(previously published in Anthropology News ) As the brief, terrifying passion for MOOCs slowly dissipates, your university administrators may be casting around for some other technologically enhanced pedagogy. Might I suggest gamification ? It’s not a new idea, by any means—people have been applying game-based mechanics to learning for some time, but its latest incarnation focuses on online games, from single player to collaborative, multiplayer experiences. Of course, there’s a good deal of potential for gamification to follow on other technologically-driven changes in university teaching—ie, towards another wave of expropriation as public universities “partner” with private capital in order to undermine the autonomy of faculty. But I believe there’s subversive potential here for anthropology. A screenshot of Manic Digger image courtesy Pierre Rudloff and wikicommons I’ve been thinking a lot about games and subversion recently, mostly bec...
Occasional posts on anthropologically interesting science fiction, anthropological futures and my own future as an anthropologist.