My course: "The Art, History, and Culture of Video Games"

[Key-Glyph]

Just a thought, be sure you include trigger warnings on any relevant stuff. And maybe explain to the kids what trigger warnings are, and why they're needed. That's an entire discussion in itself.

[Blu]

Dave, this thread is awesome. I'd love to see the completed syllabus once you have all the required/suggested readings down. I'm curious which Ian Bogost books you are selecting, because I'd like to pick them up. It's not the first time I've heard Racing the Beam suggested (I think noise mentioned it before), but are you choosing any of his other works? What texts have you selected so far?

What a cool class! Makes me wish we had something like this offered when I was a freshman.

[dsheinem]

Dave, this thread is awesome. I'd love to see the completed syllabus once you have all the required/suggested readings down. I'm curious which Ian Bogost books you are selecting, because I'd like to pick them up. It's not the first time I've heard Racing the Beam suggested (I think noise mentioned it before), but are you choosing any of his other works? What texts have you selected so far?

What a cool class! Makes me wish we had something like this offered when I was a freshman.

Thanks!

I may update this today.

The Bogost book is "How to Do Things with Video Games"

[EllertMichael]

woah. now that's a class where I wouldn't mind the heavy course load

the emulation collective sites may be useful for poor college kids:
virtualnes.com
virtualsupernes.com
classicsegaonline.com

the games run right in the browser.
there are a few other similar sites out there, some even let you play multiplayer co-op online.

anyway to livestream/archive or podcast the classes?
I could definitely see the discussions getting pretty interesting.

best of luck with this, Dave!

[dsheinem]

anyway to livestream/archive or podcast the classes?

I am planning to record (video) of the lectures. Discussion-based stuff will probably stay private to foster conversation without fear of public scrutiny outside the classroom.

[Erik_Twice]

I would watch them for sure

[MrPopo]

If you really want to fuck with the students, offer extra credit if they can 1cc one of the DoDonPachis.

[dsheinem]

If you really want to fuck with the students, offer extra credit if they can 1cc one of the DoDonPachis.

[Omerta]

I'm really digging the idea, Dave.

http://www.khanacademy.org is one of the best websites for learning (for me at least) next to Wikipedia. It's a charitable organization that tries to use technology to make an education available to everyone on Earth. They post videos on all sorts of topics. You might be able to submit some lectures if that kind of thing is up your alley.

[samsonlonghair]

May I play Devil's Advocate?

This seems like a cool class, no doubt. It's good that you're considering your students' wallets, but you're forgetting an even more precious resource: time.

In my English 204, I was assigned about fifty-ish pages of reading before each lecture. Did I actually set aside an hour three nights a week to read these pages? Negative. I walked into class and pretended to have read the material. Thank goodness for wikipedia. Most of my classmates didn't even put up the pretense; they just sat in silence. They didn't even bother to google Alexander Pope's Essay on Man, or Jean Racine's Phaedra let alone read them.

Now consider how much time you are asking of your students.

Some of the arcade games and platformers on your list can be played in fifteen minutes. Some of the RPGs, MMOs, and RTSs don't even get started untill you're more than one hour in.
Are you really going to assign your students to play WoW and Second Life in the same week? Are you really going to require your students to play Civ and Final Fantasy in two days? Bioshock and Half-Life in two days?

I grant you this much: playing video games is more fun than reading dusty literature. True. Playing the dullest video game is still more fun than reading Dostoyevsky's Notes from the Underground. Will your students commit several hours to playing these assigned games (on top of all the work necessary for other classes)? Probably not.

I suggest you consider how much time your students will realistically spend playing these games.