Educational Gaming Commons - Press Start

The EGC has been working with Dr. Ann Clements and Dr. Tom Cody (School of Music, PSU) on a way to incorporate Guitar Hero World Tour into a section of Music 112 (Into Guitar Techniques).

The result of this collaboration is a 3 week Guitar Hero project in which the class is divided into teams and tasked with using the in game music composer to play and record a simple song. Not only should the song be proof of some of the information learned in class, but it should also be structured in such a way that it can be used as an instructional tool for future students. In addition to their playable Guitar Hero song, each team will also be required to develop a learning plan on how, as a music teacher (a job many of them will go on to take), such a tool could be used in the classroom.

At the beginning of the project, a short survey was given to all students and each Guitar Hero class session (as well as optional, after class Guitar Hero tutorial sessions) are being recorded as a part of a research agenda associated with the project. Assuming all goes well, the hope is to develop the project into a larger part of the course in the Fall, as well as potentially expanding it into the more advanced guitar techniques courses. The head of the music composition program, Paul Barsom, has also expressed interest in possibly incorporating the music games into his class in the future. (Reposted from http://ets.tlt.psu.edu/engagement-initiative/guitar-hero-world-tour-and-...)

I just attended the "performance" of the GT tracks the students created - from simple nursery tunes. That's not the amazing thing here. What happened behind the scenes is. Student's came to the lab to do their "assignment" and ended up staying far longer than needed. They hung out, talked, and helped each other over the technical hurdles. Ann got to know some of them far better than normally happens in a typical classroom situation.

I know for a fact that the typical Music Ed student has NO time to just hang out. They have incredible schedules, sometimes pulling down 22 credits a semester. Truly. So to hear this from Ann is music to my ears! (No pun intended). The student's motivation to rally around this assignment is clear.

The other personal observation I had was when it came time to show the GT performances and GT was fired up, all the students became attentive - tapping their feet in time to the music, etc. I've no doubt they were into it - and it was ~8:40 AM!

Ann has several conferences lined up where she will be discussing her efforts and findings from this semester, and it looks like she'll have a bigger opportunity in the fall to try more things here. The potential for a game to impact education has never been more apparent to me, and I'm looking forward to seeing more great things in this space.