Serious Games for Archeaology & Imagining The Past
Anthropology 39B Section 1 (2 units)
Tringham, R E
Computer games and virtual worlds are now significant arenas for communication. Many of you have entered these worlds and played with each other as “entertainment”--to escape from study and the conventions of the real world. Some of us, however, are thinking that these contexts offer unique features for stretching the mind and communicative skills in ways that are both instructive and creative. The Serious Games initiative and the New Media Consortium are both groups that are taking steps to harness this potential. This course is also part of that effort to use a gaming arena to take critical thinking and learning “outside the box." Students will share their experience, knowledge and skills about gaming. We will explore and learn to critically analyze existing games that deal with archaeology, history, and the past. How, for example, does the game “Colonial Williamsburg” that MIT is developing differ from more popular games such as “Civilization”? We’ll discuss why it is that the commercial game producers are not interested in the educational value and content of their games. One of the virtual worlds that we will focus on in the class is Second Life (an online role-playing game; see http://blip.tv/file/262909 ; http://secondlife.com/whatis/ ).Alongside demonstrations and discussions, students will have the opportunity to populate, role-play, build (either as newbies or as skilled SL-ers) on Okapi Island, funded by UC Berkeley and managed by the OKAPI (Open Knowledge and the Public Interest) initiative (http://okapi.wordpress.com/projects/okapi-island-in-second-life/). The island is a mirror of the real-world 9000-year old mound village of Çatalhöyük in Turkey, an archaeological site currently being excavated. We will also be developing a new SL project mirroring the San Francisco Presidio. The course will provide a basic primer into the virtual world of Second Life, where you will learn how to interact with real people in a virtual environment, while learning (without being aware of it) about the past and archaeology. Student input into the design, if not the execution, of these virtual worlds, is an essential part of the course. The course also acts as an entry into further work with us on these projects as undergraduate research apprentices. This course is designed for any student who likes role-playing games, who may or may not be adept or familiar with computer games. The emphasis of the course is not on technological skills, but the ability to use your imagination. We want you to feel free to share your ideas in a communal brainstorming atmosphere. You need to be interested (hopefully you all are…) in the past and how it articulates with the present and the future. If you have played computer games, or participated in virtual worlds such as Second Life, so much the better, but only if you are willing to share your skills with others less experienced.
Related website: http://okapi.wordpress.com/projects/okapi-island-in-second-life
Location: 12 2224 Piedmnt
Times: Tu 2-4P