An interesting project

…that involves various schools across London, inclusion and music http://connectingacrossdifference.net

Notes…

Notes for meeting 5.12.2008

Computer Games and Disability 

Here is a brief overview of the kind of research that might be of interest. There’s lots going on, most of which be said might fall into one or more of these large, mixed camps:

1. Games and health

This is a huge area, covering everything from therapy, exercise, pain management and rehabilitation, to medical training simulations. I’ve attached some recent press about the use of the Wii games console for therapy/rehabilitation (the Wii is the machine where you can stand on a ‘balance board’ or shake sticks around to interact with the game)

2. Games and education

Again, a huge area, covering everything from the social practices and mentoring that take place in online, multiplayer games – to games designed to serve specific training needs. A range of disciplines are engaged in this research, including computer scientists, simulation designers, psychologists, educators, game designers, media studies academics, games and play scholars…

3. Computer Game studies

This is a large and still-growing field populated by scholars from a range of disciplines. The focus of this work is games and play. This might involve the close analysis of a game’s design, or the relationship between games and other popular media (film, for example), as well as ethnographic studies of gaming culture, identity and play, or the place of games in culture more generally.

4. Then there is Games, access, disability

Drawing on any of the three areas mentioned above, this might involve the design of games that are accessible to disabled players (eg. visually impaired teenager, d/Deaf children), the researching of access and hardware issues (for people who can’t use a mouse for example), or thinking about the ways that new, cheap technology might be used in ‘real space’ (i.e. not just on computers) to support disabled players.

(Plus links)