Games, Simulations, and Society

Reading Quiz One

The Reading Quiz will be open for the first fifteen minutes of class. You can complete it online: make sure to sign in first so that your responses will be associated with your identity. Future reading quizzes will be available in this same space every week at the opening of class meetings. Multiple choice quizzes will be automatically graded: short answers, like today’s quiz, will be graded later and returned.

Class Discussion

Transformative Technologies (or, why gaming and Twitter haven’t destroyed society as we know it)

Literature and Technology

Group Project

Research a form of creativity that is dependent on a form of new media. Find exemplary examples and consider:

• How are they interactive or passive?
• Private or social?
• Is this new media radically different from its predecessors, or does it have parallels with past technologies?

Include your thoughts and links to interesting examples in a forum post titled with your group number and topic. Don’t forget to include the names of everyone in your group!

• Group One: Cell Phone Novels
• Group Two: Twitter Hulks
• Group Three: Interactive Fiction
• Group Four: iPad “interactive” stories
• Group Five: Twitterature

Forum Discussion Two: Consider the recent Doonesbury sequence on mobile devices beginning here: http://www.doonesbury.com/strip/archive/2011/01/31 in light of the readings for this week. How are mobile devices changing our interactions with the city and people around us? Are we ever really alone? How does mobile gaming–both location based and otherwise–intrude upon and integrate with our daily lives?

Forum Discussion One is due at the start of class today, February 3rd. All readings are listed for the class period they are due. It is expected that you will bring your book and have finished the readings before the start of class.

This will be the central hub for the Spring 2011 Games, Simulations, and Society course. You’ll find the syllabus, schedule of readings and assignments, and class forums through the links above. In order to participate fully in class discussions you’ll need to register with the site. Pick a username and make sure to note down your name and password: you’ll need it to contribute each week. Remember to check here first if you have questions about assignments or readings.

There are two required texts for this class: Julian Dibbell’s Best Technology Writing of 2010 and Charles Stross’s Halting State. These texts are available at the University of Baltimore bookstore and online through any major retailer. Readings from the Julian Dibbell text are due beginning next week, so please purchase the book immediately.