The GreaterThanGames Lab: Speculat1on

The GreaterThanGames Lab: Speculat1on

Track:

Games and Simulations

Time:

11:00 – 11:45 am

Location:

President’s IV

Presenters:

Katherine Hayles: Professor and Director of Graduate Studies, Literature

Patrick Lemieux: PhD Student, Art History/Visual Studies

Luke Caldwell: PhD Student, Literature

Session Information:

The GreaterThanGames Lab is an interdisciplinary initiative focused on the productive intersection of transmedia applications, virtual worlds, and digital storytelling. The goal is to use the combined allure of game play, virtual architecture and design, and digital storytelling to intervene constructively in real world problems.

Over the past two years, members of the GreaterThanGames lab have been developing, testing, and refining “Speculat1on,” an Alternate Reality Game (ARG) meant to enhance financial literacy and reveal the consequences, through near-future fictional scenarios, of possible outcomes if a cultural change does not occur that values community over shareholder value, the environment over greed, and human lives over profits. The transmedia game enrolls the resources of a wide variety of real-world and virtual platforms to engage players in activities that, on the micro-scale of individual puzzles and problems, embody the dynamics that fueled the economic crash of 2008, and on the macro-level, encourage insights into the real-life dangers posed by corporate greed today and possible ways to contain and control it.

Author: Randy Riddle

Randy Riddle is a Senior Consultant in Duke Learning Innovation and consults with faculty in the Social Sciences on pedagogy, learning, student assessment, and integrating technology into teaching practices. His professional interests include active learning, “flipped” classroom methods, inclusive classroom strategies, and integration of e-learning tools, social networking, video and multimedia, and data visualization into the daily work of teaching.

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