MISCELLANEA

The Learning Games Initiative (LGI)

What is the Learning Games Initiative?

In 1999, co-founders Lemmuel (David Menchaca), Gustavus (Judd Ruggill) and Ichabod (Ken McAllister) inaugurated a research collective called the Learning Games Initiative (LGI). The purpose of the collective was to examine computer games (arcade, console, PC, and handheld) in order to better understand their cultural and pedagogical import. LGI has since grown into an interdisciplinary and inter-institutional research group: not only are numerous University of Arizona departments represented (by faculty, staff, graduate and undergraduate students), but so too are scholars and researchers from a dozen other U.S. and international universities, as well all sorts of community organization and business leaders.

Over the past seven years, LGI has generated many productive and well-received collaborations, all of which focus on at least one of three guiding principles: Study-Teach-Build. Our members have led workshops at national conferences; presented numerous academic talks; written books, book chapters, journal articles, and other scholarly materials; organized the first annual Academic Gaming Symposium; and created an online game studies bibliography that contains well over two-thousand entries. In addition, LGI directs the International Digital Media and Arts Association's special interest group on game studies, and we are currently in the process of building a new game, Aristotle's Assassins, a demo of which will be available in December of 2005.

LGI's research and teaching is designed to fashion bridges among departments, academic and community organizations, and educational institutions around the world. Feel free to explore this site, and contact us if you'd like to participate in our projects or to let us know about your similar work!

e-Projects

Accidental Teaching: Taking Advantage of (Extra)Ordinary Pedagogical Opportunities: This Flash movie file was created for the conference presentation of the same name. Made from an extensive use of tweening, the movie is designed to evoke thought in light of new technologies in the classroom and the problems those technologies may cause students. We must update even those parts of our pedagogies we consider mundane, such as what to do about late assignments.

Computer Enhanced Writing and Learning Project - Technology Help: I used the CEWL (computer enhanced writing and learning) project as the ostensible frame for this Shockwave movie. The real purpose of my project, however, was not to develop a finished CEWL Help page but to gain experience with "Lingo," Macromedia Director's scripting language. You will notice, no doubt, the rough appearance of the interactive movie and that only the first scene contains the small computers on the right as well as the left. Again, the purpose of my final project was to learn the basics of "Lingo," the key to powerful, interactive Shockwave files. Trust me when I say that teaching myself to program even the limited amount of interactivity you will find in this Shockwave movie is a feat worth boasting about. I have included a screen shot on the movie page of the Director working environment, so you can see how many things are going on at once. In the lower middle of the screen shot is the "Lingo" script that makes the green computer orient towards the cursor as it randomly floats across the screen at the beginning of the Shockwave movie. "Lingo" looks similar to html, and my work with "Lingo" has improved my web-authoring capabilities.

Visual:Culture::Virtual:Space: This "mod" was made (Jen DeWinter, Dan Griffin, and me) using Bioware’s Aurora Toolset (the same production tool used to build the game Neverwinter Nights [Atari 2002]) for the Spatial & Visual Rhetoric Installation show hosted at the University of Arizona and sponsored by the Alltel fund for the Arts. Read the artists' statement and see screen shots of the mod.

 

LGI - e-Projects - Compadres - Links

Compadres

Ken (Ichy) McAllister

Judd (Gustavus) Ruggill

Clair (Who Me?) Lauer

Amy (Is a Punk Rocker!) Kimme Hea

Resource Links

Coming Soon