Chat Me Out of Here!

Conversational user interfaces, aka chatbots, offer new ways of interaction that can be used not only for task-led applications, but also for learning itself. From drill-and-practice assistants to digital tutors and coaches, Conversational learning offers a variety of new and extensive options to support individuals through the learning process and to push the boundaries of classroom-based learning. However, Conversational Learning applications that go beyond simple question-and-answer dialogs are still rare. “Pit in the Warehouse” takes a new stance to Conversational Learning: by combining an dialogical escape room challenge with an interactive fiction approach and compelling storytelling, it creates an engaging and low-threshold type of game-based learning.

Interactive Fiction in the Humanities Classroom: How to Create Interactive Text Games Using Twine

This lesson provides strategies for incorporating game creation into the classroom. The first half of the lesson discusses the challenges and benefits of teaching game creation while the second half includes a technical tutorial for Twine, an open source game creation tool.

“Pay for your choices”: Deconstructing neoliberal choice through free-to-play mobile interactive fiction games

This article studied the neoliberal ideas of choice and agency manifested in the structures of two interactive fiction or “choose-your-own-adventure” games, Choices: Stories you Play and Episode—Choose Your Story, and their free-to-play profit system to explore the hegemonic operation of neoliberalism and participatory resistances to it. Neoliberal choice was approached as a strategy that operates by encouraging an actualization of one’s best self yet inscribing what it should entail. Despite the rhetoric of agency and fictitious simulation, the “best” choices and endings in the games were visible and accessible only with cultural, economic, and temporal capitals. “Right” choices required legitimate taste which needs savviness in dominant readings or time investment, and the “right est” choices required monetary investment. However, players’ subversive choices such as intentionally choosing “(not) rightly” to pursue negotiated readings and collective participation hinted at the potential of tactical practices in creating new strategies.

Fight like a girl : digital storytelling for resilience strategies

My major research paper (MRP) seeks to explore the relationship between resilience strategies and women in martial arts. It is the foundation for a knowledge translation project which seeks to create an interactive fiction piece to teach self-motivation strategies utilized by women athletes in combat arts. This interactive fiction piece is not meant to be a clinical tool for depression or anxiety, but is instead a self-empowerment tool. By interviewing 10 women who participate in Muay Thai as amateur fighters, I was able to evaluate which strategies were common and effective. These included discipline, organization, growth mindset, and finding an overarching purpose. There were also many barriers that were similar between the participants of my study, including ineffective coaching techniques, unsupportive friends and family, and unrealistic representations of women in martial arts by the media. Lastly, the participants of my study offered several suggestions for the game creation, including designing accurate physical representations of women's bodies, acknowledging barriers and sacrifices for women in the sport, and offering the opportunity in-game for self-reflection self-reflection to mimic self-improvement. The term knowledge translation reveals that we speak in different languages and conventions than people outside of academia. The term knowledge mobilization illustrates that we have to go out of our way to reach these people, many of whom are the subjects of our research. These two concepts can and should be integrated as we conduct our research, write our papers, and publish; they should not simply exist as an afterthought. I urge every scholar who reads this paper to consider the ways we can create a culture which encourages inclusivity and equitable access.

Fight like a girl : digital storytelling for resilience strategies

My major research paper (MRP) seeks to explore the relationship between resilience strategies and women in martial arts. It is the foundation for a knowledge translation project which seeks to create an interactive fiction piece to teach self-motivation strategies utilized by women athletes in combat arts. This interactive fiction piece is not meant to be a clinical tool for depression or anxiety, but is instead a self-empowerment tool. By interviewing 10 women who participate in Muay Thai as amateur fighters, I was able to evaluate which strategies were common and effective. These included discipline, organization, growth mindset, and finding an overarching purpose. There were also many barriers that were similar between the participants of my study, including ineffective coaching techniques, unsupportive friends and family, and unrealistic representations of women in martial arts by the media. Lastly, the participants of my study offered several suggestions for the game creation, including designing accurate physical representations of women's bodies, acknowledging barriers and sacrifices for women in the sport, and offering the opportunity in-game for self-reflection self-reflection to mimic self-improvement. The term knowledge translation reveals that we speak in different languages and conventions than people outside of academia. The term knowledge mobilization illustrates that we have to go out of our way to reach these people, many of whom are the subjects of our research. These two concepts can and should be integrated as we conduct our research, write our papers, and publish; they should not simply exist as an afterthought. I urge every scholar who reads this paper to consider the ways we can create a culture which encourages inclusivity and equitable access.