MOOC Learning Online Week 2

The second week of the course "Teaching Digital Literacy: Videogames in Education" touches on the topic of storytelling in videogames.

The first part aims to introduce role of characters in the exploration and development of childern's identities throught exploration of values, interests or even stereotypes. I have found more interesting the topic of one's own avatar creation in games. The current trend of inclusivity (as seen in The Sims franchise and the most recently in The Sims 4) is very interesting to me, seeing the few options we could choose from in the past and the vast difference we have now. Even the MMOs like the World of Warcraft have more and more options which is helping to enjoy the story and content inside of the game including gameplay. I would like to learn more about AI usage in this field to improve avatar development.

The second part is focused on the worldbuilding. This topic includes both exploration as well as the first part but also escapism through videogames and other media like books or movies. The important mention was the looping nature of videogames, which unlike the other media are interactive and also divergent, meaning your decisions have consequences and meaning, your decisions matter. This interactive nature of videogames is crutial for this format of media for me (as well as further mentioned fan fiction).

The third part of this week's course puts the prepared characters into structured world and give those a story. I believe most important part of any story is consistency, especially to set a firm rules for worldbuilding never to be crossed. You can set social rules for characters, like laws or promises they can keep or dismiss, but in the general world rules you can not cross your own rules for the story to keep the sense of consistency and meaningfulness. I believe it is in human's nature to come across obstacles and try to be better, so it does not make sense to me to give character instant power to deal with any issue they have when we need to conclude our story, as we see in popular media (and especially contemporary movies). It gives away any story's meaning. This part of course also speaks of those rules and obstacles.

The question at the end of lecture 2.9 was what is more important - story or gameplay. This question is meaningles to me. To me it is specific to game and to person playing this game. We can enjoy story whie tolerating gameplay, love the gameplay and overlook story, or we can like both. It is specific to each gamer in specific game.

The fourth and last part of this week focuses on the interactivity. It tacles branching naratives and software Twine, which I already know and use. In the last part I have learned about active project of teaching digital literacy through videogames made by Worldbuilders.

The second week was to me more informative and new than the first, because it mostly contained disscusion about why we can use videogames in education and its benefits, which I already knew. I am truly looking forward to next week.