Articles
W
Creating a New School Culture - By R. Garry. Shirts, Ph.D., October 2008
The 6 Myths of Creativity by Bill Breen from Fast Company magazine
Why I Hate Reality TV - By R. Garry. Shirts, Ph.D., January 2005
Presentation Before The American
Water Works Association - By R. Garry. Shirts, Ph.D., with
Mr. Jack Markel, American Water Works
Pumping the Colors was originally developed for a group of
Ford Aerospace engineers. They were having problems working
together and they asked us to develop a simulation that would
help them solve this problem. That was in 1988. Since then,
we’ve greatly improved the process as we’ve run it
with many different groups and individuals...
Ten "Mistakes" Commonly Made by
Persons Designing Educational Simulations and Games -
By R. Garry Shirts
(Reprinted by permission of Society for Academic Gaming
and Simulation in Education and Training Journal, October, 1975).
If someone were to ask me to identify the mistakes most often
made by game designers, including myself, I would, after assuring
myself that the questioner understands that game design is a
very personal activity and that there are no right answers,
reply in the following dogmatic manner...
Philosophy of Science,
What Is a Game? - by Bernard
Suits, University of Waterloo
Prompted by the current interest of social and behavioral
scientists in games and encouraged by the modest belief that
it is not demonstrably impossible for philosophers to say something
of interest to scientists, I propose to formulate a definition
of game playing.
Barbara Steinwachs describes BaFá
BaFá
Note: Garry Shirts sent out a request for facilitators for
BaFa' BaFa' to the NASAGA (North American Simulation
and Games Association) news list. In reponse to that request
one of the NASAGA members asked, "What is BaFá BaFá?"
This is Barbara Steinwachs answer. Reprinted by permission of
Barbara Steinwachs.
Ten Secrets of Successful Simulations
This article by Garry Shirts originally appeared in the October
1992 issue of Training magazine. It presents 10 suggestions
for developing effective simulations. It is based on Garry Shirts'
experience in designing more than 40 simulations and experiential
programs.
Ten Secrets of Successful Simulations
in PDF format.
Inventory of Hunches About Simulation
Games
Hall Sprague of the Western Behavioral Sciences Institute wrote
this article at the end of a research project conducted by Project
Simile. The project was designed to investigate the effectiveness
of simulations in education. Simulation Training Systems grew
out of Project Simile in the late 60's.
Taxonomy of Simulation Related Activities
This article by Garry Shirts presents a taxonomy for classifying
different types of "simulation" activities. It's original purpose
was to clarify the confusion created by indiscriminate use of
the words "simulation" "games" and "contests."
