As I work on finishing up my dissertation this term, I’m also in the early stages of planning my courses for the Spring, 2010 term at Miami. I’ll be teaching two courses — Interactive Media Studies 238 (Narrative and Digital Media) and Interactive Media Studies 390.S (Games and Learning). I’m starting to try to drum up prospective students for the latter course, so I whipped up a flyer last week and, this afternoon, a brief website to describe the course.

Here’s the text on the flyer:

In this new, three-credit course, we’ll be looking at digital video games — from World of Warcraft to The Sims to Rock Band — and investigating what they can tell us about understanding learning, both inside and outside of schools. Do games embed valuable learning experiences? How can we best understand the role that games and “new media” should play in educational systems? What can gaming and gaming culture tell us about how people learn?

We will assess a number of commercial games, independent games, and gaming communities for what they can tell us about educational practice, learning outside the classroom, and the changing nature of literacy. Incorporating theories from the Learning Sciences, New Literacy Studies, and recent Educational Technology literatures, we will investigate games both as a means to teach and as tools for the critical task of helping us redesign education to suit the needs of the 21st century.

There’s not a lot there just yet other than a description, but thought I’d mention it for now. In the coming months, I’ll be updating the site with a course syllabus and expected projects. Stay tuned!