How to Make a Spiral Page Layout in Adobe Illustrator

An unconventional layout such as I'm working with for page 09 of Infinite Spiral might seem intimidating to some artists.  However, by using a few of Illustrator's tools, creating a spiral layout like the thumbnail below is a much simpler task than you'd think.

Let's walk through the process.

Deconstructing Creativity: Environment

For my masters project the area I want to explore is the intersection of creativity and games, a broad area, but one that allows me to touch on several areas of interest for future research.  Ultimately the project will have a much more narrow focus.  However, at this stage, I am general reflecting and researching in order to better understand what immediate research and design needs exist within emerging creativity studies.

To do this, involves deconstructing creativity, defining its elements so that I might be able to see what areas a game can build skill or confidence.  As it stands, "Creating" or "Synthesis" has long been at the top levels of Bloom's Taxonomy of the Cognitive Domain, being most recently moved to the very highest level.  This suggests that there are many processes and aspects to creativity to consider.

From "Bloom's Taxonomy of Learning Domains"

If you look at the taxonomy, it is clear how many cogs in this domain are relevant to the creative process.  When considering creativity pedagogy or environments to encourage creativity, one must remember the level of cognition necessary, and the structure built up beneath it that allows success at creating.

To deconstruct from here results in a large number of relevant aspects of creativity: environment, motivation, process, and community being paramount.  However, to be more descriptive for the sake of exploring creativity further, I have broken those down into descriptive subsets:  Environment, Motivation, Process, Invention, Reflection, Exhibition.

 

Today I plan to focus on Environment, and explore each other area in depth at a later time.  There is a great deal of content to work with in the concept of a creative environment alone.

Developing a Framework/Process for M.A. Project Planning

This morning I've been doing so of the more boring work for an M.A. project:  coordinating research on best practices for planning and implementing media and education products.  I recognize, that what I am working on my be beneficial to everyone else, so I am sharing my top planning resources and approach.  Actually, following this approach will largely get me to the proposal submission phase, rather than final project (I hope). 

First off, frameworks:

1)  Backwards Design

Backwards Design (Wiggin) is an educational planning practice where you start with your objectives and evaluation and then ultimately plan your learning experience.  Although not user centered, it is objective driven, and I recognize combined with user centered principles can create a meaningful structure that provides positive outcomes.

Sketching: Visually Communicating and Archiving Ideas

I would like to start with my own personal relationship to sketching.  I sketch frequently.  I sketch in the margins of my notes, I sketch on Post Its, I sketch formally and for fun.  I love it.

I sketch all of the time, but I'm not good at using it to communicate with others.  In fact, I don't do it.  So as I'm reading this great article about how we sketch, when we use it and why, I begin to think of the formative experiences in life that keep me from sketching to communicate with others.

It starts in school.  I bet almost everyone here can remember the first teacher that told you "Now is not the time to draw."  In fact, I heard it over and over again--doodlers and sketchers alike being called out for drawing in their notes and on their homework.  Visual thinking was a second class citizen in the K-12 room (in fact, when I taught I found myself saying the same things). 

I fear it has never occured to most teachers that instead of telling a child not to draw that instead they should have taught them how to draw and make it relevant.  Instead of teaching budding designers to hide their skills and force words when it isn't appropriate, they could have encouraged visual thinks to explain and think visually.

Keeper: Updated Digest Concept/Design

This is my entry of the design for Core77's Autism Connects Challenge.

     Individuals with ASDs are often impaired in their ability mentalize. They struggle to interpret “ nonverbal … socially salient information from face, gesture, and body positions,”  causing atypical social responses leading to social anxiety and social isolation (David et al, 2009; Kuusikko et al, 2009).  I propose a tablet game, Keeper, for the … read morepractice of mentalization, focusing on expression recognition in context, in 9-15 year olds with Asperger Syndrome, PDD-NOS, and High Functioning Autism.

History, Resonance, and Generation

I greatly enjoyed reading the chapter about the history of educational video games. I admit, long before I became nervous about playing games (performance anxiety maybe?) I enjoyed playing The Oregon Trail and Where in the World is Carmen Sandiego? I must have played both 100 times over the course of elementary school. 
 

I can still remember basic takeaways from Oregon Trail. If you started with a profession that had more money, you would likely be more successful. If you started at the wrong time of year, chances were that you would not survive or your party would not be in good condition. That, and if you shot a buffalo it would feed you forever and you couldn't always carry all the meat back. My sister and I liked to hunt in that game, what can I say.

As for Carmen I think that game was best for kids that were not like me. I enjoyed memorizing ridiculous and useless geography facts, so I would use the game to test my memory. In middle school, I could get to chasing Carmen before I had to reach for the Almanac, which I thought was cheating. At the time it had never occurred to me that this was a goal of the game. Actually, Ben Sawyer was discussing at Meaningful Play 2010 how games need to push out more. Clearly, this game was already doing just that. It is funny how easy that is to ignore. Pushing out of the game isn't new, it just isn't common. By the way, I never caught Carmen Sandiego. The bell always rang before I could catch her. Everyday I would almost have her and “riiiing” computer class was over.

On Essential Experience and Remembering How to Fly

I am excited to be approaching Schell's book, The Art of Game Design, with a class. Last year around this time, I purchased the book and read it from cover to cover. It was one of the final pieces of my decision to attend the Serious Game Design program. Much of what I found appealing was tucked throughout the book, but the first three chapters that we are discussing this week drew me in as a person with a content background in English and Linguistics, with hobbies of writing, art, and design.

First of all, the opening demonstrates the overlap of content areas with game design. One of my problems before coming into this program, was I had no vision of myself in a single content speciality area. I had two majors and for all I cared could have ten more and be extremely satisfied. I enjoy the process of learning and the act of using knowledge. After reading this chapter, I saw this once personality flaw something of great value to a game designer. This appealed to me and kept me reading. 

Memories from girlhood: On becoming a kick-butt maiden in games

It is a bright, sunny March day. My sister and I are wearing windbreakers out in the newly thawed lawn of my grandparents. We are not sitting with dolls, having a picnic, or playing house. We are sitting under the Goomba Tree digging a cavern to the hollow inside where the goombas come from at night. In this way, we planned to travel to Mario World.

If you read a certain slice of research on girl play habits, then girls who play in this kind of fantasy world are either rare or do not exist (Kafai, 2009). However, today I will take you on a journey of gender identity and the development of a girl who likes games, watches games, plays games, studies games, and most recently, makes games.

Design Decisions for Digital Game Based Learning

When considering pedagogy in a given delivery method, including games, there are always specific student-centered concerns. As in a regular classroom environment, one must take several factors into consideration. These factors include the learner, the desired outcomes or pedagogical objectives, the methodology, and the assessment of desired outcomes.

Undead ATC Swap

This ATC was for the Illustrator and Printmaker Group's Legendary: Undead Swap. I used Micron pens, Bic Markits, Sharpies, Derwent Pastel Pencils, Iridescent Acrylic Medium, Glimmermist, and sticks to create the haunting effects.  I enjoyed the process of trying to make the ghost boy look transparent.  I think I will have to break into alcohol inks to discover even more great effects for illustrations like these!

Player Experience is Paramount: Report and Discussion on Come Closer

There is much discussion in modern game design about the concept of "playercentric design" and the importance of the player experience.  However, most would find it difficult to boil that down into a basic vision statement.  At the 2010 Meaningful Play Conference, Jamie Antonisse and Sean Bouchard attempt through their presentation to give a formula for such a design statement.

What makes designing playercentric games particularly challenging is that there are two sides to the design.  One, the creator's side, is what Antonisse and Bouchard describe as the statement "I want to make my game about ..."  Sometimes, the design process stops there.  However, the two emphasize there is another important side, and that is absolutely the player's side, described in the statement "when playing this game the player should feel ...".  They believe that there is a disconnect in many designs between these two sides, caused by the fact that designers often think of player experience soley as accessiblity and engagement.  These two elements, although important to the design of a quality game, ignore another key feature:  player experience. 

Antonisse and Bouchard argue that one must have two design statements, one related to the topic the creator designs the game about and the other what the player should feel, or the player experience.  The trick to this is that the experience must resonate with the topics.

Differentiating Games to Motivate Learners as Players

Differentiation is a buzz word in the modern education world. It comes in the context of student centered instructional strategies. In the world of teaching, that means thinking about what students will do and what the teacher does to facilitate this process. Outcomes and objectives are formed in this same way: Students will be able to (SWBAT) … with the objective finished by a descriptive verb that in the best instances describes also the process(es) by which the students will demonstrate the desired outcome. With the advent of differentiated student centered instruction, there are often a list of several processes by which students will demonstrate the desired verb/outcome. I am admittedly, citing from my own experience, Teach for America's extensive curriculums, and probably a large library of teaching books that I have read in the past for years that have become a part of my “educator mindset.”

The point I am making is that differentiation is no new concept. However, how to apply to digital learning games is a relatively new challenge. Serious Games are at a young stage of development, and it is likely impossible to create a different game for every learner at this stage. Therefore, we must work as researchers and designers to, in the words of Teach for America, “have the most significant impact with the smallest amount of effort.” This is not about being lazy. This is about being strategic. There are a great many problems in education today. Tackling them, even in digital games, requires this mindset.

MSU Creativity Initiative

Yesterday I had the opportunity to attend the MSU Creativity Initiative Kick Off.  This is an amazing new interdisciplinary project that has the potential to be interinstitutional as well as involving community partners (wonder how TFA could use empirical data on creativity and creative pedagogy).  As it centers around creative processes across disciplines, there is a potential for Serious Games to get in the mix

Overview:

Creativity Initiative Website
Twitter:  msu_creativity
Facebook Group: The Creativity Initiative

There is also a hash-tag list.  #msucreativity
This program is innovative.  They want it to be decentralized and act as a hub (which is why it is an initiative, not a center).  The areas of research are arranged in clusters, but these are not silos and collaboration and movement between clusters is both expected and encouraged.

Digital Game Based Learning: Defining a Road Map to In Game Achievement

In a world of “Digital Natives” Digital Games Based Learning is becoming a desired instructional strategy in different educational environments. However, there is much trepidation in the community about the promising demonstrations of effectiveness, due to Shavian reversals in the “edutainment industry” where early attempts at creating learning environments from games resulting in the worst instructional practices combines with the most boring game formats (Van Eck, 2006). As confidence builds due to the growing numbers of studies demonstrating games are effective learning tools and environments, it is important to create a design framework to ensure games continue to be a successful media for instruction, rather than reverting to prior failed mergers.

So Games Can Be Effective, Now What?

Researchers agree that there is plentiful research supporting the effectiveness of games. However, most of these evaluations answer the simple “yes” “no” question of “Is Digital Game Based Learning effective?” (Van Eck, 2006). It is agreed that games are largely effective due to a combination of engagement and interactivity (Prenksy, 2001). Although the question of “why are games effective?” still needs further empirical study, there are many theories and suggestions as to why games work for instruction in skills, such as creative problem solving and creativity, that are notoriously difficult to measure (Van Eck, 2006). Games provide a meaningful learning context and allow a continue construction of cognitive disequilibrium where the learning actively participates in hypothesis making (Van Eck, 2006). Prenksy cites work by Ahlers and Garris that suggests games 1) provide chances for success, 2) curiosity, 3) simulated danger, and 4) social reinforcement. This still leaves us with the other question, how do we construct effective and engaging Digital Game Based Learning?

Evaluation: Collecting Data to Prove and Improve

Evaluation is a vital component of the design and research process. However, games provide unique challenges as well as unique opportunities for measurement. Games allows the opportunity to measure far more than “task-related” assessment or assessment of “targeted skills” (Bente et al, 2009). Games allow to collect and code information for states such as “arousal, attention, and workload, as well about their mutual affiliations, transactions, and workloads.” Games also provide a variety of built-in assessments, such as health bars, leader boards, end of missions stats, and more that can be manipulated to monitor and provide feedback on selected serious goals (Bente et al, 2009). The ultimate goal of such evaluation is three-fold, to provide assessments that harvest data to improve in-game learning experiences, to provide assessments that quantify player data to adapt or tailor gameplay, and to provide assessments that measure the effectiveness of the serious game in meetings its target outcomes(Bente et al, 2009).

in Somnia: The Snooze Button Mechanic.

I have to say, this was a challenging assignment, as a result of the language of systems dynamics.  Developing a solution to this design problem felt natural visually, I just hope that I am able here to articulate everything in the correct terms.

Enter Phobetor:  God of Nightmares

In order to make the "Snooze Button" make sense in the representation I have added a new character:  Phobetor.  Phobetor is Morpheus's brother and the god of nightmares.  Yes, he's Orphe's uncle.  Don't you love family dynamics?  This means Phobetor's overarching responsibility is to call Orphe on all the sleep mistakes he has made in Vigil while he is in Somnia, making sure he is ready to meet Morpheus.  As such Phobetor has multiple jobs:

1)  To ring the bell for each potion Orphe drinks (up to 4 different bells).

2)  To turn into nightmares for each stress threshold Orphe meets (up to 4 monsters). (I am not focusing on this Job of Phobetor, but am trying to decide whether Orphe faces these seperately or together).

[Note there is a limit, as you only spend 8 hours in Somnia).

Message Design: The process of planning, implementing, and evaluating objectives

In developing serious video games, it is important to refer to current and commonly used concepts of message design. Conventions of design provide constructs with which to engage with a target audience. When constructing messages for games, like other platforms, it is necessary to answer several questions, conforming to “Who, What, Why, and How?”

1. 
   
   
   Who? Who is your target audience?
2. 
   
   
   What? What is your target objective?
3. 
   
   
   Why? Why should the audience care and what evidence supports this?
4. 
   
   
   How? How will you accomplish the target objective and measure the accomplishment?

By putting these questions together, one arrives at a process for planning, implementing, and evaluating objectives within a game construct or other more conventional platform. These steps can be broken down into three main parts: Formative research, Presentation of Objective (the core message element), and Evaluation of Effectiveness (Atkin, 1994).

Keeper: A game for older kids and teens with ASDs

“Keeper” (Soul Keeper, Heart Keeper, Heart and Soul:  Still defining the best title).  This game is designed for intervention and practice of Theory of Mind related skills in older children (9+) and teens with Asperger Syndrome and “High Functioning” Autism.  Theory of Mind includes the skills:  understanding personal feelings and the feelings of others, “False Belief” understanding, perspective-taking, etc.

Serious Goals:

To improve facial expression recognition (aka mind reading skills) and body language recognition necessary for social competence in 9-15 year olds with AS and other ASDs.

in Somnia: A Serious Game Idea

Health Issue:

Sleep Deprivation is a serious problem for students, who are attempting to balance study, social life, and sometimes a job. The average adult needs 8 hours of sleep per night, with some young adults needing up to 10 hours of sleep in order to lead a healthy, active life.  Negative effects of sleep deprivation include learning and memory issues, weight gain, safety problems, negative health effects, moodiness and irritability, and weak immune system.

Target Objective: 
Increase student awareness of the problems associated with Sleep Deprivation and benefits of a proper night's sleep.

The Construction of a Health Behavior Change Game

Outside of the process of design, there are several key features of the construction of a game for health behavior change. Created a game with serious content is a complex process involving game designers, content experts, funders, and other parties, who are often in conflict as to the direction of a game (Tate et al, 2009). However, with appropriate negotiation of different elements of the game design, significant, fun, and effective games can be created. Today I will address two of these: Team Expertise and Before, During, and After Gaming Content.