Learning
task 4
Introduce how your own field of teaching can connect with games. You can choose from commercial games, entertainment, games and learning games. Consider how your instruction could connect with gameplay in relation to your field.
Introduce how your own field of teaching can connect with games. You can choose from commercial games, entertainment, games and learning games. Consider how your instruction could connect with gameplay in relation to your field.
My own field of teaching is something that in itself is challenging to pin down. I have been working in and around audiovisual communication studies for the last seven or so years (English as a second language in the preceding four or so years, with some overlap). At the best moments, when I have been teaching "my own" subjects, that has been scriptwriting for film, TV and games, directing acting performance, documentary production and production project management. At the other end of the scale, I have also been teaching web design, photography, basics of video production, such as lighting, editing, cinematography and sound. I have even taught courses on entrepreneurship in the Finnish media landscape.
In order to simplify, let's limit the idea of my own field to storytelling and scriptwriting in its various forms, from film and TV to video games.
In terms of how my teaching can connect with games, the most obvious aspect of this is when I am teaching writing for video games, which certainly requires students to play video games. I normally try to prescribe what games I want them to play (so we all have the same references to work with) and they are also normally free browser-based games that the students can access openly without barriers. You can see one course I taught during my teaching practice at TAMK on Narrative Game Making with Twine as an example of some of the games and material I was using.
I also discuss with the students about what their game-playing habits are and what specific games they play, so that we can share some common references otherwise. If, for example, most people have some experience of playing Mass Effect, I am comfortable using examples of that game to illustrate points. The other thing to do is to show YouTube video of people playing games to illustrate a point, which isn't playing games, but close enough to serve the purpose.
When teaching writing for film or TV, I have not used games. The reason for this is I feel that there's such a fundamental difference in how narrative works in interactive storytelling compared to non-interactive storytelling. However, now I consider this idea, I can see that there could be potential for including games (especially more narrative games) in other storytelling.
I have experience now of playing, creating and teaching the Twine game engine, which is designed to create the kind of "Choose-Your-Own-Adventure" style of interactive story-game. When I am working with students at the beginning of a course on storytelling, I often try to teach them about some of the fundamental ideas of narrative theory by offering them a story with multiple endings and ask the students to work out which one they think is best and why the others don't work best. Asking them to play a game with multiple endings can help engage the students in exactly this process and it also engages them, so they are not just sitting listening to me.
This also works in other games that exist out there where there exists more than one ending.