[games_access] Teaching GA - session (was: intimate controllers)

[AudioGames.net]

Re: [games_access] Teaching GA - session (was: intimate cMan, I like your long emails ;)

Good points, Michelle, completely agree with the teach OF AG-approach. What wasn't said was which teachers do we target, so for now I assume teachers of courses that deal with game industry jobs. What we maybe can do is make a small list of 7-15 types of courses that deal with the game industry jobs, like:

- game design (many general courses named like this)
- game audio design 
- modelling
- game interface design (most likely part of interaction design?)
- game programming
- err... etc. etc.

Don't really know what most coursenames are ;) Anyway, if we have a list of 7-15 types (or more or less if we feel like it) and then for each course write a small list of subjects that is appropiate for that course, so:

- Game Audio Design: audio games, games for the blind, auditory interface design, auditory accessibility issues AND solutions ("not only how to help gamers who cannot see, but also learn about which gamers cannot use your audio designs"), etc.
- Interaction Design: accessibility issues with interface design, HUD design, etc.
- Game Programming: controller remapping for beginners (or: "make our game work with 10 controllers")
- etc.

Something like that?

Greets,

Ries


  ----- Original Message ----- 
  From: d. michelle hinn 
  To: IGDA Games Accessibility SIG Mailing List 
  Sent: Sunday, June 17, 2007 10:43 PM
  Subject: Re: [games_access] Teaching GA - session (was: intimate controllers)


  Well it could be interesting to collect the different approaches from doing one lesson to teaching a whole course based around it. I was thinking that the session would be learning what to TEACH of GA. I think how to teach it probably belongs in the domain of education conferences like the one at University of Wisconsin, etc. But in the "what to teach" there is always room for sharing how that was actually taught. So it could be a little bit of both. There are two textbooks that mention GA now (Jeannie Novak's, which is in her book, and Ernest Adams', which is an online companion to the book so instructors using those books could benefit from learning how to teach that info and in how much more depth they can include. I mean there's "THE BOOK" (SIG book) but I don't see that being widely adopted as a course text unless it was like my class that was all about accessibility. I can see chapters being used and I think that the biggest audience will, of course, be game devs.


  [Btw, my revision of the contract is almost finished...seems like the first chapter or so of the book could come directly from my dissertation so that's cool! I imagine that will be the case for you and others for some other chapters!]


  I would think that it would be interesting and informative to provide a few different lesson plans that the audience can take with them and automatically (and/or with revisions to make it personal) include in their own classes. That way they can see what topics were covered. I see another role of the SIG as getting more instructors to include the topic in design courses. Women and games has definitely seen a surge in how often lecturers include that in their syllabi. After all, the students are our future designers and researchers and it works well with our other idea of moving from arcade to an expo booth in order to reach more design students who can only afford an expo or other limited pass. The session might also attract some serious games for training folks who might be interested in running an accessibility workshop at their company (ie, a company might send one person to GDC and that person can return with an "instant lesson plan" to teach to others back at their company).


  It runs parallel with the efforts of you and Sander with audio game maker, Reid and Eelke's [cc] work, and Dimitris' "Game Over," Barrie's hardware work, and (I know I'm not including half the list) more.  We want to strike at multiple angles and since several of us are instructors, we can attack that angle while others in the SIG attack other angles that are more attractive to devs, publishers, students, etc. As Ben mentioned a while back, we're bumping up against success -- we just need to spread out a bit and let those with expertise in one area run the show for one session and others run other sessions. They would still be SIG sessions (it's easier to get them accepted when presented as being SIG-related) but with added value of having different people "owning" sessions. That way we don't get "too general" comments back from the audience.


  Man...I type some long emails, huh?


  Michelle


    Hi,

    Interesting idea (teaching). I've been doing a 2 hour-lesson or two per year for my game design students on the subject (well, aside from the audio games lesson), but which was really really basic. But: what would such a session constitute of? Get to learn how to teach GA? Or: get to learn what to teach OF GA?

    Greets,

    Richard

      ----- Original Message -----
      From: d. michelle hinn
      To: IGDA Games Accessibility SIG Mailing List
      Sent: Sunday, June 17, 2007 1:51 AM
      Subject: Re: [games_access] intimate controllers


      And convince Noah too. :) The last I heard both Ernest and Sheri were going to actually develop their games too so if Noah for some reason declines, then you could ping the other two.


      You know...just thinking some more here, it'd be interesting to have a session on TEACHING game accessibility. I'm sure that there's more than enough of us here that could pull together an interesting session for the education part of GDC.


      Just throwing around ideas here. Stop me before we get to twenty proposals. ;)


      Michelle


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