{ MODELING } ~ Professional Practice within the Discipline of Teaching: the Winnipeg General Strike and Applied Research

Working alongside my colleague, the late Dr. Anthony Whitehead, from the Bachelor of Information Technology Program, we created a video game/installation for the Museum of Civilization, now the Museum of History on the Winnipeg General Strike.

This was an Applied Research project that marked the culmination in various papers and conferences we had explored in the past.  We contacted the curator of the Winnipeg General Strike, Dr. Rhonda Hinther, and began creating a virtual recreation of the events in Winnipeg 1919.

This meets the competencies for The Professor of the 21st Century, 1.  Modelling professional practice within the discipline of teaching, 1-2 Locating and using resources that support teaching practice; 1-3 Engaging in ongoing development to remain current in your own subject area and in the discipline of teaching; 1-5 contributing to a learning culture that encourages continuous learning, reflective practice and peer support; 

7 + years' teaching: Provide Academic leadership through such activities as writing, offering workshops or presenting at conferences, contribute to the discipline of teaching and learning through Applied Research

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For this project I was tasked to create the Concept Art during the Pre-Production phase, which was essential in assisting Directors at the Museum to better understand this 'new' technology: this was their first video game/ three-dimensional immersive installation for the Museum.  The Concept Art was also instrumental in attracting outside investors, specifically the National Union, whom recognized the pivotal role these events played in the birth of the Union movement within Canada and invested in the project.  The Concept Art also served as the blueprint for Production.  It helped solve specific production issues:  The space devoted for the installation within the museum was small so navigating through the game had to be quick in order to avoid 'bottleneck' problems that stalled circulation through the musuem.  The Concept Art done in pencil solved this issue: non-essential characters were left grayscale; essential characters were in color for players to approach whereby a trigger would be activated and these colored characters would engage the first person player with relevant information on the Winnipeg General Strike based on socio-economic and gender issues.

We discussed these and many other issues related to this project in various papers which Dr. Whitehead and I published and presented in various journals and conferences.  These papers ranged in theme from the Educational usefulness of employing video games/immersive learning within the classroom to the actual production of such material and working alongside a Historical Museum culture.

A list is provided below: 

• "Reflections on Interactive Museum Application Design and Development”, F. Sebastian, A. Whitehead. Design Principles and Practices: An International Journal, Volume 4, Issue 1. pp.453-464, May 2010
• "History or His-Story: Reflections on Interactive Museum Exhibit Design," A. Whitehead and F. Sebastian,, International Design Conference 2010, Chicago, February, 2010
• “It’s All Greek To Me: A Case for the Classics in Game Development Education,” Fred Sebastian, Dr. Anthony Whitehead, Future Play 2008 Conference.
• "Video Games: The Educational Tool to Harmonize Pedagogical Difference”, A. Whitehead, F. Sebastian, ACM FuturePlay, Nov 2006.

During the Production of the game, we hired former students from the Bachelor of Information Technology program.  This gave the students hired valuable experience working on an installation in one of the largest museums in North America. A screen shot { top } from the finished game showing the students work on the completed project.
A plaque was created by the Museum listing all the students who participated on the project and is hung next to the computer terminal where one can play the game.