The Gameplay of Art
Education

The 7th Irish Conference on Game Based Learning (IGBL 2017) is an international conference comprising of a series of presentations and workshops by game-based education researchers and practitioners from Albania, Austria, Canada, Denmark, Germany, Ireland, Italy, Kenya, South Africa, Scotland, UK and USA. It was hosted at Clayton Hotel, Cork from 22 to 23 June 2017.

Mr Tan Hsiao Yuz, from the Visual and Performing Arts Academic Group in National Institute of Education (NIE) presented ‘STORY SQUARES©— A Game-Based Approach for Inspiring Visual Stories’ to an international audience from both academic circles and the industry. The presentation featured his latest game and related pedagogies that are intended for the visual art classroom. It was intended for fellow delegates have a firsthand experience of playing the game, followed by a feedback session on its mechanics and framework, as well as suggestions for use in learning contexts beyond generating visual narratives.

While Mr Tan is confident about his game, he did not expect the explosive response ‘STORY SQUARES©’ generated. As the use of such pedagogy is unheard of in the art classroom, it led to the keen expression of interest by a number of representatives from institutions and universities, with the possibility of working together on the project.

“Tan Hsiao Yuz brought us though the inventive and hilarious story squares at IGBL 2017,” tweeted Aaron Bolger.

The productive session saw professionals in game-based learning domains across the globe voicing their opinions on the game, surfacing interesting perspectives on how to bring it to the next level. Nevertheless, there was nothing more satisfying for Mr Tan than seeing his game being enjoyed by others, what more so by a group of experts in the field.

“Really enjoyed Tan Hsiao Yuz’s session on story squares — great fun,” tweeted Janet Benson, Learning Experience (LX) Designer from Learnovate, a veteran participant at IGBL.

Moving forward, Mr Tan was given the opportunity to meet and interact with world-renowned game designer, Mr Rory O’Conner, from the Creative Hub. Mr O’Conner’s game, ‘Story Cubes’ clinched the top spot on Amazon in 2011.
Mr Tan is bound for the 11th European Conference on Game Based Learning, which will be held in Graz, Austria, from 5 to 6 October 2017, to present further research based on his work.