The Immersion vs. Engagement Debate, part 2

One thing the Sleep No More experience impressed upon me was the it is possible to be immersed in an environment without actually engaging with it at all. In fact, just a cursory glance at the student interview transcriptions from my research study suggested as much. My test subjects were a middle school history class from Harpers Ferry Middle School, a fairly easy walking distance from the park. Most of the kids grew up in the area and knew the park well, having gone there for school field trips, family vacations, or just to walk around and hang out. Their knowledge of John Brown's raid, however, was utterly minimal. They knew there was a person named John Brown, and he raided Harpers Ferry. That was about the extent of it. Really. After the post-study interviews, students had a firmer grasp of the complexity of John Brown's raid (many people involved), where certain buildings were located (or had been located at one time), and the fact that some names in the history books were actually real people. Some engagement had occurred. Perhaps not perfect, perhaps not thorough, but at some point during the game, the students created a meaningful context for these people, locations, and events - just as at some point during my Sleep No More experience, I created a meaningful context for my surroundings. I believe that the creation of meaning is the bridge between immersion and engagement, between space and place.

But how do we create meaning? Certainly in my case, meaning came as a result of various elements. First, a prior knowledge of Macbeth that allowed me to transfer what I knew of the story to the alternate setting and narrative structure, even though it took me awhile. Second, as a mother of two young children, I can't discount an empathic response to that particular scene - one in which innocent children are slaughtered. That certainly evoked a strong emotional response. Third, the multi-sensory modalities that were being utilized - visual, tactile, and especially auditory - heightened the emotional response. Finally, the juxtaposition of the ordinary and the disturbing - touching something so seemingly innocuous as a teddy bear, and then seeing it slashed open, intensified the horror through the incongruity of it all.

But what happened when my middle school students played my game? How was meaning created there? I hope once my data are analyzed, I'll have some answers. Or at least some suggestions.

The Immersion vs. Engagement Debate, part 1

Immersion vs. Engagement.

I don't know if this is actually a debate, but if it isn't, I'm making it one. The difference between these two things has been bugging me for years. In many of the papers I'd read, these two words seemed to be thrown around as synonyms, used interchangeably. At the same time, I'd run into a paper or two that suggested otherwise, but even then the context wasn't particularly helpful. I had the sense that these were two terms I really needed to get a grip on.

Then something fantastic happened.

I happened to catch a review in The Washington Post about a show called Sleep No More, a highly unusual theater production showing in New York City. It was an audience-participatory version of Macbeth, told through the lens of a 1940's noir setting. Audience members had to remain anonymously masked and silent through the entire performance (which could last up to three hours), but they could move freely throughout the whole "stage" - six floors of two attached warehouses with completely outfitted rooms. Anything could be touched, opened, rifled through, and players could be approached and observed from mere inches away. Every room had something to offer (see six of the rooms, each with its own short audio commentary).

The Sleep No More version of Macbeth lasts about one hour, so in the maximum three-hour period, the play cycles three times. You see scenes out of order; some scenes you might see two or three times; some scenes you won't see at all. You can choose to stay in one room and see who comes in and out; you can choose to follow a single character around the whole time; or you can wander into empty rooms and just explore. Your path is entirely your own, and you piece together your own experience.

It was difficult to know who the characters were in their 1940's setting. The three witches became apparent after awhile, but distinguishing the difference between, say, Malcolm and Duncan, was a  lot more difficult. It took a good hour before I had a fairly good idea who Macbeth was, and some scenes that I witnessed were a struggle to connect with the classic Shakespeare. At one point, I got tired of following the herd, and I wandered off on my own to soak up the atmosphere. It was eerie being alone. Ambient music and/or sounds effects were always playing. The lighting was always various shades of dim. Every object, every drawer's contents, was relevant or at least thoughtfully placed, and I had the sense I was intruding on someone's else's space.

 On one floor, I stumbled into a series of rooms that looked like a family's personal living quarters. The sense of trespassing increased slightly. The lack of any other movement but my own was palpable; every move I made seemed to disrupt something across the room. I noticed the background music had taken an ominous turn. I rounded a corner and entered what was clearly a children's room, and as I explored, I saw a teddy bear sitting on the bed. I was drawn to it somehow. I picked it up and examined it closely, noticing only then that it had been sliced open from neck to crotch, and bits of stuffing were hanging out.

It took only seconds.

Suddenly, with horror rising up into my throat, I realized where I was and what it all meant. This was Macduff's children's room - the children who, in Shakespeare's account, were viciously murdered by Macbeth in an effort to quell Macduff's opposition to his kingship. For some reason, I looked up into a nearby mirror. It was a trick mirror, and the reflection of my masked, featureless self was indistinct. I was not the reality in that room. That slashed teddy bear was.

At that  moment, I understood the difference between immersion and engagement.

To be continued......

IRBs and Other Oddities

So....

The IRB application.

I looked at that thing with utter incomprehension for days. A research study was additional new territory for me, and I really needed to be clear about exactly how my study would be designed. My UB program had been in a state of transition for a year or so, moving over to more traditional research-based studies (prior to this, research had been primarily focused on user research), and there was really no formal support for this yet. I was at the stage in my studies where coursework was done, and I had no electives left to add in a course in research methods. I got up to speed through a combination of GLS's Doctoral Consortium, whose members offered invaluable advice; the brilliant and infinitely patient Ed Dieterle, who was once a Bridging the Watershed teacher/partner before he went off to do great things at the Harvard Graduate School of Education; and some really good books, including,

Basics of Qualitative Research: Techniques and Procedures for Developing Grounded Theory, Strauss and Corbin
Research Design: Qualitative, Quantitative, and Mixed Methods Approaches, John Creswell
Qualitative Inquiry and Research Design: Choosing Among Five Approaches, John Creswell

and probably best of all,

Qualitative Research Design, An Interactive Approach, Joseph Maxwell

With all these resources, I was able to put together a study, based in grounded theory, comprised of teacher pre- and post-questionnaires; three sets of interviews, the first to establish prior experiences, the second to establish expectations, and the third to collect reflections; and finally audio recordings of the actual day of play testing. When all these interviews and audio recordings are transcribed and coded (still ongoing), then hopefully I will be able to glean the answer to, or at least a suggestion of, my primary research question:

How do players make meaning?

History, Meet Handheld

Armed with a site and an authoring tool, I stepped gingerly into the world of game design. I'd never designed a game before, though I'd played plenty. I had a basic idea of the kinds of games I enjoyed, and those I didn't; and of course, I'd been reading Zimmerman, Salen, McGonigal, Klopfer, Squire, Jenkins, to name just a few. I knew my game to needed to be situated (Harpers Ferry); it needed to incorporate role-playing, include authentic artifacts, encourage collaboration, and introduce emotionally compelling stories and challenges. No problem, right? Well, months of false starts suggested otherwise. The problem lay in dealing with actual historical events. How does one design a compelling game around events that are fixed? History happened, and it happened in a very particular way, and one wants players to understand what happened.

My first attempt at a game was to have the players play through the actual events of John Brown's Raid.  I struggled with this for a few months trying to create interesting game play, and though it's obvious to me now, I couldn't figure out why I'd hit a dead end. It all came down to choice. By having players play through a pre-scripted series of events in an attempt to steer them toward the inevitable end, it became clear that they had no choices to make. It was, in a word, BORING.

During a second attempt, I turned the players into outside observers of the raid with a decision to make: whether or not to join John Brown in his assault on the federal armory. This was a slightly better path; the players needed to evaluate evidence and make a decision. However, it was only one decision, and they were on the outside looking in. I was still trying to steer the players toward the inevitable historical end. Again, BORING.

Then I had a revelation: let go of the ending. Once I decided not to care how the story ended, everything opened up. I put the players back into their roles as (this time fictional) raiders and gave them a very simple objective: get in, get the weapons, and get out. And don't get caught. That objective was not so dissimilar to John Brown's. He hoped to acquire the large number of weapons stored at the armory and arsenal in order to aid in the liberation of slaves. But John Brown and most of his men never got back out, and that's what I had to let go. Once I decided that, in my game, it would be possible to escape, then it got interesting. Add in suspicion points and the possibility that players' interaction with the townsfolk could cause them to become suspicious enough to call in the militia, and it got downright exciting.

ARIS to the Rescue

Let me just say right now that those folks at Madison know how to throw a conference. The Games+Learning+Society (GLS) conference every summer in June is the highlight of my conference-going. In fact, if I had to choose only one to attend (and sometimes lack of funding requires I choose), GLS would be it. Good food (and lots of it!), down-to-earth, friendly people, and far too many interesting sessions and workshops. I always miss something useful because I'm somewhere else....useful.

One workshop I attended my first year was on ARIS (Augmented Reality Interactive Stories). With laptop and iTouch in hand, I learned to create a very (very) basic game with minimal characters, objects, and interactions. Nevertheless, it was exciting. I saw a way forward with the Harpers Ferry game at last. The ARIS editor worked with Google maps, and once created, characters, objects, and plaques could be dragged to the map, geolocating them. Now don't be seduced into thinking that you can create a few characters and objects, throw them on the map, and you've got a game. It's a bit more complicated than that, and if you want to be really slick (incorporating video and voiceover, etc.), it gets more complicated still. I didn't really realize that at the time, though; all I knew was that I could make a start.

And thank goodness for the extraordinary online ARIS community that is available to offer support, assistance, and solutions. They have collectively helped me through numerous problems, actual bugs, and stupid mistakes. I couldn't have reached where I am today without them.

Sucker for a Pretty View

Since I have a love of history, having earned a Master's degree in Medieval Studies from the University of York, I knew almost from the start (at least the start of my new direction) that my focus would be outdoor learning environments, and specifically historical sites. There was no doubt in my mind which site I preferred. It was easily Harpers Ferry (HAFE). I remember my BTW supervisor saying at the time, "why don't you focus on something closer like Rock Creek National Park?" Perhaps if I'd thought about it practically, I might have taken her advice; it is just over a 90-minute drive to Harpers Ferry under ideal driving conditions. Call it two hours, really. But I was enamored with the Ferry, so I wasn't deterred. It is a stunningly beautiful place. If you've ever seen the view from Maryland Heights, you know what I mean (click on the link and scroll about halfway down). I emailed one of the education rangers at HAFE, whom I knew through BTW, explaining that I was going to focus my dissertation on creating a game for the park. She was utterly enthusiastic, which was very gratifying, but it was going to be awhile before anything materialized. I still had to finish my coursework, and I had to figure out how on earth my non-programming self was going to build a game.

Enter the University of Wisconsin - Madison and ARIS.

Back to School

So, fast-forward several years to 2007 when I started my doctoral program in Communications Design (now Information and Interaction Design) at the University of Baltimore. I had thought at the time I would focus on something work-related. Refining our data collection system with something digital and upload-able to replace the pen-and-paper method we had been using - which involved multiple copies, and errors, before it finally got to our database - was paramount. Unfortunately, management's ideas of going digital didn't mesh with mine, so very early in my doctoral studies, I went in another direction. Thanks to a classmate, I discovered augmented reality (AR) and Environmental Dectectives, the first AR game created by MIT's Teacher Education Program in 2003. In this game, students used location-aware handheld devices (archaic by today's standards) in the physical space of MIT's campus to determine the origin of a fictional toxic chemical spill. In the role of investigative field scientists, students can choose to interview virtual characters to gather information, determine locations to drill for soil samples, and prepare a presentation for the president of the university, all within the constraint of a two-hour time period.

Because time is limited and there is not enough time to interview everyone or to drill more than a handful of wells, students must make choices between collecting interviews, gathering background information, and drilling wells, adjusting and reprioritizing goals as new information becomes available. (quoted from 
http://education.mit.edu/ar/ed.html)

This idea intrigued me. A role-playing scenario again, this time with digital augmentation through handheld devices. Surely not ideal - wouldn't hands-free devices such as glasses (if they didn't give you tunnel vision or nearly break the bridge of your nose) or contacts be better - but certainly very portable and best of all, ubiquitous and affordable.