Quality of work

We started the 2nd day off with game play so that they would get it out of their systems. This group is really interested in game play more than anything else. All 6 consultants are against the idea of educational games, one specifically said that if the game box said educational it he would not buy it or even play it. After a morning blog, I had them play the Food Detectives and Nutrition Decision games in pairs and do an evaluation on each one. They lost interest in the games more quickly than the last group. On the evaluations of the games it doesn't seem like they put a whole lot of thought into what they were saying. One consultant, Billy, is so against educational games that he doesn't seem to even want to give them a chance. During the typologies assignment Monday I explained how each person likes specific types of games but it is important to be able to evaluate a game even if it is not in a genre that you personally like. I get the impression that these consultants did not understand that.
This group also has a difficult time paying attention, I have to repeat blog questions, assignments, and video closet questions many times, especially to one particular consultant. They have a hard time settling down as well. I took them outside after lunch in hopes to wear out a little bit of energy, however the entire group of 6 complained that they didn't want to be outside and would rather be playing video games.
We played with peripherals in the afternoon in groups of 2 and rotate sessions. This seemed to go smoothly, although I am surprised that this group is not as interested in guitar hero as the last group I had. They wanted to switch before I told them too, but were able to stay on task for the most part. As a final assignment, before open game play, I asked the consultants to create a game around a peripheral of their choice. My instructions were to name the game, write a description much like you would find on a game box, draw a character from the game, a scene from the game, and the peripheral that would be used. The quality of the work that they did was poor. It does not seem like they put much thought into the project at all. Many of them stated that they were not artists, however it was not the drawing that is the problem, it is that the time, thought, and effort that they put into the assignment that is lacking.
It is going to be a challenge to get them to put together a final presentation. I am not sure if it should be as a group or
individually.
We also had them buy a game library with $500. They worked in groups of 2 and could look anywhere on the internet for games. One group split the money in 2 and each person bought games that were of interest to them - ones that they wished that they had at home, however they seemed to stay within their prefered genre of games. Another group shared a similar interest in Zelda games so concentrated on getting as many Zelda games as possible, for all types of systems. The 3rd group mainly shopped on eBay and their strategy was to buy as many games as possible because they said more is better - they didn't really concentrate on any certain genre of games as the other 2 groups did. I had the consultants blog about their strategy for this activity.