Montana Kaimin, April 17, 2009

Student newspaper of the University of Montana, Missoula.https://scholarworks.umt.edu/studentnewspaper/6273/thumbnail.jp

Enterprise and employability: to conflate or not to conflate?

Back in 1992, Watts and Hawthorn provided definitions of ‘enterprise’ that could subsume the concept of employability. They argued that enterprise may be about: helping students set up a business; working within an enterprise (organisation); or being enterprising, innovating and creative. Their comments were made in the context of the Enterprise in Higher Education programme, which ran for eight years until 1996. This predated the nomenclature ‘employability’, but ran alongside traditional employability elements such as career development learning. More recent enterprise initiatives (for example the National Centre for Graduate Entrepreneurship) have focused more specifically on entrepreneurship, innovation and knowledge transfer, not on employability

Crafting is So Hardcore: Masculinized Making in Gaming Representations of Labor

In this paper we examine the representation of crafts in video games, particularly in “crafting systems” – collections of mechanics that are described as crafting within a game's narrative. Real world crafting practitioners value creativity, expression, and mastery of material, but the act of crafting itself is often viewed by society as reproductive, feminized labor and therefore devalued. Because of this, crafting systems in games have been designed to more closely resemble masculinized, productive labor in the form of repetitive, manufacturing-like mechanics. These representational choices persist even across games lauded for their crafting systems, as our analysis demonstrates. Through an examination of both user-generated tutorials and game mechanics for three games that frequently appear on “best crafting games” lists, we show that games persist in devaluing the reproductive labor of crafting, reducing creative expression and material mastery to marginal and repetitive tasks while catering to the palates of masculine gamers by emphasizing stats-driven progression rather than creative making

A Mobile User Interface For Low-Literacy Users In Rural South Africa

Information and Communication Technology services for socio-economic development of low-literacy users in rural communities in developing regions are new research contributions that seek to alleviate poverty in underserved communities. The intended users are still new to these technologies and can be described as novice users. This study was conducted to design a mobile user interface to enable low-literacy users in Dwesa community in South Africa to have access to mobile commerce services. We applied different ethnographic research methods through a usercentred design approach to actively involve the target users in the design process. This helped to identify the users’ needs and also meet users’ expectations. The usability of the mobile user interface was evaluated with the target users in the community. The user evaluation shows that the users have positive attitudes and perception of the system. The study found that the user interface conforms to the users’ cultural experience and preferences and they are also positive in their intent to use the user interface

Synthetic worlds, synthetic strategies: attaining creativity in the metaverse

This text will attempt to delineate the underlying theoretical premises and the definition of the output of an immersive learning approach pertaining to the visual arts to be implemented in online, three dimensional synthetic worlds. Deviating from the prevalent practice of the replication of physical art studio teaching strategies within a virtual environment, the author proposes instead to apply the fundamental tenets of Roy Ascott’s “Groundcourse”, in combination with recent educational approaches such as “Transformative Learning” and “Constructionism”. In an amalgamation of these educational approaches with findings drawn from the fields of Metanomics, Ludology, Cyberpsychology and Presence Studies, as well as an examination of creative practices manifest in the metaverse today, the formulation of a learning strategy for creative enablement unique to online, three dimensional synthetic worlds; one which will focus upon “Play” as well as Role Play, virtual Assemblage and the visual identity of the avatar within the pursuits, is being proposed in this chapter

Synthetic worlds, synthetic strategies: attaining creativity in the metaverse

This text will attempt to delineate the underlying theoretical premises and the definition of the output of an immersive learning approach pertaining to the visual arts to be implemented in online, three dimensional synthetic worlds. Deviating from the prevalent practice of the replication of physical art studio teaching strategies within a virtual environment, the author proposes instead to apply the fundamental tenets of Roy Ascott’s “Groundcourse”, in combination with recent educational approaches such as “Transformative Learning” and “Constructionism”. In an amalgamation of these educational approaches with findings drawn from the fields of Metanomics, Ludology, Cyberpsychology and Presence Studies, as well as an examination of creative practices manifest in the metaverse today, the formulation of a learning strategy for creative enablement unique to online, three dimensional synthetic worlds; one which will focus upon “Play” as well as Role Play, virtual Assemblage and the visual identity of the avatar within the pursuits, is being proposed in this chapter

The Crafter’s Ear: Evaluating an Aural Theory Simulation in Minecraft

PDF document - Student Master's Paper: The Crafter's Ear: Evaluating an Aural Theory Simulation in Minecraft, PDF document - ppt from TCC 2019: The Crafter's Ear: Evaluating an Aural Theory Simulation in Minecraft, MP4 - Video walk-through of The Crafter's Ear Simulation, MP4 - TCC 2019 Espinosa Video PresentationWhile music educators throughout history have sought to develop effective training methods for their students, little innovation has been developed beyond “drill and practice” methods for aural music theory skills. In order to “show” what the musician already aurally perceives, a virtual simulation was developed for music educators to use with their 10- to 13-year-old beginning music students. The sandbox game Minecraft was chosen as the platform due to its ability to construct “redstone-powered,” musical note blocks. “Primitives” (single or multi-part objects) were provided for pitch identification and use as a template for constructing personal, interactive aural theory aids not dependent upon formal music notation or playing/singing ability. This usability study sought to evaluate the navigation and effectiveness of virtual content design and user satisfaction of the aural music theory simulation. Three iterations were conducted with thirteen participants. in the form of a PDF were also requested. This study discusses virtual world usability methods, evaluation instruments, participant data, design implications in a 3D-Virtual World (3D-VW) environment, simulation modifications, and platform preferences. The Crafter’s Ear tells a story of successful and unsuccessful adaptations of a 3D-VW usability study. Data supports the simulation’s potential as well as need for re-evaluation of the primary platform used for development. The researcher anticipates the results of this study will support a growing need to identify and improve upon best practices for 3D-VW simulation usability studies in the future

Huayru

For this project, I will design a board game based on Huayru, a traditional ritual game played by some indigenous people from the Andes mountain range for centuries. Mostly played currently at funerals, this tradition is considered to be in extinction [...]. It is not among my objectives to reintroduce the practice of the ritual; instead, I will aim to rescue its memory and trnsmit knowledge about it by designing a different game using the elements of the original as inspiration