Aportes de los conceptos a la investigación

Location: Toronto

Participants: Lisa Simpson via Skype, me, and the grade seven participants (now in grade eight) For multiple reasons, including that our contact with the grade seven participants was infrequent after the GDD visit in April, the now grade eight participants were somewhat resistant in the final visit to share the prototype. Though I had ethical permission from all participants I wanted to refresh the project concept for both the students and parents so I sent out another round of consent forms. This conclusion about resistance comes from the fact that few of them had returned their consent and assent forms up to the day before the scheduled visit. Their teacher and another collaborating teacher informed me that they were complaining a bit about this final meeting. However, both teachers spoke to them and all assent forms were in place by the day of the final visit. I think the resistance for the most part came from the time lapse between visits. It may also have had to do with age and resistance to a project associated with them when they were an entire grade younger, but this is speculative.

I felt somewhat disheartened from the initial unenthusiastic response from the students. I was worried about how they would respond to the prototype. I had also wished to have Lisa

Simpson and Tank Girl with me in person, but for various reasons this did not work out. Lisa Simpson attended through Skype.

In contrast to my fears, overall, the response to the prototype was very positive. The response when actually playing the prototype was over the top in terms of energizing, and it is this game-play that was in fact the energizing moment. This is not a transcript I can actually type out because essentially it consisted of a lot of cheering and loud noise. The focus group began with the prototype. The game was set up on my computer and projected so that everyone could see it. The plan was for students to take turns trying it out for as long as they wanted to do so. What happened was that they had trouble winning the two mini-games that form the prototype. When the first player began there was a cacophony of cheering, to the point where the teacher next door had to stick her head in the door and ask us to keep it down. This went on for six rounds, by six different girls, until it was beat. I had originally thought the game would be too easy.

Not every student spoke during the focus group, and although I reminded them that I was eager to know what they really thought and would not be offended by any critical feedback, the students no doubt would have likely been uncomfortable sharing negative criticisms. The feedback from students who spoke, however, was thoughtful and enthusiastic. Though overall quite positive, after playing the prototype, at least one student was surprised and expressed what I interpreted as disappointment with the simplicity of the prototype. I draw this from her repetition of the question, “This is it?” I attempted to elicit further information from this participant later in our discussion and she expressed that it would be easier to judge the game if she had time on her own to play it.

Energizing Moments Analysis

The descriptions outlined above provide a sense of the overall project, focusing attention specifically on the seven energizing moments that took place throughout the course of the project. In the following section I will examine the implications of these incidents more closely. I will discuss what each of the energizing moments have in common with one another to theorize strategies towards the re-enablement of such moments in future iterations of the project. The following research questions related to energizing moments will be addressed in this chapter:

• Through consideration of energizing moments throughout the project, what was

happening in such moments that motivated the participants and maintained their interest? • What deflated motivation and interest?

• Based on these analyses, what are guidelines that could enable future projects? Addressing Energizing Moments Research Questions. Recognition of the

commonalities shared between the energizing moments will elucidate details that address the research question: what motivated the participants, and maintained their interest? What is common to each of the energizing moments is that they move in some way from the realm of the abstract (ideas and concepts), to that of the real (manifestations of ideas and concepts). With the exception of the energizing moments that took place during play of McDonald’s Video Game (La Molleindustria, 2006) and the Ghost Hotel prototype, occurrence of energizing moments

corresponded to the milestones or to each significant stage in the development of the game. Another way of describing this correlation is that as the vision for the Ghost Hotel game prototype became increasingly clear, there was a corresponding energizing moment.

The correlation between each stage of the project and the energizing moments is illustrated in the chart below:

Figure 11. Project Stage and Energizing Moments

From the perspective of Hermione Granger, Clementine, and I, energizing moments began for us when we initially engaged with the youngest participants. Clementine and I considered listening to the game concepts as they were being developed by the grade seven participants as the most engaging element. Hermione considered breakthroughs in the discussion about gender and leadership as most energizing. Energizing for the grade seven participants was the game- play session (Energizing moment #1. First meeting with the grade 7s). When the Montréal team looked through the ideas from the initial workshops with the grade seven participants in Toronto