Role Playing is Gaming with the Whole Body

Fighters with rapiers and daggers at a reenactment, 3 September 2007, 11:57, Crossed Blades, Jean, upload by Herrick, from Wikimedia Commons

Apparently, role-playing is undergoing a "renaissance."

Which is a wonderful play on words, as a lot of these stories are really medieval.

According to the WBUR story "You Be the Dragon Slayer":
The term interactive storytelling is used to describe all manner of games where both the audience and actors are part of the performance: live-action role-playing (LARPs); alternate reality games (ARGs) that often mix in technology or mobile devices; interactive theater; and everything in between, including old-fashioned role-playing games (RPGs) like D&D.

There is also the Society for Creative Anachronism.
(Sorta the anti-sport fencing.)

The connection here to museums is pretty clear, as there are a number of living history museums -- Old Sturbridge Village, Conner Prairie, and Plimoth Plantation to name a few -- that use role play as interpretation.

And there is a host of information coming out about gaming as educational, as well.
(Or not.  There is some debate.)

So is there some way we can combine these?

Higgins Armoury Museum already is.

Can we at indoor, non-armoury museums use this experience?

More Wii Research in Motion...!

This just in:

Wii use helps surgery students translate the 2-D to 3-D world of laparoscopy surgery.

A recent study by Dr. Gregorio Patrizi, a professor at the University of Rome Medical School, "found that the gamers performed significantly better than another group of residents who didn't undergo this grueling video game training" according to a February 28, 2013 NPR story "Nintendo Wii Helped Budding Surgeons Move To Head Of The Class."

Additionally, "Several earlier studies suggested that playing video games can boost laparoscopic skills, but those studies were largely based on surveys of surgeons' prior video gaming habits. Patrizi's study is one of the first randomized trials that had some surgeons undergo a structured game-playing routine and also maintained a separate control group.

"Patrizi and his team had surgical residents play three Wii games — tennis, ping pong and one that involved shooting balloons from an aircraft. As the researchers write in their article published online by PLOS ONE, they chose these games because they all required strong hand-eye coordination and three-dimensional visualization of a space."

Video Games as Museum Exhibit

(Credit: CBS)

On Sunday, March 18, 2012, CBS Sunday Morning reported on a new travelling exhibit from the Smithsonian Institution "The Art of Video Games."

According to reporter Rita Braver the games are important as art --
"how they look" --  and "how they engage the imagination."

The "interactive nature" of video games is what fascinates me.  

As I explained in an earlier entry about "Learning and the Brain," the nature of gaming creates powerful learning conditions.  Conditions that could be used in a classroom or a museum exhibit.  How can we take what we know about the brain and learning and combine it with what works in games?

Also of interest: Braver reports that women comprise 40% of gamers.  How do these games more successfully differentiate instruction than many classroom curricula?

Technology's historical development also is displayed.  What does the change of technology over time tell us about the changing nature of material culture?  About how humans interact with digital technology?  What is shaping whom?

I'll hope to see the exhibit when it's at the Brooks Art Museum in Memphis in the summer of 2015.  Until then check out the video coverage below!