Bring your student’s reading and writing experiences to life.* In interactive fiction you control the main character. Their challenges, and their choices, are now yours!
I have have set just one pedagogical goal for 2011-12 and aim to stick with just one. Most years I would ear mark one or two teaching ideas or strategies to explore and pick up a further one or two along the way but not this year. I have one solitary focus, to bring Interactive Fiction to as many classrooms as possible.
I have interested most of my summer learning about game mechanics, reading about and immersing myself in the interactive fiction community and finally teaching myself how to write interactive fiction. It is with the advent of visual editors (see Quest5) that interactive fiction has now been made available to everyone. The text adventure scene is set for a revival, some would say, is in the midst of a revival.
I have gone from inquisitive teacher to passionate advocate, joining arms with Games Industry expert Andy Goff and Quest developer Alex Warren. We are encouraging gifted writers to program and gifted programmers to be better writers and both to be creative thinkers, all under the umbrella of interactive fiction.
With a course outline planned and endorsed by Alex, I am busily writing an open interactive fiction course to supplement the official Quest documentation, adding to that, a Youtube playlist dedicated to Quest. I have to admit, up until now the documentation on interactive fictions was understandably a little….. wordy.
I am so convinced that interactive fiction can invigorate reading and writing (and thinking) for that band of unimpressed, uninterested boys (and girls) that I have made IF my ONLY pedagogical goal for 2011-12.
Curious? Enrol on the course, learn to play and write IF as I try and stay one step ahead of you with the resources. Visit the official wiki or watch my first video.
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