E Is for Everyone: The Case for Inclusive Game Design

Part of the Volume on the Ecology of Games: Connecting Youth, Games, and Learning In this chapter I examine the accessibility of today's games, or rather the lack of. Even common medical conditions such as arthritis, repetitive stress injuries, and diminished vision may prevent individuals from playing today's top software titles, not to speak of the barriers that these titles pose to the blind, deaf, and immobile. The clearest and most disheartening manifestation can be found when examining the special-needs sector. There we find children who cannot partake in their most coveted play activities, due to inconsiderate (and therefore inflexible) game design. I chose this sector to both define the problem and explore its solutions. Written from the perspective of a designer, the chapter first describes the lack-of-play and its residual impact as perceived in a school that caters to over 200 children with special needs. In an attempt to create the "ultimate-accessible" game, I demonstrate how games can be designed to be intrinsically accessible while retaining their original playability. Lastly, I show how normalization-of-play may improve upon the social, educational, and therapeutic aspects of the children's daily lives. Tying this fringe-case with the grander ecology of games, I discusses how better accessibility may encourage more people to enjoy games -- be they gamers, students, or patients

Events and Controversies: Influences of a Shocking News Event on Information Seeking

It has been suggested that online search and retrieval contributes to the intellectual isolation of users within their preexisting ideologies, where people's prior views are strengthened and alternative viewpoints are infrequently encountered. This so-called "filter bubble" phenomenon has been called out as especially detrimental when it comes to dialog among people on controversial, emotionally charged topics, such as the labeling of genetically modified food, the right to bear arms, the death penalty, and online privacy. We seek to identify and study information-seeking behavior and access to alternative versus reinforcing viewpoints following shocking, emotional, and large-scale news events. We choose for a case study to analyze search and browsing on gun control/rights, a strongly polarizing topic for both citizens and leaders of the United States. We study the period of time preceding and following a mass shooting to understand how its occurrence, follow-on discussions, and debate may have been linked to changes in the patterns of searching and browsing. We employ information-theoretic measures to quantify the diversity of Web domains of interest to users and understand the browsing patterns of users. We use these measures to characterize the influence of news events on these web search and browsing patterns

Deciduous: Using Gamified Skill Trees and Mapping to Define Learning Opportunities for Students

Students can have difficulty visualizing the end goals of units of study and how one learned concept impacts another. They will benefit from seeing their progress toward completion and are motivated by how far they have come in their class. Progress in a course can be measured with the implementation of gamification tools. Gamification involves the integration of game frameworks into non-gaming areas. This research seeks to find how these and other gamification systems help increase student motivation or classroom performance. Elements of gaming are already found in some areas of education. Some schools have access to various tools to engage students, from quizzes on SmartBoards to students using their phones to participate in classroom polls and interactive assessments. I will use the research to develop a visual solution to benefit classroom stakeholders. Using a tool to gamify course lessons into a visual skill tree will allow teachers to identify broad concepts, bring clarity to connections between steps, and support student agency and choice as they unlock assignments

De(con)structive time : visual style and temporal simultaneity in the works of Gaspar Noe?ü.

Despite the popularity of director Gaspar Noe?ü's films, little critical attention has been give to the overall style or common themes within his work as a whole, which also includes short films and music videos. Instead most examinations focus on the controversial issues of explicit representations of sex and violence within his feature films. By examining a cross-section of some of Noe?ü's lesser know works such as his music videos and short films, one can find within them representations of his dominant visual style including kinetic camera movements and quickly-paced editing existing alongside extremely long static takes. Such a contrasting visual style suggests Noe?ü's preoccupation with time, and an examination of his two latest feature films, Irr?îversible and Enter the Void, reveal Noe?ü's unique filmic approach to representations of time. Within Irre?üversible, Noe?ü creates the effect of temporal simultaneity--of past, present, and future existing at once--through an intricately structured plot that engages and employs the spectator's memory more intensely than the typical narrative film. In Enter the Void this same concurrence of time is achieved through the subjective point-of-view shots of its protagonist, Oscar. The extended pov sequences position both Oscar and the spectator within the same perspectives in which to view his past, present, in a simultaneous fashion. Noe?ü's preoccupation with creating the effect of immediacy within his films as well as his heavy use of CGI effects places the director squarely within an ever-growing tendency with mainstream films to create a more virtual experience for the spectator. From 3-D movies, high frame rates, surround sound, IMAX experiences, and digital "realism," such attempts at manufactured authenticity coupled with explicit representations of violence introduces new concerns within the debate of the correlation between popular media and violence within society

The Marriage between Fury and Fervor: An analysis of the performance FURY, as part of the Senior Project Theater Festival, Inferno

Senior Project submitted to The Division of Arts of Bard College

“Colors and Kindness”: Nature Photography as a Means to Support Academic Skill Development of Elementary Students at Risk

This article describes a service project involving a 3–year partnership between a university professor (the author) and P–12 faculty at a local rural Title I elementary school. Major aims of the project were to provide an opportunity for students to explore and learn about their natural surroundings through the use of nature photography activities and to connect these experiences to classroom activities with the goal of supporting academic skill development. The author visited the school twice per week to take children around the school grounds to photograph nature for about 20 minutes per session. Outcomes included the following: (a) students demonstrated increased interest in and curiosity about the subjects of their photographs over time; and (b) the nature photography project provided a beneficial context for supporting students’ learning in art and technology and for practicing their writing skills. Sample student photographs and writing excerpts are presented here

The Boston Girls Sports & Physical Activity Project: Final Report to the Barr Foundation

The main goal of the three-year Boston Girls' Sports & Physical Activity Project (BGSPAP) was to create an integrated and sustainable network of community-based programs that use sports and physical activity to favorably influence the physical, psychological, and social development of urban girls. The BGSPAP aimed to provide economically disadvantaged urban girls with opportunities to participate in sports and physical activity. The BGSPAP also aspired to upgrade sports and physical activity programming for girls in order to overcome gender biases built into the Boston schools and community programs. The number and quality of sports and exercise programs for Boston girls were not at par with those of Boston boys

Proceedings ICPW'07: 2nd International Conference on the Pragmatic Web, 22-23 Oct. 2007, Tilburg: NL

Proceedings ICPW'07: 2nd International Conference on the Pragmatic Web, 22-23 Oct. 2007, Tilburg: N