Figuring out the game and holding down the fort

The students, staff and faculty from Champlain College who left for South Africa on their research project have arrived. According to a very short note on the Games Take on Violence Against Women blog:

Long 24 hours of flights. Jet lag hasn't had a chance to hit yet. BUT we are here. Internet is spotty, weather is early spring - cold, damp. 40 Winks is a bed and breakfast establishment we are staying at. Yogurt and muesli for breakfast. Now we are off to the township. 40% of the Cape Town residents live in these. We saw them through our airport transportation. Little tin "rooms" with electricity strung high. That was brought in 8 years ago. Cape Town looks to be a city of diversity in many ways.

By now they have probably completed the tour -- they are 6 or 7 hours ahead of us. I wonder how they are doing. To be able to go on a trip like this when you are 19, 20 or 21. Can you imagine how it opens your eyes to a new world view? Shocks your norms? Shakes you up?

Here I sit, wondering. Here I sit in my old house, typing on my high-powered computer, wondering what they are seeing, wondering what they are doing and above all hoping they are coping and relying on one another during this profound time of growth.

The real work begins when they get back -- sifting through the interviews, the photos, the drawings and helping them to make sense of it all so everything they learned, everything they internalized can help them to create a game. A game like no other. An impossible game. And yet, if anyone can do it, this group of outstanding individuals will make it happen.

Meanwhile, I'll watch the blogs and the facebook and keep my skype open...just in case they reach out with some little bit of news.

Teaching from the sidelines and watching them FLY!

I've been on vacation. Well to be exact I've been on the very trendy much sought after "staycation". But of course that means I have access to the web and besides playing mass quantities of WoW I've also been more in-touch with work then I probably should be for someone "on vacation".

Why stay in touch?

For a very simple reason. I've been asked to be the co-advisor, along with my colleague Asst. Prof. Megan Frenzen, of a group of Marketing, e-Business and Education majors as they work on a very exciting project for the UN. Yep, the United Nations. Champlain College is the recipient of a grant from the UNFPA (United Nations Population Fund) to create a game prototype to help change behaviors around violence against women in South Africa. There is a large team of students comprised of e-game design, art and animation, e-game programing, software engineering, marketing, e-business and education majors who will be working through December on creating this game prototype.

I was asked to recommend a group of students for the project and as a Professor this is perhaps one of the most rewarding and most challenging things I can be asked. I considered this request for some time actually, thinking about the many different students I have had the pleasure of working with, the demands of the work that must be done and the fact that this work has the potential to have an amazing impact on others lives. In the end I recommended ten students. Then it was out of my hands.

Now the students who were interested and were selected by the project team are scrambling to get everything in order before they head out on the first part of their research -- travelling to Cape Town, South Africa the week prior to the beginning of classes to conduct on the ground research.

It's an amazing thing watching them struggle to find direction, to figure out what they should be doing and how to approach it ... and to provide advice and recommendations ... but not tell them what to do (smile).

I won't be going on the trip with them. Meg gets that honor (with my blessing). However I will be following their progress and providing my advice from afar using the methods of communication that seem to work depending on where they are at the time.

They have much to consider. Research areas, asking good questions, listening and working together as a team. They have already started thinking about branding, logo, etc.

We have much to consider. How to advise, yet let them lead, how to encourage but not let them go down the wrong path, how to empower but keep them grounded.

Keep up on our progress by reading some of the different blogs and other social networking sites that have been started by the students and by the folks at our Emergent Media Center.

1. Perpetual Reflection by Nicole Magoon
2. Persnickety Creative by Amanda Jones
3. Champlain's United Nations South Africa Project at Facebook (a open group)

Or, follow me on Twitter or Plurk to find out things as they happen!