I am the community lead for the Zotero project at the Center for History and New Media and a doctoral student in the Graduate School of Education at George Mason University. I am interested in open source platforms for learning and research, games and learning, and the history of science education. Before coming to the CHNM I worked for the Games, Learning, and Society Conference.
SEARCH
Bio
Photos
Status
- tjowens: 6 days left to submit proposals to the American Association for History and Computing's conference http://bit.ly/bE2zdv Tell everyone!
- tjowens: Wow, what a nice day. Time to open up windows. Thrilled fall is here.
- tjowens: @samplereality Apparently every address I have been associated with does not contain enough information. How should that make me feel?
- tjowens: I just can't understand how each Pokemon can talk to eachother only using the syllables of their own names @clioweb
Tags
albert einstein
atomic
books
catalog
children's books
Children's Literature
chnm
Citizendium
Comics
copyleft
copyright
DC
design
Digital History
digital literacy
Education
educational games
Firstpast
game design
Games
Gender
History
History of Science
howto
lameness
learning
library
marie curie
omeka
organize
Playing History
playinghistory
programing
public history
RPG Maker
Science
serious games
Site Review
swivel
tech tree
Video Games
visualization
Wikipedia
worldcat
zotero
Games
Divergent Design Competence in the RPG Maker Community: GLS Presentation
Wednesday, June 9th, 2010I am thrilled to be back in Madison, if only for a few days, for the Games Learning and Society conference. Now in it’s 6th year, it is very cool to see how much the conference has grown and matured since I worked on the first two years of the conferences organizing committee. This year [...]
Keep Reading » 2
The Interest Driven Curriculum and Online Affinity Communities
Sunday, May 2nd, 2010The more I explore informal affinity communities, like the Civ modder community, or the RPG Maker Community, the more intriguing I find them. While the communities are themselves interesting, I think there are lessons in these spaces for rethinking more formal learning environments. This post is an attempt to refine some of this line of [...]
Keep Reading » 9
Becoming Storytellers and Game Makers in the RPG Maker VX Community
Friday, February 5th, 2010A while back, I wrote a post about a very neat piece of software called RPG Maker. I never really got to building a game with it, but I have become fascinated with the community that has come together around the software. This post begins a series of entries about a research project I have [...]
Keep Reading » 5
Evolution in Spore: A Case Study in Player Agency
Monday, January 11th, 2010Spore is not a good game for learning about evolution. As many have eloquently articulated the games mechanics clearly place the player in the role of intelligent designer. With that said, I think this case provides an interesting moment to explore the relationship between the role the game puts players in and what players do [...]
Keep Reading » 2
Simulation As A Way of Knowing: First Reflections on Will Wright’s Keynote at the 5th Annual Innovations in e-Learning Conference.
Thursday, June 4th, 2009It’s not everyday that one gets to swoon as a big time fan boy. Will Wright spoke at the Innovations and e-Learning Symposium and I had the chance to stake out a spot right in the center of the room and soak up a bit of Wright’s visionary gamer visions. Beyond making some of the [...]
Keep Reading » 5New Genre: Non-Fiction Video Games
Friday, January 23rd, 2009I think our games vocabulary is a bit impoverished. When most people think of games they think of fictional, often fantastic stories. Killing elves, post apocalyptic settings, shooting up all sorts of big bads. But games can also offer interesting ways to engage with the real world. To borrow a word from print I think [...]
Keep Reading » 0Why we need to Play History
Sunday, November 18th, 2007In the last few years there has been a wealth of interest in games for learning. A growing body of research on the educational value of games underlines the ways the can engage students like no previous media. There are now conferences and journals dedicated to games and learning, the MacArthur foundation last year granted [...]
Keep Reading » 5