Anthropological Video Games A cluster of teen-agers gathered around a small table, and passersby could hear them exclaim, “Asian! Yeah, I knew it!” and “Aryan? Aiding the swarms of museum patrons who stopped to play were volunteers from Games for Change, a New York City-based nonprofit that encourages the development of what it calls “social-impact games.” I selected an adult worker, rather than a child, to box up hats on the assembly line, and asked the volunteer, “Do you find that most people choose children to work?” “By the end, you have to,” she said. “So, are you supposed to feel a sense of accomplishment in this game? “You feel good when you complete a level. When I reached the third level, I sent out too many unfinished orders, and my contract was ripped in half. When playing a game, one always takes on a role (banker, shortstop, sword-bearing elf), which involves both identifying with that character and maintaining an awareness of yourself as the player.
Sweatshop Sweatshop Sweatshop Many of the clothes available in our high street shops have been manufactured in sweatshops, factories that routinely pay their workers less than the minimum wage, and prevent the formation of unions to campaign for better working conditions. Sweatshop is a light-hearted game, but it’s based upon very present realities that many workers around the world contend with each day. Littleloud and Channel 4 worked with experts on sweatshops to integrate some of these realities into the game design. In addition, there are numerous facts and figures spread throughout the game, highlighting the plight of the workers who may well have made the clothes you are wearing today. Read on for more information about the truths behind Sweatshop (with the relevant sources). UNITE, the US garment workers union, defines a ”sweatshop” as any factory that does not respect workers' right to organise an independent union. Terms and Conditions | Privacy Channel4 Littleloud x Select a friend Page 1 / 1
Making Education Fun Through Game-Based Learning Like a lot of teachers, Lucas Gillispie had no problem with the textbook material he taught to his high school students. His biggest challenge during his seven years in the classroom was connecting with the teenagers in his classes. His solution, it turned out, was right in front of him. So when the game-loving teacher became the instructional technology coordinator for Pender County (N.C.) By May 2009, Gillispie was seeking buy-in from his district’s management team to give 15 Cape Fear Middle School students a chance to get together after school and play World of Warcraft (WOW), a massively multiplayer online role-playing game (MMORPG) with more than 10 million subscribers. Together with teachers and the school’s principal at the time, Edith Skipper, Gillispie identified students to invite and launched the program in fall 2009. “We saw amazing things,” Gillispie says. The program was so successful that at the end of the school year, the principal suggested expanding its reach.
Mark Sample The future belongs to crowds. Don DeLillo observes this in Mao II (1991), as his characters watch a mass wedding of six thousand couples in Yankee Stadium. In light of the Occupy Movement, los indignados, the Arab Spring, and ongoing protests and marches throughout the world, it’s tempting to say that the future is here. But... read more In the 1993 afterward to The Bluest Eye (1970), Toni Morrison explains the origins of her devastating debut novel. In an unusually redemptive reading of the widely disparaged Atari VCS game E.T. (1982), Ian Bogost observes that the game perfectly (though perhaps not intentionally) captured the essence of Spielberg’s hit movie. Detroit bears the distinction of being one of the few cities in the world whose name alone stands in for an entire industry.