Understanding Video Games – The Course

I was bopping around the internet earlier today looking for some interesting educational classes. Considering that the school year is fast approaching, I figured it would be good to check out the available resources online that would keep my brain engaged and learning. I learn plenty of things daily at work, but I often look for a bit more that relates to something I am interested in that may be a little 'extracurricular'. I think I found something that looks interesting at Coursera.

Starting on September 3rd, Coursera.org, along with the University of Alberta (Canada) are offering an online course called Understanding Video Games.

The basic description they give is:

An 11-lesson course teaching a comprehensive overview of analytical theory pertaining to video game media.

The course is free (unless you want to earn credit and take the midterm and final exam – I certainly can do without that) and you can sign up at https://www.coursera.org/course/uvg.

I thought this sounded interesting so I signed up. It runs from September to mid December and they claim it requires 3-5 hours of work a week – I think I can spare the time to learn what academia has to say about video games.

The syllabus is over at their site, but they are going to be covering things like emergent vs progressive gameplay, game mechanics, gaming culture, and race, sex, and violence in games.

I hope to learn something and maybe if I understand videos games more, I'll be a better consumer and gamer.

You can still sign up if you are interested at the link above.

This is post 27 in my Blaugust Challenge.

#Blaugust #UnderstandingVideoGames #Coursera