currently with ~75 people. We were told their studio demographics are 50% artists, 25% programmers, the last 25% administrative. We spent the afternoon with their Art Director and of course my art students had a lot of programming questions. As for my programming students, they are very quiet. They tried to do everything possible to dissuade my students from a career in the game industry…. sorry guys, it didn’t.

I wanted to get this up as soon as possible so I just slapped together this video of images from today’s adventures.

I hope to give you daily updates - tomorrow is Imageworks, Blur & EA.

Susan

Susan Gold
IGDA Education SIG Chairperson