Invitation: Side-Quest Lit Review
Invitation: Take a side-quest with this lightweight, collaborative literature review -an experiential demo of choice based learning.
Invitation
Building off of the idea of a Side Quest as outlined in my previous post, I want to extend an invitation to participate in some minor games scholarship!
This experiential activity is intended to provide a self-directed research opportunity to others interested in the pedagogical framework of a collaborative literature review. Interest in Games & Scholarship is not a requisite, but it will be the focus of this example.
To participate, follow the instructions as laid out below. If you want some ideas about topics to explore, expand the following dropdown.
Example Games & Scholarship Topics
- Game preservation
- Transmedia storytelling
- Intersectionality & Games
- Games in art
- Games in film
- Violent video games
- Console Wars
- Popular culture
- Current events
- Play vs games
- Economics & Free to Play
- Loot Boxes & Gambling
- Piracy
- Cheating
- Toxicity in Gaming
- Screen time
- Games research
- Games & propaganda
- User generated content (Roblox, Minecraft, Fortnite, etc.)
- Tabletop role playing games
- Games & Therapy
- eSports
- Accessibility in gaming
- Representation in gaming
- Actual plays, podcasts, and live streaming
- Video games
- Virtual reality / augmented reality / mixed reality / etc.
- Board games & card games
- Serious games
- Game awards
- Indie games
- And much, much more!
Instructions
The following steps will guide your participation:
- Decide on a topic to pursue
- Explore at least one piece of relevant scholarship (i.e. Peer-reviewed journal articles, books, Ted Talks, news reports, blog posts, keynotes, workshops, survey data, and more!)
- Submit your resource using the Google Form below
- Review submissions in the Google Sheets repository under the Google Form (Note: this Google Sheet refreshes every few minutes, so you may not see your contribution immediately)
To support our collective scholarly explorations, feel free to review the links in the Where to Research? dropdown below.
Where to Research?
There are many places you can search for research—here are serval tools you can use for your Scholarly Explorations:
- University Library - Easiest source of academic resources
- Google Scholar - Broader resources with accessible web links
- Internet Archive Scholar - A branch of the Internet Archive devoted to scholarship
- Wikiversity - A branch of Wikipedia devoted to scholarship
- Science.gov - The official source of U.S. Government research
- Directory of Open Access Journals - Index of diverse, open access journals from around the world
- Mason OER Metafinder - Real-time, federated search for OER content
- Oasis - A search tool that aims to make the discovery of open content easier
- WorldCat - Find items in libraries near you
- Project Gutenberg - A library of over 70,000 free eBooks
- ResearchGate - Search and request articles from authors
- ResearchRabbit - Visualize research and connections (search using URLS to articles)
- Consensus - AI search engine for research (paid account unlocks more features)
- Academia - Social network for research sharing (paid account unlocks more features)
- TED - Thought-provoking video keynotes
- YouTube - Thought-provoking channels (Ex: Extra Credits, Edutopia, etc.)
Finally, I don't intend for this activity to take too much time. I recognize we are supremely busy. Strategically, I'd encourage you to use this opportunity to submit a TED video you felt compelling or any of the research you've explored in previous semesters. For instance, if you have taken the Games & Learning course, you could submit an article from that course. This activity could easily be 15-30 minutes per submission. Keep in mind that this is meant to be an enjoyable exercise!