Syllabus
Queens College
Spring 2020
QNS 101 Queens Community
Friday 2:00pm-5:00pm
Gaming a System – Psychogeography and Me @QC
I-Building Rm #201
Instructor: Matt Greco
Office:
Klapper
Hall Rm #108
Hours:
Friday
9:00am-10:00am
Email: matthew.greco@qc.cuny.edu mfgreco@gmail.com
Course Description:
In 1955 Marxist theorist Guy Debord coined the term psychogeography in an attempt to describe a new way in which we could experience our environment. He suggested that if we explore in new and unintended ways, we would discover a deeper level of meaning in the world around us and our place in it. All of you in this course are new to Queens College and have much to discover about Queens College, our diverse borough of Queens, and your place in it. In this course, you will learn what both of those places have to offer while discovering a great deal about yourself in the process. Through cellphone app game development, group discussion, and team projects and presentations – viewed through the lens of your own cultural identity – you will discover the rich history, academic resources, and cultural treasures that are available to you.
Course Objectives:
At the close of this course the successful student will have explored Queens College and the surrounding community of Queens, and have a comprehensive understanding of the services available to students of Queens College. They will gather data on each of our destinations and present those findings in the form of essays and presentations. Students will learn the rudiments of designing cellphone games, which will lead to teams designing their own game apps to facilitate their psychogeographic exploration of campus. The successful student will use their identity and personal experiences as a lens to view Queens College and communicate that perspective through writing, images, design, videos, and presentations. Students will work in teams and learn the importance of communication, collaboration, and commitment.
Course Requirements:
Students will be expected to complete all assignments on time and to the best of their ability. Students are expected to participate in each class. Students are expected to attend every class but life does happen so you get 3 absences, after that your participation in class will fall to a level that will affect your grade. Be on time please; for every 3 times you are late it will equal an absence.
Course Website:
Please check our course website every week for updates to the syllabus or schedule, links to information and resources, and a student gallery page where we will showcase your work throughout the semester.
Original Creative Work: All work for this course should be original, created during the semester, and be made entirely by the student. Any material (written, spoken, video, or still images) taken from a different source must be cited properly. All written work will be typed, double-spaced, spell-checked, cited, and reviewed by the Writing Center. Plagiarism of any kind will not be tolerated
Grades:
Completed Cell Phone App Game – 20%
Projects & Writing Assignments – 40%
Class Participation – 20%
Final Multimedia Presentations – 20%
Projects:
0- Game App
1- Through Our Eyes
2- Round Table Discussion
3- Aloud & Proud
4- Dream job
5- Family Drama
X- Demanding Respect
Equipment:
Please bring all equipment with you to class every day. Check all equipment to ensure good operation, especially jump drives and portable hard drives. Lost files, corrupted disks, etc. are not acceptable excuses for missed assignments. BACK UP EVERYTHING OFTEN.
Required:
- 2GB (minimum) flash drive
Schedule (subject to change):
Week 1: 1.31 – I201
Location: Classroom
- Introductions, course outline, syllabus review, required equipment, recommended reading.
- Psychogeographic stroll through campus
Week 2: 2.7 – I201
Project: Project 1 – Through Our Eyes
Location: Godwin-Ternbach Museum (GTM) (Klapper Hall)
- Visit Arte Cubano exhibition
- Create composite still image inspired/influenced by work seen in exhibition
Week 3: 2.14 – I201
Location: Classroom
- Pick Teams for Project 0
- Define game goal/guidelines
- Game design software
Week 4: 2.21 – I201
Project: Project 0 – Game App
Location: Classroom
- Working on game app
- Also: Must attend one Center for Ethnic, Racial, and Religious Understanding (CERRU) event by 3.13 for Project 3
Week 5: 2.28 – I201
Project: Project 0 – Game App
Location: Makerspace (Rosenthal Library 101)
- Completing game app
Week 6: 3.6 – I201
Project: Project 2 – Round Table Discussion
Location: Gino’s Pizza (6501 Kissena Blvd)
- Dinner Discussion of Student Concerns/Issues & Next Steps
Week 7: 3.13 – I201
Project: Project 3 & Midterm
Location: Classroom
- Team presentations of progress so far
- Individual presentation of 1 page paper read aloud on CERRU event attended
Week 8: 3.20 – I201
Project: Project 4 – Dream Job
Location: New York Hall of Science (NYSCI) (47-01 111th St)
- Create a dream job based on visit to NYSCI – write draft of your dream job posting, write draft of interview questions to interview peers
Week 9: 3.27 – I201
Project: Project 4 – Dream Job
Location: Academic Advising (Kiely 217), Center for Career Engagement & Internships (Frese 213)
- Final job description and interview questions
Week 10: 4.3 – I201
Project: Project 5 – Family Drama
Performance: Titus Andronicus
Location: Goldstein Theater
- Create 20sec video based on personal family drama inspired by play; create original dialogue, sets, costumes, storyboards
Week 11: 4.10 – I201
Spring Recess
- Production of video
Week 12: 4.18 – I201
Project: Project 5 – Family Drama
Location: Classroom
- Presentation of 20sec video on family drama
Week 13: 4.24– I201
Project: Project X – Demanding Respect
Location: Title IX Office (Kiely 147)
- Draft essay on personal experience with prejudice and/or sexual violence
Week 14: 5.1– I201
Project: Project X – Demanding Respect
Location: QC Learning Commons – Writing Center (Kiely 229)
- Final essay on prejudice and/or sexual violence
Week 15: 5.8 – I201
Project: All
Location: Classroom
- Final Preparations for Team Presentations
Week 16: 5.15 – I201 LAST DAY OF CLASS – Final Team Presentations, Final game play
Gaming a System QNS101 Pre-class survey
https://forms.gle/TorBUyEBA7msrx7N7
Project #1 – Through Our Eyes
Our first formal project will send us to visit the Godwin Ternbach Museum (GTM) which is located in Klapper Hall room 405. The museum can be entered from the lobby on the 4th floor of Klapper Hall. Please note there are two lobbies in Klapper Hall, on the first and fourth floors.
You will view the exhibit Arte Cubano which displays the work of several Cuban artists spanning several generations. The museum describes the exhibition this way:
“Arte Cubano highlights a universally agreed-upon characteristic of the island’s art: an incredible diversity. Cuban art is so rich in large part because of its diverse cultural blend of African, European, and Latin/Caribbean influences. This timely exhibition reflects more than twenty-five Cuban artists’ ruminations on the quotidian, social, and political realities of the island and the contemporary world.”
When we, as a viewer, look at artwork one of our main concerns is to discover how the work connects to us. How does the work remind us of ourselves? How do we relate to the work? What about the work makes me ask questions about myself or the world around me? It is this process that allows an artwork to have meaning for us and to enrich our lives.
It may seem intimidating to look at artwork in this way. To get started you can ask yourself these questions. What is this a picture/painting/sculpture/video of? What do I think the artist is trying to communicate? Does the work communicate this to me? What techniques did the artist use and did these enhance the power of the imagery? What emotional or intellectual reactions did I have to the work?
Assignment:
Visit the exhibition and find 3 works that you connect with and photograph these pieces with your cellphone. Create 3 additional images taken from your own life that compare, contrast, or connect to the 3 images you captured in the exhibition. In class we will create an original composition by combining the 6 images together in one image that communicates those comparison, contrasts, or connections.
Skills:
We will use Adobe Photoshop to edit our images for correct size, density, and contrast. We will learn and employ the digital tools for combining images into a composite image. We will prep the images for large format printing and submit those files to the Digital Imaging Lab for print. We will examine the “conceptual” and “formal” qualities of our images so that we create artwork that successfully communicates our ideas with formal intent.
Do not edit your images in-phone. Do not apply any type of filter (we will do that later). Do not crop your images. Do not lower the resolution of your images. Make sure your images can be downloaded.
Project #0 – Hunting for Intellectual Treasure
Our second formal project will facilitate an exploration of our campus through the development of a scavenger hunt game using the game software Goosechase. We will visit the Makerspace in room 101 of the Benjamin Rosenthal Library as a resource for this project.
This project will help us to collect and categorize data using the platform and advantages of gaming. Current research shows the value that gaming has on deep learning. It is believed that learning through gaming takes advantage of the minds plasticity, which is the brains ability to adapt to new stimuli. When you couple this with increased non-cognitive skill building, such as patience and discipline, gaming has shown itself to have a lot of promise in education.
You will be developing a scavenger hunt game whose main purpose is to help players (classmates) find various resources, buildings, offices, or services on campus while at the same time creating challenges that are appropriate to the location and add an element of performance, problem-solving, or creative expression. You will need to choose locations that have value to your peers. Ask yourself some questions. What are the locations that you have had to visit most often while at QC? Where do I like to go between courses? Where have I found the most fun on campus? Most value? Make the locations a mix of academic and non-academic; make it a mix of locations that are for business and others that are for fun. Choose a challenge for each location that enhances the experience or has a connection to the place. For instance; have the team find the Corner Pocket, once there have them make a video of sinking the que ball into the corner pocket on one of the pool tables.
You want the other teams to have a positive experience. The main challenge of the games is to educate the other teams not to frustrate them so they quit or never finish. Try to avoid locations that do not serve some purpose and avoid challenges designed to be difficult. Any physical challenge will have to pass the “professor test” – that is if I cannot do it relatively easily than it is too difficult for this project!
Assignment:
Create a scavenger hunt game using Goosechase that helps students familiarize themselves with the QC campus. Create 10 locations to visit by recording their GPS coordinates, include pics of the locations. Create 10 challenges that accompany the locations. Challenges can be photo, video, or text based. You will record the locations and challenges in a Word doc that will be handed in. You will need to break into 4 teams of 5, you will need to pick a team captain, and choose a team name. Once the games have been created each team will be randomly assigned another team’s hunt. Whoever finished first with the most points will win.
Skills:
We will use Goosechase to create our scavenger hunt and become better versed in cellphone game apps and their value to learning. We will use analytical skills to choose the locations and challenges, relying on our estimates of difficulty and time needed to gauge the potential for teams to finish successfully. We will strengthen our skills working in teams and our ability to collaborate and coordinate with our peers. We will work on our sensitivity to racial, cultural, religious, and educational difference by avoiding bias in the game and creating an inclusive environment.
Example Scavenger Hunt Mission Hand-in PDF
Project #3 – Aloud & Proud
Given that we will not be able to attend any CERRU events this semester we will base project #3 on the film 13th by Ava DuVernay. The film takes its name from the Thirteenth Amendment to the Constitution which abolished slavery. Duvernay paints a picture of disenfranchisement and institutionalized racism that has persisted since Emancipation and has been exacerbated by the prison-industrial complex.
Assignment:
Watch the film 13th and create an original piece based on your response and/or reaction to the film. Your piece can take the form of a speech, a poem, rap, spoken word, or interpretive dance, etc., but needs to be performed. Your piece will be performed, recorded, posted online, and a link to the video sent to me. Take notes during the film of aspects that you think are interesting or compelling and use those as the basis for your piece. The work you create can be based on a related personal experience or inspired by something you see in the film. The idea is for you to find something that you connect to in the film, something that gives you pause to think and use that as inspiration for your performance. Ask yourself; what is the documentary trying to say? What does the filmmaker want you to think? Do you agree? Have you had any experiences like are portrayed in the film? Do my experiences agree with the filmmaker? How does this documentary make me feel? Does it change the way I think?
Queens College prides itself on our acceptance and celebration of racial, ethnic, religious, and gender differences. Our work should reflect those qualities and be free from prejudice and intolerance. We should practice using a sympathetic voice. A main purpose of this assignment is to increase our sensitivity to those that are different from us and to expand our understanding of how other’s experiences can be very different from our own.
Each performed piece should be 3min-5min in length.
You can use your cellphone to capture the video and post your video to YouTube or Vimeo and send me the link.
13th can be found on Netflix, if you don’t have a Netflix account you can sign up for a 30-day trial.