The First - And We Begin with a Win.

Been meaning to get the blog started here, but..well, you know the routine. But today we kick this puppy off with some good news.

In my role in Higher Ed here in Colorado, I work at a school that is fairly typical as the home of a large number of folks who shake their heads at my ongoing ranting about digital games and game design for education. It's not that they're bad people, not all of them, but that they come from that cultural group that sees games as those things you do when the real work is done...maybe, if there is still nothing really important to do....or some 'real' game things like golf or biking or skiing or something. And let's not talk about those administrative types....let's just not.

Anyway, in my four years of being here, and being the digital game advocate/evangelist/fanatic, I've worked with three or four instructors who I really think are good instructors, but they just saw no use for the "game-thing" as they called it.

But.

Two weeks ago, I began teaching our first official academic course on game design and development at the college, and two of the students are from that group of faculty. Not only did they actually show-up, but after two weeks they have become the most active and energetic participants in the class. As part of the class requirments they are actually playing games....and beginning to catch-on. Both have come up with some pretty creative ideas for integrating game design into their courses, and once we filter out the impossible from the doable I expect to see them create some pretty awesome stuff.

Only took four years.....

But we have infected a couple more.....

-John