The FHI GreaterThanGames Lab just successfully co-sponsored a regional Reacting to the Past conference January 19-20, 2013. Visiting Fellow Adeline Koh wrote up her experiences at a similar event for the Chronicle of Higher Education’s ProfHacker column – and we knew GTG had to experience this live role-playing game experience on site.

Conference participants learned about the RTTP pedagogy by engaging in intensive two-day workshops on particular games. In addition, plenary sessions will provide an opportunity to discuss issues related to teaching and learning, game mechanics, and the like.

We sponsored two games:

Defining a Nation: India on the Eve of Independence,1945

Frederick Douglass, Slavery, Abolitionism, and the Constitution: 1845

For more details about these games and the Duke event RTTP Event Description. See also the RTTP Reacting to the Past Storify (Twitter aggregation)

An additional goal for the GTG Lab was to think about how such real-world role-playing experiences might be translated into virtual or hybrid pedagogy forms. This came up as part of the onsite conversations. Koh is currently developing a game called Trading Races that she hopes to translate into digital form with the help of GTG’s Victoria Szabo and other partners.