eXperience Play at the University Oklahoma

While traveling to the University of Oklahoma for the past few days to learn about what some of my friends and colleagues are doing, I’ve come across some really cool things. One such thing, happening in a Faculty Learning Community (FLC) through OU’s Center for Teaching Excellence, is eXperience Play, or XP. A “professional development program meant to introduce instructors to game design and how it can be utilized to engage students in the classroom,” XP has been developed and led by Keegan Long-Wheeler and John Stewart, and they allowed me to sit in on a session this morning!

Today’s session, the second installment in XP, was all about the planning phase of game design. Keegan briefly introduced the session, and reviewed the basics and importance of narrative structure and storyboarding. Faculty went to work developing their stories, including the branching structure of the games based on choices players will have to make. Faculty from chemistry, linguistics, and physics all brought ideas for games, and were able to work in a collaborative space, with Keegan available for support.

OU’s CTE seems to be doing a great job of building communities across their campus, and the XP FLC was great to sit in on and reflect for the ways that a community group like this might be great at Ohio State.

Thanks to Keegan, John and all of the other folks at the CTE and OU for hosting this Buckeye!