Australian book launch - Real Players?

We will be launching Real Players? at the Drama Australia conference on Saturday 30th September.

John, Michael & I are presenting a paper in the 3.30 - 4.00 pm slot, then cracking open some champagne courtesy of our publishers (Trentham UK).

We're not sure what our paper will be about, but it may be along the lines of this Sydney Uni media release:

Generation Y not content to be "couch potatoes"

15 August 2006

Educators, drama producers and media workers need to start thinking of Generation Y as interactive "creative partners" rather than passive consumers of entertainment and information, a new book argues.

Far from producing a generation of "couch potatoes", digital technology and screen-based culture has produced a generation of young people hungry for interactive experiences, according to one of the book's authors, the University of Sydney's Dr Michael Anderson.

"A generation born into a world of connected, mobile, media-rich technology seems less inclined to passively consume whatever is served up to them in traditional forms," said Dr Anderson. "This has huge implications for the media and the visual and performing arts."

Dr Anderson says the book, titled Real players? drama, technology and education, argues that young people's everyday use of technology means they often want to be creative collaborators, and media and drama producers should take this into account.

"Young people live in a world where the boundaries between producer and consumer have become quite fluid; their mobile phones are becoming personal media production studios for real-time interaction," says one of the book's co-authors, Associate Professor John Carroll from Charles Sturt University. "We've only just started to scratch the surface of this trend, with TV shows using phone-in SMS or online chat content for example, but there's scope for much more creative collaboration."

Real players? also explores the use of technology to enhance educational drama and role-based learning. In one example students were enrolled as reporters responding to the unfolding "emergency" of a virtual flood in a major Australian country town. Teachers used drama approaches linked with websites and artificial intelligence software to create an authentic learning experience for these students.

"In a sense, drama is the original virtual reality classroom," says co-author David Cameron, a Charles Sturt University lecturer. "Meanwhile, digital game designers intuitively build learning, assessment and review principles into entertainment products - which is why people can start playing a new game without reading a manual. Emerging somewhere in the middle is an exciting new approach to education and training."

CFP: Game-Based learning

ECGBL 2007: The European Conference on Games Based Learning
University of Paisley, Scotland, UK
25-26 October, 2007

Possible topics include, but are not limited to:-

Technology:

§ innovative games-based learning technologies, applications, tools and environments;

§ use of mobile games for learning;

§ technology for massively multiplayer online games (MMOGs) for learning;

§ implementation issues associated with games-based learning.

Pedagogy:

§ learning and instructional theory for games-based learning;

§ assessment in games-based learning;

§ evaluation of games-based learning;

§ use of narrative and storytelling; use of audio;

§ case studies and best practices in the use of games-based learning;

§ future of games-based learning.

Social and Ethical Issues:

§ social and collaborative aspects of games-based learning;

§ gender, cultural and violence issues;

§ ethical issues;

§ organizational issues associated with the implementation of GBL in education and training

Abstracts are due: 17 May, 2007

Visit the ECGBL Website at: http://www.academic-conferences.org/ecgbl/ecgbl2007/ecgbl07-home.htm

Real Players ... the book

Our book is finally published:

Real Players? drama, technology and education
John Carroll, Michael Anderson, David Cameron
Trentham Books
ISBN: 1858563658

This is the cover blurb:

Educational drama is being transformed by the technology of our screen-mediated world. The everyday use of computers, mobile phones, videogames and television is changing young people’s perceptions of what drama is and how it works.

Real Players? brings together the performance world of educational drama and the real world digital environment inhabited by many young people. It illustrates the dramatic conventions drama teachers can bring to using interactive and online performance in their classrooms. Role-based performance spaces are developed to critique these technologies and develop electronic literacy through dramatic action.

Teachers and others working in drama will find this exploration of a new dimension of drama compelling and professionally enriching. It will also be of interest to teachers of ICT.

Order directly from Trentham Books or look for it at Amazon.com

Keywords: process drama, digital performance, serious games, videogames