Throughout the first week of class, I have settled in and taken a look at all of the course material. What grabbed me the most so far is the interest inventory. I have never had a class where we have considered what the students want to learn. This is a very interesting idea to me and I think it sets the stage for how creative this class will be.

As I am writing this, I think it is also very cool that there is a weekly blog. This allows for students to actively participate in the class after the week and being able to divulge in all the material in a meaningful way. Having said that, I am interested to see what others post and look forward to reading all of the upcoming blogs.

As far as what we did in class, the personal gaming history activity was interesting to me. We spent time jotting down games that we have played in the past and going back in the depths to find out what has impacted us the most and what is most memorable. This timeline was quite interesting for me to see, I have definitely forgotten about a large majority of the games I have played and doing this has rekindled the want to go back and play them once again. The reflection part of this was interesting, some students spoke about mechanics of games and that was the core reason they were drawn to the game while others were drawn to the game due to the story line or art. As far as lessons learned from this, the fact that there are so many games out there and everyone in the class seemed to have their own niche was cool to me, it was not a large bandwagon.

Next, the reading Age, Race, Class and Sex: Women Redefining Difference. This was an interesting read, I have never read something quite like this. I am glad to see that this is a reading that is to open the mind of those who have not quite thought about these details. As far as in class reflection on this, tackling the idea of the mythical norm was a standout topic. This mythical norm idea was that not everyone fits into this “magic” idea of what it is to be normal. Every single person deviates from a certain stereotype and that outlines why it is poor to base ideas on stereotypes instead of true facts. Also, the idea that there is racism within the African American communities itself was something I have never really though of but can now see is a problem. It is definitely interesting to see the perspective of others through a different lens and talk about it in an open dialogue having ideas and thoughts piggy back off of other students that might have more experience on the topics. I am looking forward to the weeks ahead and the topics that come to follow.