Elliott Golden

Illustrator: Elliott Golden is a freelance illustrator living and working in New York’s East Village. He is published regularly in a diverse assortment of national and international publications. Elliott’s work was included in the Communication Arts 2004 illustration annual; he has had work showcased in Graphis and HOW magazines and won a regional AIGA award last year. Elliott sees illustration as a balance between concept and aesthetic. He understands a successful illustration as one where the concept serves as the foundation for the image’s visual tone. The creation of a strong idea paired with an engaging aesthetic is the goal. Elliott created the illustrations for Peer Factor.

Abstract

We see the computers and composition community rapidly accepting the idea that using computer games in the classroom can be a very effective way to teach writing.

Introduction

The Peer Factor game is designed to be an easy-to-use, interactive Flash game. In two separate episodes, Peer Factor introduces students to the full process of peer review:

Game Pedagogy: What is the Game Factor?

The Game Factor is the term we use to describe the educational potential of games to teach student players complicated concepts and processes.

Convergence: Theory into Practice

In this section, we would like to discuss our processes for designing the game. In software and game design terminology, what we do here could be referred to as a postmortem: we describe what went well, what went wrong, and why.

Rethinking the Textbook: Toward a Participatory Paradigm

Just as the word book is an inadequate term to describe the electronic media and platforms that are creating book alternatives, textbook is a less than adequate term for emerging digital learning tools.

References

This webtext draws upon these resources and experiences to discuss how we took the next critical step and designed an interactive educational text that employed game elements.