Poster Information
| Title | The Curious Case of Osy Osmosis: The Uncomfortable Balance Between Game Design and Education |
| Presenter(s) | Casey O'Donnell |
| Session | Conference Reception, Game Exhibition, and Poster Session |
| Time | Thursday, October 21, 7:00p-9:00p |
| Location | East Lansing Technology Innovation Center |
| Format | Poster Presentation |
| Description | This poster presents information based on two years of ethnographic fieldwork gathered during the design and development of "Osy", a game developed developed cooperatively between game developers, scientists, educators, and funded by a $1.3 Million dollar National Institute of Health (NIH) grant. "Osy" was the first game developed as part of a project that had already developed several immersive 3D simulations. The poster examines the shift in understanding the role that game mechanics came to play as interdisciplinary boundary objects (Leigh Star and Griesemer 1989) facilitating discussions between content experts and game designers. By fore-fronting game mechanics, more meaningful, and ultimately more enjoyable play experiences were constructed to engage students in "stealth learning" efforts. The author posits a new possible space for game development that brings together designers and scientists to create games that are simultaneously fun/engaging and educational. Games constructed with this method provide new opportunities to experiment with designs and technologies that might otherwise be set aside for more tried and true methods. Osy began with the questions: "Is there a game in osmosis?" "Can we make a core mechanic out of that?" Osy occupies this strange new space and the presentation discusses its design and development as well as the "faultlines" (Traweek 2000) encountered during the development process. Osy is particularly compelling, given the success the project has had in engaging students in meaningful play experiences. The game's construction has brought together a highly diverse and interdisciplinary team focused on the creation of meaningful play experiences at the interface between teachers and standards based learning, which creates particular difficulties for designers, developers, and educators hoping to address these new educational possibilities. |