School & Games Overlay

Photo of Stewart Buterfield taken at Web 2.0 Expo 2007 by Scott Beale ((Beale, Scott. “Web 2.0 Expo 2007.” Flickr. 18 Apr 2007. LaughingSquid, Web. 16 Feb 2010. <http://www.flickr.com/photos/laughingsquid/464170886/>))

Mashable featured a fairly long progress review (Glitch: Flickr’s Stewart Butterfield Explains His Ambitious Online Game) for a game that is due for launch in late 2010, Glitch. Behind this game’s are Flickr co-founder, Stewart Butterfield and other alum, and someone from Digg — forming a company called Tine Speck. This appears to be a return to the gaming world for some of these folks, since the Flickr technology was originally intended to be a feature of an MMO (massively multiplayer online game) called Game Neverending. The photo sharing application proved to be more feasible, and the company scrapped the game. ((Graham, Jefferson. “Flickr of idea on a gaming project led to photo website.” USA TODAY 28 Feb 2006: n. pag. Web. 13 Feb 2010.))

Here is a short description of the game posted on TechVibes, on February 9 — Not really intended to whip folks who are my age into a frenzy of excitement.

It’s called Glitch because in the far-distant and totally-perfect future, the world starts becoming less and less probable, things fall apart, the center cannot hold, and there occurs what comes to be called the “glitch” — a grave danger of disemprobablization. This results in a time-traveling effort at saving the future, going back into the minds of eleven great giants walking sacred paths on a barren asteroid who sing and think and hum the world into existence and … you know what? You’ll probably just have to wait and play the game 🙂 (( Lewis, Rob. “Stewart Butterfield reveals Glitch.” TechVibes. Techvibes Media Inc., 9 Feb 2010. Web. 13 Feb 2010. . ))

What intrigues me about this, or at least my understand of the game (and the initial intent of Game Neverending) is its cross platform nature — and not in the traditional sense.  It’s how the game appears to play across a variety of technologies, game systems, web browsers, cell phones, etc. It appears that aspects of the game that might be played via SMS and other mini games that you might play with an iPhone app to build up your avatar. It seems to more closely mimic the real operation of social by players’ ability to invite the game into multiple avenues of communication and information processing.

Which brings me around to education. School is a closed environment.  It is as closed as we can get away with. Classrooms are closed. You go to class to learn Math or Science or Social Studies, but the only thing that comes out the door is the textbook, closed and stowed in a bookbag and hopefully the homework assignment, jotted down in a notebook. Science does not flow out through conversations in the hall, on the school bus, between the bookcases in the library, nor even in the Teacher’s Lounge (in my experience).

What if there were a way that we could, through a game (and I use that term loosely), cause curriculum to bleed through the walls of our classrooms and even the confines of our campuses? Butterfield says that he wants Glitch to be “as permeable as possibles.” That’s what I imagine, schools and classrooms that are as permeable as possible, so that learning leaks out — not that we’re losing it, but because we’ve stopped trying to contain it, allowing learning to grow, to network, to fertilize other learning.

Making this work, of course, would be very complicated, and it would take some pretty unique creativity. But I’m wondering about a commercial opportunity, or open source collaboration, to develop a package that overlays a schools curriculum with some sort of ARG (alternate reality game), along with game master instructions, social network plugins, a variety of barcoded clue stickers that can be planted, etc. Seems like some hard-fun learning.

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4 thoughts on “School & Games Overlay”

  1. It seems to me that this is exactly what we should be doing. Finding ways to approach learning as a journey, or a serendipitous walk, is how best to deliver instruction. Many games contain this element and from what I have read of “Glitch” this is what they are aiming for too.
    Great post David!

  2. David,
    I agree with your idea of using games to get curriculum to bled through the walls of the classrooms. A teacher and I at our (small PreK – 8) school are trying to begin that process by using the Wii console to help students with their Math facts. While it isn’t a break-through across platforms as you are speaking about, if we can use their excitement and experience as a stepping off point to help Math instruction and understanding, I am all for it!

  3. I think the cross platform nature of the game sounds interesting as well. That would allow for more flow. Students could play the game at a time that is convenient for them using any device they had access to.

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