Other Causes of School Violence

Back to the topic of violence.... I was flipping through my Educator magazine and found a whole section devoted to the violence in schools - what teachers need to watch for, how to react in given situations, children who are doing things to stop it, etc. After doing all of the research for our game violence WebQuest, I found it interesting that no where in any of the three lengthy articles did they mention games as a cause. They talked about home life and things the children deal with at school but nothing about games. Are they trying to avoid it? Or are they thinking that something as simple as a game could not cause such violent acts as we have seen in schools? It would be interesting to know why they did not explore that avenue any further.

Who's Who?

Here's something to take a break and enjoy! If you visit the Grinch web site at http://www.meanone.com you can find out your very own "Who name." Just click on the Grinch and once you enter the site, go to city hall. They will ask for your name and then tell you what your "Who name" would be. I thought that this might be a little stress reliever as we are all working on final projects. Take a minute for a laugh!

eLife and Death

My mother receives Newsweek Magazine and it comes with an insert called eLife. In it this week, it has an article about game violence, from children's point of view. The authors gathered 11 children between the ages of 9-12 and let them play a violent video game called Resident Evil 2 (rated M for mature players). Most of the kids felt that it wasn't a very realistic game and the blood was not all that necessary. This article came a little late. We could have used it for our WebQuest on game violence.

Screen Shots

While out doing my day after Thanksgiving shopping, I ran across a few interactive games that I hadn't seen before. One game I took some time to look at was designed for the baseball enthusiast. You plug it into the TV and it came equipped with a bat, a ball, and home plate. If you chose to pitch, you threw the ball towards the screen (without letting go) and it would appear on your TV approaching a computerized batter. If you chose to be the batter, a ball came towards you on the screen and you would swing the bat. The ball would then appear on the screen again wherever you supposedly hit it. At first glance I thought this was quite an interesting game. My interest began to fade as I thought about my WebQuest topic of game violence. All we need (and for all I know there already is one) is for there to be a game that plugs into the TV and you have a gun to shoot at computerized people on the screen. What's the flip side, they shoot back at you? You pretend to play dead? If this hasn't already shown up on the market, I hope it never will. I found myself to be pretty much in the middle of the road when working with my team. But when it comes to a game like this I would have to save no way. Take it off the shelf! (Not the baseball game but a shooting game.)

Amusement Park Physics

I found an interesting instructional web site. I was looking for interesting and educational simulations. This one isn't really a simulation as much as an instructional tool. But I found that they did a good job of instructing the user on the basics of roller coasters and physics. It was all very clearly presented.
http://www.learner.org/exhibits/parkphysics/
Take a look.

Happy Puppy

I was looking for examples of online simulations and I came across this web site: http://www.happypuppy.com. Besides having a very cute name, I found it an interesting example of what's out there for kids (and adult) gamers. It's a web site that offers reviews, demos, gaming news, listing of games for all platforms (nintendo 64, playstation, dreamcast, windows, mac, web games, handhelds). This site is for the gamer and not necessarily a resource for teachers or parents.

Also, I was talking to a neighbor who's a little boy of about 10 years old. I was trying to run our game idea by him and he so obviously knew more than me about games. He was most interested in how much control he could have over the environment, in terms of choosing players, choosing paths, types of planets, etc. I also asked him to give me a tour of what game stuff he had. I still don't understand everything he said, but he did show me his collection of gaming magazines (I can't remember the title, but he had them in spanish and in english). He trades them with his friends because they give hints/strategies on how to win different games. The whole experience really showed me how savvy (and demanding) kids can be about games.

Funniest Videos or Violent Videos?

Marie,
I have to agree with you, I think that for something to be violent it has to have intent to harm. Such as the first person shooting games you mentioned. The only objective in those situations is to kill whatever it is you are shooting at. Unlike America's Funniest Home Videos, those are accidental happenings and I don't see them as violent, just funny... I think who ever wrote that article you read was being a bit sensitive when it comes to categorizing shows as violent. Besides, if you think about it, half the people that you see in those funny videos are young children!

Making Money off of Other's Obsessions

This blog is in response to Bernie's blog about Dangerous Obsessions. I was reading an article in a recent issue of RollingStone, and it was about this kid whose job is to play these video games for people when they don't have time or they have to work. This kid gets paid thousands of dollars a week to play these games for people all day. I guess these games are the type of game that if it's not played a certain number of hours a day, your characters lose their powers and you can't survive. He said that he was thinking of recruiting a couple friends and starting a small business.

Dangerous Obsession

Salon e-zine has a new piece titled Life, Death, and Everquest. It concerns a massively multiplayer game which provides thousands of people with an alternative place and life to live. A typical Everquest player spends 10-20 hours a week in the game, and some fall into an addiction that puts them there for most of their waking hours. The article describes the virtual suicide of a player in the game and the communal, virtual mourning (and non-virtual detective work) that followed.

So... here's a tool so powerful that we have to worry about it affecting people too much...unlike most educational strategies where the instructional signal is barely heard above the noise of real life. If we had an educational simulation of the electoral process, or of life in a globally overwarmed world, or of the antebellum South, wouldn't it be great to have even half this much engagement?

Girl Corrected

I'm not sure where I went wrong in typing the url for the Gender Webquest the first time, but here it is again (and I just checked it so it should work):

http://et.sdsu.edu/Apastor/girlgames/index.html.

Hope everyone had a nice Thanksgiving!

Making Connections Training Teachers

I came accross a web site which where you can view an interesting paper presented at the SITE 99 conference.
http://edweb.sdsu.edu/plc/cpb/index.htm

The paper is called "Using Technology As a Tool in the Classroom: Making Connections Training Teachers" and it was presented by Ruben Espinosa, Professor SDSU Department of Policy Studies in Language & Cross Cultural Education.

Off this site, that has many teaching resources, there is also a link to a page called " Educational Games" (http://edweb.sdsu.edu/plc/cpb/edgames.htm).

Visas & Game Appeal WebQuest

Dan, there are so many types of visas and so many ways to get them, or be denied eligibility to apply for one... When you are a foreigner you have to live with it...

For all who are interested, the Game Appeal Web Quest: Does age really matter is posted in the following location:
http://et.sdsu.edu/wschutt/appeal/indexframe.htm

Visas on the Rise

Check this out.

"Clinton signs law increasing the number of H-1B visas. On October 17, President Clinton signed into law legislation increasing the number of H-1B visas. The new law will increase the number of H-1B temporary visas available for high-tech workers from India and other countries and double the fee charged employers using the program. The new law will raise the number of visas available for highly skilled workers to 195,000 per year for the next three years. " (Link)

Thoughts? Are we once again falling behind in our math and science fields? Seems that Sputnik has returned...

-Dan

Character Development in Games

Hey all, I just read through an interesting article written by François-Dominic Laramée, a freelance game designer, on the art of character development in character-based games. In short, the article briefly describes key elements to consider in developing a character-based game design. The author pulls from creative writing concepts and uses such examples as Hamlet, The Hobbit, and others to argue that character and plot are inseperable and the relationship between game character, game player, and plot is push-pull. Suspense, emotion, and the predictabel/unpredictable make or break character-based games.

-Dan

Electoral Lecture

Here's some much needed levity to get us through this endless election: an instructional BoomToon. This makes me want to set aside some Christmas break time to master Flash!

Girls and Computers WebQuest

For all who are interested (i.e. Bernie and Elaine), the url for the Girls and Computers WebQuest is http://et.sdsu.edu/apastor/girlgames/index.html. We hope that you find the site informative and useful! (URL now fixed!)

The First Noelle is the Same as the Last One

Since two of my other group members have commented on our WebQuest project, I feel I should too. I found it quite an eye opener as well. I went in a little naive when it comes to computer games. I don't play them, I knew of very few of them, and it took me two weeks to realize that my brother worked for the company that puts out one of the really violent ones. I guess right there I learned a lot. I do feel I went in with the same position as I ended up with. I went in pretty middle of the road. I could see some of the points of those who spoke against the games as well as the points of those who felt they were not bad. When it came down to it, I wanted to spend my time viewing these games! I saw a few and they really didn't change my view. There need to be restrictions but they don't need to be taken off the shelves. i kept coming back to the statement that parents need to be more responsible for their children. Maybe my view will change when I have children of my own, but as for now, I feel that continued ratings and parental monitoring is the way to go.

Response to Elaine's Question

Elaine asked what I have learned from our violence WebQuest. Surprisingly enough, I think I learned more about myself and my beliefs than anything. For the first time in my life, I have been called 'conservative.' That really made me think. I have always thought of my father as conservative and that I have very different views from him. But now, I have been compared to him. It's a little disconcerting. I need to do a little more soul searching...

As for what I learned about violence... It is true that violence is very subjective. We had discussions about violent scenes on the evening news and their purpose. That caused quite a debate. It came to the table after the 12-year-old boy was filmed as he was killed in the Middle East. Do we really need to actually see this in order to know how bad it is over there? I don't think we do. Obviously, others disagreed (hence my conservative label). I think that the more we make violent images 'okay' even for news purposes, the easier it is to accept them. This continues our downward slide. (Eric, I am not Mrs. Joshua Goodman!) I am wondering what others think about this?

Random Thoughts

Long time, no blog, I know. But here are some random thoughts concerning blogs from the past few weeks.

Regarding men and games (and is it the sex appeal?) - in our research on gender issues, we discovered that many believe (based on their studies) that men view computers as a toy, while women view computers as a tool. Now, you combine this with Malone & Lepper's instrinsic motivational factors (see Challenge, Toys vs. Tools) and immediately one can begin to theorize why men may be attracted to computer games (moreso than women). Because, just like their motorcycles, quads, big trucks, and other "machines" men are really just big boys playing with their toys! (That last sentence was written "tongue-in-cheek" so please don't get all upset by it. However, there may be a grain of truth....)

Bernie, great avatar (I think that's what it's called)!

Finally, for Nicole (and her first grade computer "wizard'!) - What a wonderful role model for other children (especially the other girls) in your class! One of the greatest areas of concern in regards to girls and computers in the lack of female role models in the field. ALL of us can think about how we portray computer professionals to the next generation - are they "nerds" or just intelliegent people who are using technology to accomplish goals?

If it has a Face...

Dave,
I would like to read the article, do you have a link or info on it. I agree violence is very subjective. I read an article once that said "funniest home videos" was the most violent show on TV. People are hurt constantly on that show, therefore it is violent. For the most part, I don't think "funniest home videos" is violent because most of the clips are supposed to be accidental happenings. I think an integral part of violence is the intent to harm.

I have been talking to different parents about where they draw the line in violent games. For my 8 yr old, if the person/people/aliens he is destroying has a face, he can't play. My friend calls this first person shooting. He has younger kids, but a similar rule. We do have a gameboy, but not nintendo or playstation, so we can also control violent games this way. What do other people think? do?

WebQuest Project... Good Idea!

This blog is more or less a reflection on my feelings about the WebQuest projects. My group was required to make a play demonstrating how a town meeting might go if the main issue were violence and video games. I thought this was very useful in making each team member of our group force them to take on a roll or opinion that they disagree with. I know that it has really opened my eyes to both sides of the controversial topic. And the fact that we were able to express our opinions in a creative by writing a play was also a wonderful idea - Good job Bernie!

Rating Video Games

This blog is based on an interesting article that I read about rating video game violence. Ratings of video game violence have developed as an extension of ratings of television violence. Among those organizations that have attempted to rate television violence, the National Coalition on Television Violence (NCTV) has also developed a system to rate the violent content of video games. The NCTV system contains ratings that range from XUnfit and XV (highly violent) to PG and G ratings. The NCTV surveyed 176 Nintendo video games. Among the games surveyed, 11.4% received the XUnfit rating. Another 44.3% and 15.3% received the other violent ratings of XV and RV, respectively. A total of 20% of games received a PG or G rating (NCTV, 1990).

Sega, which manufactures video games, has developed a system for rating its own games as appropriate for general, mature, or adult audiences, which it would like to see adopted by the video game industry as a whole. The Nintendo company, in rating its games, follows standards modeled on the system used by the Motion Picture Association of America.

A problem shared by those who rate violence in television and video games is that the definition of violence is necessarily subjective. Given this subjectivity, raters have attempted to assess antisocial violence more accurately by ranking violent acts according to severity, noting the context in which violent acts occur, and considering the overall message as pro- or anti- violence. However, the factor of context is typically missing in video games.

This is a test. I'm showing Blogger to some brilliant teachers.

In replying to Elaine about blogger. I have enjoyed blogging. The biggest problem for me is time. I have tried to at least look at the blog site on Friday, Sat, Sun. This way I get my three blogs in when I have at least a few seconds of time. The trouble is that there often is not much to respond to on those days.

funschool.com - Free Interactive kids software
Funschool.com offers free, interactive, educational kids software for children from pre-school through sixth grade. Their games and activities can be played by kids individually or with their parents.

kids software

Violence and Women in Gaming
Smart Computing's PC Gaming & electronic entertainment Guide contains two very insightful articles. The first deals with violence in computer games. This article deals with rating issues. Making sure that proper ratings are given to the different games. It also explores the fact that games rated for adults are getting in the hands of kids. The author is concerned with what can the game companies do about this besides rating the games
The second article deals with women in gaming. It explores what women want out of a game and mentions several women that hold very important positions in the game industry.
The magazine can be found in Barnes & Noble. Unfortunately, it is one of the very few game magazines that contain articles about game related issues. Most of the other magazines rate games and are more of a "how to play" guide.
Check out Smart Computing's web site at

Gulcin,

Glad to see that you are interested in investigating the area of Interaction & Interactivity! You have already probably reviewed this literature, but I have provided a brief review of some of the literature in this area...let me know if this supports your work & I will push you more.

Interaction Defined
Wagner (1994) provides a general definition of instructional interaction as an event that takes place between a learner and the learner’s environment with an underlying purpose to change the learner's behavior toward an educational goal. Wagner (1994) further defines the construct of interaction as possessing the following attributes: (1) feedback, (2) elaboration, (3) learner control / self-regulation, and (4) motivation.

Feedback, serving as information to the learner, can provide useful information for performance results (Knowledge of Results-KOR), Knowledge of Performance-KOP) and for augmenting instruction (elaborative feedback). The elaboration of instructional material links content to the learner's past experiences. These learner-contextualized links facilitate encoding of information into memory and enhance future recall. Learner control and self-regulation corresponds to the fundamental characteristics of both elaboration and feedback. Learner control refers to the ability of the learner to selectively interact with course content (time-on-task, depth, range, and media) en route to individualizing course presentation. Self-regulation is the metacognitive strategy that a learner will use to engage with instructional material (contextualize, organize, and reflect on information) and to conduct subsequent performance self-appraisal. Feedback is critical to both learner control and self-regulation. Continued motivation or the intrinsic willingness to learn is the final critical attribute defining the construct of interaction (Wagner, 1994).

Interaction Research
The overall empirical evidence supporting the use of interaction tools in DE appears equivocal, yet interaction remains central to the expectations of both instructors and learners (Berge, 1999). Vrasida & Stock-McIssac (1999) reported that course structure, prior experience with computer-mediated communication (CMC), and feedback were instrumental elements of the interaction construct and that interaction was fundamental for learners to socially construct meaning. Specifically, DE course structured elements (e.g., required online graded activities) led to more interactions and increased dialogue between study participants. In addition, study participants that possessed previous CMC experience were more likely to interact and participants that lacked CMC experience tended to be intimidated by both the technology, as well as the interactive communicative style inherent to the online environment (e.g., emoticon use). Finally, participants identified a lack of immediate feedback as discouraging. Immediate or timely feedback was found to be critical to maintain learner motivation and persistence. Technology may be able to support DE interaction, however, the instructional designer and course facilitators will ultimately need to ensure that the conditions for DE interaction exist and are supported in the learning environment.

Types of Interaction
The four types of interaction that are critical for DE learner success are:
· Learner-to-Content (Moore, 1989): The process of intellectually interacting with content to bring about changes in the learner’s understanding, perspective, or cognitive structure (Moore, 1989).
· Learner-to-Instructor (Moore, 1989): The interaction that attempts to motivate and stimulate the learner and allows for clarification and feedback of instructional content (Moore, 1989).
· Learner-to-Learner (Moore, 1989): The interaction that occurs between learners either alone, or in a group setting, with or without the real time presence of an instructor (Moore, 1989).
· Learner-to-Interface (Hillman, Willis, & Gunawardena, 1994): The process that the learner uses to develop proficiency with the course content’s mediating technology and delivery system (Hillman, et al., 1994).

References
Barry, M., & Runyan, G. B. (1995). A review of distance-learning studies in the U.S. military. The American Journal of Distance Education, 9(3), 37-56.

Berge, Z. L. (1999). Interaction in post-secondary web-based learning. Educational Technology, 39(1), 5-11.

Moore, M. G. (1989). Three types of interaction. The American Journal of Distance Education, 3(2), 1-6.

Nielsen Media Research, Nielsen, A. C., & NetRatings, INC. (2000). Nielsen/NetRatings [Online]. Available: http://www.nielsen-netratings.com [2000, April 29].

Hillman, D. C., Willis, D. J., & Gunawardena, C. N. (1994). Learner-interface in distance education: An extension of contemporary models and strategies for practitioners. The American Journal of Distance Education, 8(2), 31-42.

Hughes, C., & Hewson, L. (1998). Online interactions: Developing a neglected aspect of the virtual classroom. Educational Technology, 38(4), 48-55.

King, J. C., & Doerfert, D. L. (1996). Interaction in the distance education setting [Online]. Available: http://www.ssu.missouri.edu/ssu/AgEd/NAERM/s-e-4.htm [2000, April 29].

Spitzer, D. R. (1998). Rediscovering the social context of distance learning. Educational Technology, 38(2), 53-56.

Shotsberger, P. G. (2000). The human touch: Synchronous communication in web-based learning. Educational Technology, 40(1), 53-56.

Vrasidas, C., & Stock-McIsaac, M. (1999). Factors influencing interaction in an online course. The American Journal of Distance Education, 13(3), 23-36.

Wagner, E. D. (1994). In support of a functional definition of interaction. The American Journal of Distance Education, 8(2), 7-29.

Blogger Interactivity?

Wow! I just took Gulcin's Interactivity survey. It really made me think about interactivity - how to define it and how to achieve it. I highly recommend it! Over the last few weeks we've been using Blogger in 670 as a way to interact with each other. I'm curious as to what folks think about Blogger and its effectiveness?

Hi Class,

CHAD FREE ZONE+++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++

There is still time to MAKE YOUR VOTE COUNT......we are still collecting data for our Game Appeal Web Quest...
If you have not had a chance to fill out our survey, please take a minute.

Thanks for your time!

CHAD FREE ZONE+++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++

Controversial Issues Spark Interest and Learning?

I want to respond to Sharon's comment from Monday on 670 as Guidance Counselor. Yes, I can seeon how no one will be happy with the final outcome and why you don't want to be a politician. But, from an instructional design perspective, your WebQuest seems to have been an effective way to involve learners. On Blogger I've noted a high degree of interaction among not only your team but also from other members in the class. What do you think? And how would you rate your own learning in the process?

Assessment of First-Person Violent Games
The following link is one that I found while looking for interesting information on violence in video games. The link is: http://www.laweekly.com/ink/99/23/cyber-smith-table.html. I am more or less putting it up here for those of you who don't have a clue about the violent games that have been metioned throughout this whole Blog session. Hopefully this will help clarify what we have all been talking about recently.

Shifting Gamer Demographics

Gulcin, I agree. Statistics suggest that 43% of the gamers out there are female (according to Southwest Securities, a financial services company). See a related article on the future of the game industry as reported in GameWeek.com One thing that is definite is that the gaming population demographics is shifting to be more inclusive. Just look at the graphic (below) of Bernie in a simulated world saving fantasy game...Case in point!

-Dan

ps: Nice suit Bernie. You look good in black.

Send in the Clones

OK, following up on the CNN story on creating avatars in your own image to do battle in Quake, I've had it done and am now ready to boogie. Look out, Eric... the Berniator is here!

670 as Guidance Counselor

Doing our WebQuest has done one major thing for me... helped me decide that I NEVER want to be a politician. We are finishing our play and now need to decide whether we are going to ban violent video games or not. All I know is that there is absolutely no way everyone is going to be happy about the final decision. I guess we'll just have to wait to see how the saga unfolds...

Grrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrlgamers

Girls also like ACTION GAMES....
Here is the website grrlgamer This website reviews the action games for girls.

Friends, Romans, Lend me your Data

Hi class,

Could you fill out following survey which is about Interactivity? INTERACTIVITY
I and my friend, from SUNY-Albany, are interested in the meaning attached to the term "interactivity" as used in mathematics and science education. We are trying yo collect data on how "interactivity" is defined and used in different contexts. If you help us, we appreciate.

Who wants to be GAME TESTER?

I found following website about being game tester. http://www.sfgate.com/hypertek/9701/1.shtml It is pretty inter3sting. It is talking about some guys who do nothing all day but play games, and howmuch they earn. One of these guys says a game tester can make from $7 an hour up to $130,000 per year.

What Appeals to You?

Hi Class,

We are working on the aging issues and have developed a revised game appeal survey. If you have time, please give us a hand on data collection & take a minute to fill out our questionnaire. Thanks for your time and consideration!

Game Appeal Survey-Aging

R/S

Bill

Gerontopoly

During our early gaming discussions, several people were developing games relating to aging. Here is a published game. Not much information, just an overview. Looks like it covers some similar ground. Gerontopoly

Zen Gaming

Are we relaxed when we play video games? My excuse for playing every day is just that. I play mostly solitaire and snood. Maybe relaxation is not the word, maybe it is a refocus, like kicking your TV to untangle the neurons.

For deep relaxation, I play Short Circuit. It is a pairing game with 8 levels with 4 challenges in each. My self-imposed limit is once a week and it now takes around 30+ minutes. I have been playing for a couple of years now and still can get onto the high score board. As I play, the effect is quite meditative. As the task moves from cognitive to associative, ideas come to me. It is quite like the meditation that I did as a student in the 70's. I don't know if I am weird, but this is how I know what is really bothering me and sometimes I figure out how to deal with it.

I didn't know if I needed to explain cognitive to associative. The famous explanation in my field (Learning Disabilities) for moving from an associative task to a cognitive task goes like this.

You are driving in the car with a bunch of kids in the back seat. You are chatting with them, joking around and having a good time. (Driving is associative at this point. You can do two things at once.)

Suddenly, it starts to rain heavily, and cars start sliding around the road. One of the kids demand your attention and you yell, "Could you please be quiet in the back seat, driving which in the past was an associative task, has now become cognitive." (Actually, you would probably yell, "Shut Up, I'm driving." Driving now takes up all your attention because it is now a cognitive task requiring all your cognitive energy.

Wired Ideas

If you are interested in high-tech professionals and the business savvy, and incisive analysis about the people, companies, and ideas that are transforming the way we live, you may want to check out Wired magazine.

What Girls Really Want

Computer games for girls is no longer an oxymoron. By G. Beato It talks about the initiative that many companies are interested in girls' preferences on games, the researches have been done for finding out girls' preferences on games, the future of girl games and etc. According to Laurel launched, a major research campaign, what girls and women want is a game that allows them to create "mutually beneficial solutions to socially significant problems. It also concludes that the future media of girl games will be the Internet because it could has characteristics like communication, human interaction, participation, etc.

Choosing Computer Games for Girls and Boys

The Search for Gender Equity in Computer Games, talking about the issues like

• How to get girls interested in computers?
  
• Are "games for girls" the way to go?
  
• What does a good educational game look like?
  

I am particularly interested in what characteristics of games that boys like but girls don't or vice versa. It says that the characteristics of game that boys like are high levels of competition, confrontation, and violence; fast, repetitive action; beating the clock; and racking up points to achieve a high score. While, based on the research on girls and computer games, girls prefer games with in-depth narratives and characters, the ability to design or create, the possibility for social interaction both on the screen and between players, and the ability to explore different activities within the same game.

It also provides "Criteria for Choosing Computer Games for Girls and Boys" as following:
1. Is the game educational? Does it encourage problem solving? creativity? the development of important strategies or skills?
2. Is the game equitable?? How accessible and engaging is the game to both girls and boys? Are there features that particularly appeal to (or deter) girls or boys?
3. Is it a good game? Is it fun?? Is it challenging without being overly frustrating? Does it encourage persistence

Math Games

If you are interested in reviewing games for kids the following web site does a nice job of breaking down games by age. This focus of this website is primarily math learning games.
http://www.terc.edu/mathequity/gw/html/gwhome.html

Equity

I'm researching equity in computers / computer games & I came across two interesting web sites that both offer resources:
1. http://www.enc.org/topics/equity/online/#11
The Eisenhower National Clearinghouse gathers resources, curriculum and professional development materials to help educators improve the quality of math and science education offered. They have interesting links not only about equity but also educational technology and technology as a teaching tool.

2. NWREL's Northwest Educational Technology Consortium
Equity in Educational Technology ~ http://www.netc.org/equity/

Games for Girls Group

Last week we were discussing software for girls and I just came across a website that reviews software for girls. The copyright is from 1998 so its a little old but it's interesting anyway. Check it out!
http://www.best.com/~readit/superkids/search/subject.cgi?terms=Girls

A Male Responds...

This blog is in response to Sara Pehrsson's blog about what is so appealing to video games that seems to distract males. To tell you the truth, I don't know. I don't play video games everyday, maybe twice a month at the most! Even when I do play them, I get bored. But I can see where your boyfriend is coming from when he says that it relaxes him. Although, if he's pounding his keyboard while he's playing, I don't know how relaxed he really is. Anyway, you made a good point when you said that it would be great if all that motivation could be combined with games and learning. After reading that chat and making that posting, I was thinking that if these girls' boyfriends sole purpose for playing these games was because they were turned on by the sex appeal of the women characters, then they have issues... But then again, sad to say, I guess it doesn't take much for some people!

Let's Keep Violence Impersonal

I too have to agree with Noelle on the whole cloning issue. The fact that they have come up with the technology to do something like that is pretty cool, but I know that as a member of the game violence group, many of us are finding countless articles on how some people just cannot handle the responsibility of these games, and then to personalize it on top of the violence? That does seem to be a bit much. Like Noelle said, it could be kinda fun to do it with games that are a little less violent, but for the real gory one's I think it's safer to stick with what we have. Making a violent game personal, might just take away the fun behind it and make kids focus more on how to shoot a realistic looking human being. In addition, it just raises the level of virtual interactivity that the player has with the game, and like I said before, I have found many articles that explain that even young adults are not mature enough to take these games for what they are-just fun.

AI Experiment

And the site for another AI experiment

Talking Heads

Here is a fascinating site talking-heads.csl.sony.fr which is an experiment in teaching artificial agents to communicate with a common language. Unfortunately it's not allowing people to create agents at the moment... but it's still worth reading about what they're doing.

More About Blogs

If anyone has decided that the blogging experience is worthy of further reading, I found an article through ProQuest that talks about it. Called "Staying afloat on WEBLOGS" Copyright Journal Sentinel Inc. Jul 16, 2000 by Jim Higgins. "Sites are water wings for surfers sinking in sea of cybermadness."

What Men Really Want

Well, since my last post, I've discussed this subject with afore-mentioned boyfriend, and EUREKA! I think I begin to understand. The key is that a game has WELL-DEFINED GOALS, and the goals are DEFINED FOR YOU. My question has always been, why is it worth it to spend so much time and effort on something that ultimately does not provide one any thing of particular merit? (Despite Shawn's assertions that one can theoretically make money with this skill, and build social interaction around it, etc. ) My question has always been, why do some consider a game that much fun, not how does one build it into something that could become of more worth than the game itself. Obviously this all is related to the "flow" thing, and ARCS and all that. But what I understand now is that a well-designed game (the computer part being only that which makes it possible to be more complex and graphically stimulating) offers a chance to accomplish what people wouldn't MIND doing in real life, except that real life simply does not offer specific, well-defined goals. So for instance, my boyfriend (let's call him Joe, since that's his name) will begin a game (I'll use pinball as a simple example) and say to himself, "When I put this ball into play I want to get X number of points." Then he plays, and will persist until he achieves his goal. Then that was so satisfying that he sets a new goal. Also, he becomes very competitive when he sees that other people have achieved a certain number of points... and then he wants to top that goal. He will persist with the game until he does so, no matter if it takes hours and if all the rest of his duties fall by the wayside. (well, not ALL but certainly many that seem more important to me than pinball.)

The reason that he will spend many hours achieving a game goal as opposed to a real life goal is that in the game the goal is defined for him, and it is relatively easy to know a) how to get there and b)when it is accomplished. As with any goal, when it is accomplished he feels GOOD. In a real-life situation, things are much murkier. First of all you have to decide amongst many possible choices what your goal may be. Then you have to figure out how the goal could be accomplished, and that may not consist of clear steps. And, importantly, you may decide along the way that it was not the goal you really wanted to achieve... and then you may feel that your efforts in achieving it have been wasted, that you've WASTED TIME AND ENERGY, which is exactly how I respond to the time spent on achieving goals in a computer game!!!

So why is he so goal-oriented in game-life, whereas I am much more goal-oriented than he is in real-life? In general, I do see a gender difference (though it is clearly not a hard and fast rule). The reason for that I theorize is that men are built psychologically to want to achieve and to be competitive... but to also deal better with distinct rules and logic than they do with ill-defined concepts, relationships, etc. (I'm not stating that well, I don't mean to sound like I think men are stupid or can't think creatively.) Whereas women are usually not as competitive, are programmed socially to work harder and play less (I know I'll get argument about that), and are more comfortable, even confident, dealing with amorphous concepts and relationships, such as real life offers.

And finally, I think this blog ought to make up for all the blogs that I've missed doing in the last couple weeks, even though I doubt most people will wade through the whole thing. :-)

Walt Would Be So Happy...

Now back to Disneyland. Since we had extra time while waiting for our fastpass time, we went to Innoventions for the first time. This exhibit is designed to introduce the latest innovations and inventions to the public. In the middle of the floor, we finally found a couple of unused computers and became members of the Internet Search Game. (Thanks Bernie for the 7 steps.) My son has used search engines and the internet, but when some person with a microphone says, "Find a website with a picture of a pirate"... the search becomes fun. Half of the players gave up because they couldn't understand how the use the mouse or the jargon, but overall players were racing to uncover tiles on the board to discover the secret. The guy with the mike was giving search tips as the game progressed. I had a hard time keeping up. My 8 year old won the day and left the computers saying "That was fun." How much did he learn in the five minutes? He learned that he can click on the "images" button and he learned about the Parthenon. He found out what the Utah flag looks like. Not too bad for a five minutes at Disneyland.

Since we all had Friday off, we decided to leave beautiful tornado torn Poway and have fun at Disneyland. I thought we would be so busy having rides and standing in line that education and technology would be left behind. Of course, I was wrong. Walt Disney had a great passion for education and led technology innovations in the entertainment industry. I had planned my blog before coming home, but an interesting twist opened with the Powerpoint Munchkin discussion.

When my 8 year old was born, we already had a computer. He crashed the system when he was two. He has had his own website for over a year now, and like many ed tech students has not kept it up to date http://www.angelfire.com/games2/ddoerner/ Although he has not made powerpoint presentations, he has turned in several websites for homework. Here in Poway, he is the only kid we know with a website, but many of his friends have email addresses. His teachers use the Internet often and encourage the kids.

If We Could Bottle This...

I have a response to the post Dave Comstock wrote (girlfriend vs playstation). Sort of a response... because I still have the same question. What is it that is SO appealing about computer games to guys that they will set aside every other thing in their life? (including girlfriends). And I don't think it is the way the girls are dressed in the games, or the violence, because my boyfriend can be just as engrossed by computer pinball as by Tomb Raider, featuring Lara of the improbable body. He says it is "relaxing" but it looks a lot more frustrating than relaxing to me the way he pounds away at the keyboard. I always think, if this kind of motivation could be harnessed for a learning environment, there would be no stopping the human race. I guess that's why it seems like a good idea to combine games and learning. If only it was really IMPORTANT to know how Lara gets to the next level...

Response to Noelle: Powerpoint Munchkin

That is very cool.

I see two interesting (to me) subjects here.

1. Digital Divide: your story hilites the inequity in computer access between technology haves and have-nots

2.Digital Generation: this story is going to become more and more common.

Speaking of the the Digital Divide. There is a book called Growing Up Digital. The website also has some discussion of the idea that children born in the mid 90's and on. Don't think of technology as technology any more than a toaster is technology. to make a long story short, schools will have to shift their strategies and methodologies in order to meet the needs of the N-generation.

Goodbye Ms. Chips

As a member of the game violence group, this cloning thing sound like a whole new can of worms. It one thing to go around shooting fictional characters - even when they're people instead of monsters or animals - a completely another when you start putting a real life face on your target. I can see some people arguing that this will let you take your agressions out on a game rather than the actual person. But I can also see some people arguing that this will just allow you the practice to actually take your agression out on that person. For the non-violent games it might be kind of fun and allow you to personalize your play a little more. It would all come down to restrictions again in my mind. I don't think it would be a good idea for violent games so I would like to see it restricted from happening some how in the violent games. But as for for the non-violent games - have fun! I just can't imagine having my students sitting at home in front of their computer blowing my brains out and then coming in to class the next day and getting in trouble for something. I feel like it would be Goodbye Miss Granich!

Clone Yourself for Play?

Here's a story from CNN about a company, 3Q which is setting up booths that allow you to capture 3-D images of your face. For $25, they turn your mug into a VRML document that can be injected into Start Trek Voyager Elite Force, Quake III Arena, and Counter Strike. Soon The Sims, Duke Nukem Forever and Unreal Tournament will be added to the list. So you'll have an avatar that looks like you shooting its way through each of these game worlds.

The interesting implication is that in multiplayer games on the net, you can be shooting AT something that looks like the kid next door. This takes the game violence discussion to a new level, I think. Some will worry that shooting your friend Kenny's avatar repeatedly will desensitize you to the point that shooting the real Kenny seems thinkable.

On the other hand, especially for mostly non-violent games like The Sims, this could be a lot of fun. One could also imagine some applications for psychological counseling.

Digital Kids

I teach first grade and had an interesting occurrance in class yesterday. (Maybe I'm naive and those of you with children won't be shocked at all.)
It was time for sharing and it was Turi's sharing day. Now she typically brings in some very interesting things and it is obvious that her parents assist her with gathering some information so that she has plently to say about whatever it is she brought to share. On Thursday, she brought in a printed PowerPoint presentation on Manatees. She not only read the information from her slides but added other details as well. The last page of her presentation included other web sites where we might find out more for ourselves. I thought to myself, here's where she's going to have difficulty reading the addresses. But shock me again, she read them off perfectly! She even brought a printed copy of a diagram of the animals for each child in class. During question time, some of the children asked her how she found out all of this information and she described how she went through the internet search process. I was thrilled to see how much parent involvement there was and how much exposure she is getting to computers. I was floored at how knowledgable she really was about everything having to do withher sharing. I look at the other 19 students in my class and think, this is not the norm. Am I correct? I only wish I had the interent in my classroom for her to actually show the children how she did her research. She could even describe how to do the PowerPoint presentation! I think we have a future computer wizard here!

Girlfriend vs. Playstation

This is funny... I found this posting while looking through a discussion board on http://www.videogamereview.com/ for some interesting articles on game violence, I came across something a little more entertaining.

Here it is:

What do females think??"
My best friend called me crying. Her bf, got a PS2 and now it seems he doesn't have time for her, believe it or not. Actually they haven't been getting along lately anyway. She wants to talk about their relationship, he blows her off for Tekken and Madden, but the issues are deeper than that. So after we talked and she cursed the world of videogames, she asked me, "why do guys like videogames so much?" Before I could answer she said, "I'll tell you why, guys are voyueristic. They're perverts so they're voyueristic and can look at that stuff (she means the graphics I guess) and play games all day, and they like doing things with their hands." But is that representative of what girls/women think about guys???My second question is, what do you play? For my female friends that do play it's almost RPGs exclusively

It seems that after reading all of the responses posted (all by other women) to to this, girls think that the majority of the reason guys play video games is because of the sex appeal that is related to what women characters wear in some of the games. I don't know if that is the underlying reson for this guy not spending anytime with his girlfriend, but is kind of humorous. Not only do they go on to express how "lame and immature" video games are but they find time to call every man who plays them pigs and perverts. Maybe it's just me, but it seems that these girls are a little upset at more than just the video games...

Really?

You really know Tony Hawk?

WebQuest and Trademarks

The WebQuest that Maria refers to is a name given by the authors to an activity that 's got nothing to do with the kind of WebQuest you're doing in the class. Had I known that this thing was going to take off back in 1995, I would have protected the name somehow. Other evidence that the name applies to a lot of things is the fact that I get irate mail every few weeks from people who are receiving bills from WebQuest.Net, the company that handles the billing for hundreds of porn sites. If I had just 1% of the money they're taking in.....

WebQuests and Motivation

Since we dealing with WebQuests, maybe you would be interested in looking at this article:

Title: Promoting Motivation and Eliminating Disorientation for Web Based Courses by a Multi-User Game (ED428657)

"This paper discusses the use of WebQuest, a World Wide Web-based multi-user game, in promoting learning motivation and navigation skills in K-9 students. WebQuest demonstrates ways to integrate games, Internet communication facilities, Web-based courseware, and database techniques together in order to assist learning. The following guidelines for designing the educational game script are discussed: selection of the style of the game; arranging the game script according to the learning hierarchy to prevent disorientation; and building a situated learning environment to promote learning motivation and to prevent disorientation. Results of an experiment in which eight classes used the game are presented; findings indicate improvement in all motivation factors (i.e., fantasy, cognition, curiosity, control, cooperation, competition, and challenge). Two figures illustrate the learning hierarchy and game structure, and querying the script structure and information of other players. Three tables present action statistics of students playing the game, a comparison of motivation factors, and a comparison of motivation factors between high and low achievement students."

The Playful World

Just found out about The Playful World, a book that sounds very interesting. In some ways, it's like the Playing the Future book I'm finishing up now. The basic notion is that the e-toys around us are creating fundamental changes in the way kids think about things. As an incurable optimist, even on this ambiguous morning after the election, I resonate with the description of the book. Here's part of the Amazon review:

Are Furbies avatars of future pets? Mark Pesce, Chair of USC's Interactive Media Program and creator of VRML, thinks that technological development and recreational activity inform each other and are converging into a strange, new immersive environment. The Playful World: Interactive Toys and the Future of Imagination is a thoughtful peek into the guts of such toys as LEGO's Mindstorms and Sony's PlayStation2; by extrapolation, Pesce sees them driving research in nanotechnology and virtual reality, but he nobly refuses to succumb to the temptation to make precise predictions.

Taking a look at the history of play (and taking care to knock down whatever remaining resistance we might have to considering play less worthwhile than other activities), the book shows it to be a form of learning--perhaps the most natural form. Toy technology is catching up with current research rapidly; more households have powerful computers playing "Crazy Taxi" with the kids than working on budgets with parents. The presumption that we are creating new ways of learning, knowing, and being that are rapidly overtaking our means to understand and control them could be frightening if explored by an author less familiar with the technology and its users. Instead of thinking "game over," Pesce believes we should get ready to "play again." --Rob Lightner

Of course, not all kids have access to this kind of play. And if the author's thesis is correct we'll have yet another force at work to widen the Digital Divide, both here and globally. (Guess I'm not 100% optimistic after all.)

Do it Yourself Online Forms

Hi All,

Our group have been working on the game appeal research and looking specifically at aging issues. Bernie put us onto a site that supports the development of online surveys (like Zoomerang)....www.formsite.com

The site has been very helpful...give it a try if you need an online survey.

Need an Article the Campus Library Doesn't Have?

If you aren't aware, SDSU subsidizes an excellent database of journals and magazines through Carl Uncover for graduate students.

The only catch is you need a fax machine to receive articles. If you don't have a fax machine, you can download Efax and receive them as electronic attachments to emails.

I highly recommend this as another place to search for info.

-Dan

Is it Bigger Than a Breadbox?

Here's an interesting site www.20q.net. It's a bot that plays 20 questions. It uses the database generated by over 500,000 games previously played to generate guesses. You'll be surprised by how accurate it can be.

Have Games Evolved Since Space Invaders?

Here's another article. This is one on the history of computer games.

Tetris Dreams

I found this article about learning and dreaming. The people in the study learned how to play Tetris. Then the researchers monitored dreaming. http://www.sciam.com/explorations/2000/101600tetris/index.html

If Biffed, Do I Not Bleed?

Someone said that they didn't feel that game manufacturers's would lesson the violence in their games. However, I spoke with Tony Hawk after a WebQuest team member said that his skateboarding game was pretty bloody. Apparently, when skaters fell down, their head busted open. When I asked Tony about this, he said there was an option to wear pads when skating. If players wore no pads and they biffed, then of course they would bleed. However, he also said that there was a control to the blood, it could be turned on and off. This just goes to show that games that are not centered around violence can be modified if the creators so choose.

Spandex Fantasies

People working on the gender in gaming issue might already be familiar with http://www.gamegirlz.com. One article in particular was very interesting. GameGirlz Features: Women in G-strings addresses the issue of what the women in games are forced to wear. Here we have a group of women who enjoy playing action/shooter-type game who feel turned away from the genre due to the types of clothing their online avatars are wearing (or not wearing). The article is not very substantive, but it does address yet another obstacle women are finding in the world of computer gaming.

Thoughtfulness on Demand

Ok, I'll make this shorter than the last one. I also had the thought (I think it was around 11:30 pm on Saturday night) that computer-mediated communication (CMC) like this blog can be good. However, some of the research I was dealing with (for comps) stated the importance of learner control in CMC and distance education. Then I began wondering, if we are REQUIRED to post "x" amount of "thoughtful" communication pieces each week (not very learner controlled), how does that affect one's attitude toward and perceptions of this CMC? I would venture to say it may not be all positive...

ARCS and Gender

Forgive me for blogging my thoughts for this week all at once, but I was just a LITTLE busy this weekend...

Which brings me to my first thought. When we experience computer difficulties (such as your computer crashing right as you are downoading comps), most of us due to our prior successful experience with the medium will (after a few moments of initial shock, panic, etc.) continue to work at the problem until it's solved. We don't think "Oh, I'll never work on the computer again" (well,at least not after the crisis is over). Why? Because we have experienced past success whihc has increased our confidence in our ability to use the computer. This in turn increases our motivation to use the computer in the future (remember Keller). I hypothesize that one area we should be looking at (but to my knowledge, none of us are) is how past learner success with a particular medium of games increases motivation. Have boys, because they typically get more time on the computer, experienced more success with using a computer and thus their motivation for using it as a gaming medium is greater than girls?

Just a thought....

BaliHighway

Hi All,

I'm researching non-linear patterns in games and came across an interesting story-based game web site.

http://www.balihighway.com/map.html

Pretty neat stuff that relies on Flash and Shockwave.

Quit Your Daytime Job?

Hey, this is a cool resource. If you would like to take your game board one step farther and try and market it, here is a web site that can get you started in that direction:

http://www.gameempire.com/invent.htm

Game Empire

If you want to get upclose and personal, I suggest that you go down to The Game Empire, a store in the Hazard Center of Mission Valley, San Diego. This is a very interesting place to visit. The store is divided into two halves, one is a game store, the other is a game room. The game room (arena) is full of tables and numerous game set ups. Most setup are the dungeoun and dragon type. You could get some great information on any subject by just talking to the owner, or better yet, interview some of the players!!

There web site http://www.gameempire.com/ also contains a list of links to other game related information.

More on Indiana Arcade Ordinance

I did some digging and found out some more about this. It's not statewide, but local to Indianapolis. Not surprisingly, it has raised quite a ruckus. Here's some background:

• Indianapolis mayor signs law restricting youth access to violent video games - July 18, 2000.
  
• Mortal Kombat... if Mom's There - July 21, 2000
  
• Politics and the Red Curtain - July 28, 2000
  
• Federal judge hears arguments over Indianapolis' video game law - Sept 18, 2000
  
• Violent Video Game Ban Flies - October 12. 2000
  

Seems pretty germane to the violence WebQuest group!

Girls Turned Off By "Nerdy" Image Of IT

In respond to "Why Aren't Girls More Tech Savvy?." That article indicates girls, in general, have little interest in a computer's speed, how technology works, or programming because they're less interested in the machine for the machine's sake than they are in advancing things that they're already interested in--solving problems, communicating with their friends, finding information. If this is true, a question arises:how do we "capture" girls' interests in technology in the new computer age"? There is an article, Girls Turned Off By "Nerdy" Image Of IT having some recommendations with regard to this question.
It says that to capture girls' interest, technology concepts and uses should be incorporated into a wide range of subjects, such as music and history. In addition, girls should also be encouraged to understand and design technological applications, rather than merely use them.

Sniffing Through Cyberspace for Resources

Since many of you are coming up dry looking for info on your WebQuest topic, I thought I'd lend a hand.

You won't find much in ERIC using adult + game + preferences as search terms. But if you look at "adult development" and "leisure" you begin to find a few things.

Here are two:
Adult Play
Later Life Leisure: How They Play in Peoria

Then I looked for adult, play and survey as search terms in ERIC and found:
What's in a Game: A Study of Games as an Instructional Method in an Adult Education Class

You probably know that ERIC documents beginning with ED are generally on microfiche in the library, while EJs are journal articles that we might or might not have.

As I continued to explore, I found Bernie DeKoven's bibliography on play and within that found this:

Sutton-Smith, Brian. "Suggested Rhetorics in Adult Play Theories." Journal of Play Theory and Research 1.2 (1993): 102-116. Sutton-Smith is the king of play study among anthropologists.

There were also many articles from a journal named "Play and Culture". Our library has neither of those titles, though Interlibrary Loan should be able to get selected articles fairly quickly.

While I started out simply looking for adult game preference articles, I couldn't help running into other relevant finds:

A website by a student at U-T Austin on the topic of video games, violence and children.

And this one is a find!: an ERIC Digest on video games, covering both the violence and gender issues we've been discussing. ERIC Digests are terrific for distilling the literature concisely for you.

Hope some of this is useful.

Gender Games

There is a downloadable file that provides tips on doing business with the opposite sex. Understanding the different communication styles of men and women in the workplace. If you are interested please refer to Gender Games

Arcade Segregation

In the process of conducting an interview for my webquest project, something interesting was shared with me. Did anyone out there know about the changes being made in arcades in Indiana? It seems that they are now sectioning off arcades according to age appropriate games. Games geared for older children wil be put in a seperate room or behind some sort of curtain. At the very least, they must be positioned a certain number of feet away from games geared for younger audiences. Arcade staff will be stationed be these areas to be sure the children will comply. Arcade games don't get ratings as computer games do so I suppose the state will be setting up the rules as to which goes where. Do you think it will work? I would love to hear more about this. If anyone out there has see anything on the internet about this or knows of any articles out there, I would love to research this further.

Girls Just Want to Have...?

This blog is in response to the blog about girls being tech savvy. It said that girls don't find any interest in computer usage. But do you think that this also has to do with a gender issue other than that they are just not interested in computers? To me it seems that girls in highschool don't really think it is the "girlie" thing to do to use computers. Especially in highschool where they are so worried about their peers think of them, they might be considered to be "uncool." I think that has a lot to do with the fact that their interest is not as high as men's. Most girls I know my age are equally if not more tech savvy than I am. It would be interesting to do some type of survey of highschool females to see why they don't express a big interest in computers and technology.

Parental Responsibility

This blog is in response to John Andrews findings about the target audience among gamers is 18-24. So realistically young children should not even be owning these machines, and I think you are right. This all goes back to the responsibility of the parents. They should be aware of the games and machines that are out there, and make a responsible decision based on what they see. In my opinion the manufacturers of these games can only do so much. And I doubt they are going to exclude nor lessen the degree of violence within these games. Realistically, people that are 18-24 that play these games should be responsible enough to tell right from wrong and realize that it is just a game. They should also be mature enough to be able to handle the graphic content of the games without wanting to commit some horrible crime after playing them.

Play and Children

Patterns is my Webquest, however I am not sure if this relates to patterns.

I have been researching play and children. The abstracts I have been reading have discussed the issues of competition in group games and ways in which competitive games can contribute to children's development. I want to research further Piaget's theory in relation to the educational value of group games for the young child's social and intellectual development.

Kamii, C., & DeVries, R. (1980). GROUP GAMES IN EARLY EDUCATION: IMPLICATIONS OF PIAGET'S THEORY. Washingon, DC: National Association for the Education of Young Children.

What a chld does in games with rules predicts popularity. In gmaes with rules, chldren must exhibit the social and cognitive skills necessary for popularity. In other words, they must possess and use the skills needed to analyze social interaction. Children who possess these skills are popular.

Dodge, K., Petit, G., McClaskey, and Brown, M. Social Competence in Children. Monographs of the Society for Research in Child Development, 51 (2, Serial No. 213), 1986.

Game Bots

I have been researching game bots (robots) with educational applications and
I cannot find any information! Does anyone have suggestions? I have searched
ERIC
using the key words Artificial Intelligence, Agents, Bots, Data Mining but cannot
find any specific reference to educational Game Bots. The Game Bots I have found
are either of the violent game type, shopping and/or searching and chatterbots
with question and answer capability. Educationally, the Artificial Intelligence
articles in ERIC focus on algorithmically generated math programs and phonics
programs for language development (among others). Any suggestions?

Dancing to Tuesday

OK... yet again I'm interrupting the flow of these interesting conversations to bring you something completely silly. And that's a good thing, as Martha Stewart would say.

No matter which way you're going to vote, you might get a chuckle out of the Bush - Gore Dance @ TVdance.com site.

You may now resume serious discussion.

Undocumented Kids

Thanks for your input, John. I am in the violence group and it is interesting to see what your students had to say. We are having some high school age children speak in our play but we never thought of having younger children. Maybe we just figured that they wouldn't be at a town council meeting. But it would be an interesting view point to hear from since they are the ones that are playing the games. A decision couldn't be made on their input alone but it should be considered. We're discussing how they view games without actually asking them. It's interesting too, that with all of the article that I have read to research our play, I haven't read anything from the children. There are all kinds of statistics about who plays what and what kinds of other things they're interested in but no has actually taken the time to interview the kids.

Something interesting I did find out this weekend though was from my brother who used to work for 989 Sports - the game division for Sony Playstation. He was telling me that the target audience for those machines and games is actually adults ages 18-24. So those children who are playing those particular games shouldn't even own the machine. And who is purchasing those machines or allowing them in their house? The parents. Interesting thought.

To rate or not to rate. I am currently reviewing persuasive writing with my sixth grade class. I was inspired by our blogs to ask them the following question. Should video games be rated and restricted in sales to children. Those children who did support the rating of games cited the previous violence at Columbine: the fact that games might create "instant sharpshooters. They also discriminated violence from other innapropriate content. Although many of them said that the violence should not be rated, they did believe nudity and sexual content should be restricted. Those who did not support rating the games supported their arguments with the idea that children mature at different rates. Also they believe that their parents should have the right to choose for them (not necessarily a great argument. It was interesting. Has the violence group considered having children speak in their play?

Prehistoric
Games.

Go is a very old game. I believe Mancala was a game played in Ancient Egypt.

Also Prehistory refers to a time before written events. So the time period
you mentioned would be too soon.

Girls' Preferences

In respond to Holly's post on 11/2. As we concluded that Girls and boys tend to approach the computer and games in different ways and for difference uses, I read a relevant article, Girl's preference in software design and found something controversial. It reported a finding that girl placed a high value on the quality of visual and audio design of an environment and hypothesized that " the richer the textture of the environment, the more it appealed to the girls". So I think that both girls and boys are attracted by the lights or sound effects but the appeal to them differs in the forms of those effects. For example, grils may be more appealed by soft music whereas boys be more appealed by heavy metal. Something like that!

In addition to the rich texture phenomenon, it also reported that girls prefer collaboration than competition. they placed priority on " having a good experience" and wanted the game to include features that offered supportive feedbck. This finding is consistent with our previous lit review.

Girl Games

To the Games & Gender team & anyone else interested in computer games & gender.

The following website :
www.girlgames.com
has some interesting things to say about girls and the gaming market. Also, this company does consulting work & research for other companies who are interested in exploring the "girls" market. It seems to me that they focus mainly on teenage girls.

Very Old Games

On historic games... I have two excellent British books for you:

Board and Table Games from Many Civilizations, by R. C. Bell. and

Oxford History of Board Games by David Parlett.

I'll be happy to loan them to anyone who needs them. I also have a book somewhere in my office on the rise and fall and rise of video games.

If you'd like to see reproductions of old games for sale, see MacGregor Historic Games which caters to re-enactors. I remember when I was in Lancaster, PA a few years ago watching a re-enactment of a Revolutionary War skirmish, soldiers were killing time playing some of these games.

Some other game links I've found:

• Ancient Egyptian Games
  
• Discovery Channel online version of Senet
  
• P. S. Neeley's Ancient Games for Windows
  
• Awale, the ancient African game the kids used to play in front of my house in Sierra Leone.
  

You don't really need to go back to the Flintstones era to lay the background for the games industry overview, though, do you?

Game History

I, too, am having trouble finding what I need about the history of games and game designers. I imagined when I started that there would be this magical article out there waiting to be used complete with timeline and an article about where we've been, where we're at and where we're going sort of thing. No such luck!! Instead, I found two outdated books at the campus library and a handful of articles on the web. Everyone seems to be looking at what's happening now or where we're headed and not looking at what we've accomplished (go figure). In my continuing searches, I have found using "history of games" as my keywords to be most successful

Pre-Historic Games

Hello,
I am stilll trying to find information about prehistoric games. Oddly, (And I use the word sarcastically) the internet is of no help. Most of the articles about prehistoric games refere to either chess which is thought to have begun around the 6th century (Excuse me? Is 6th century prehistoric?) or any game that is older than ten years old! So much for prehistory.

The one slightly helpful article is so short as to be useless, but to those of you looking up prehistory and games you might take a look at

THE AZILIAN PEBBLES
... been found around Europe. They have been considered primitive art, markers forprehistoric games, and possibly early forms of notation. Claude Couraude has ...
http://www.science-frontiers.com/sf033/sf033p03.htm .

Good luck on any additional information beyond this source!

Age and Game Preferences

We have had little luck finding research involving age and the internet. Today I found a website that posts the results of surveys. They claim to be reputable. The survey results are fairly brief, but may be useful. They have demographics on people of different ages as well as gender. Overall, the site looks at Internet use.
http://www.nua.ie/surveys/

Making Faces

OK, those of you doing comps this weekend should take a play break. FaceGenerator is a not-quite-ready-for-NYPD-Blue Identikit that is just the thing to play with when your mind is toasted from overwork. Too bad there's so much acne in the mix. If you could generate prettier people or faces you barely remember from your past, this could be quite the flow-inducing experience. Pictured here is one of my scruffy but believable creations.

Who are the Non-Players?

I have been looking at the data from our survey. It seems that there is only one group who plays substantially fewer games than the rest of us. 95 % said that they played fewer than 7 hours a month. This is the 13-18 year old group. However, it seems that the games they reported about were mostly computer games.
I was surprised. Perhaps these kids are doing homework afterall.

Girls and Tech SavvyinessI would like to respond to Sharon's quote. Who are those people? And what kind of lives do they have? It sounds like they could find something wrong with a poor helpless ant. Now I'm not saying that all of the cartoons, or games for that matter, out there are great for children, but it seems to me that they are choosing to pick apart some of the tamer ones. What do they think about the more gruesome ones? That would be interesting to note! STRANGE!!!

I read an interesting article in this months edition of NEA Today. The title was "Why Aren't Girls More Tech Savvy?" Girls blow off the high-end computer culture because it doesn't incorporate their interests. How - and why - the computer culture needs to change."
Now I haven't done any of the research in this area, as I'm sure another team out there has, but I found this rather offensive personally. Along with looking at computer usage in schools, this article is saying tha girls don't want to go into the technology fields because they don;t find any interest in it. How many girls are enrolled in this class, and in this masters program for that matter?

It looks like they need to do a little more research!

Gummi Baby SittersDuring my research, I found a website with some crazy notions. I can't let out the address just yet... (it's my secret weapon in our play), but needless to say, these people are wacked.

"How many of us use the T.V. as a babysitter. Most of us would fire a babysitter who acted like the Ninja Turtles, the world's most fiercesome fighting team, the Superheroes, or the Gummi Bears. What's wrong with those 'cute little' Gummi Bears? In one episode alone, they cast a spell to move a boy from one place to another, they gave him a magic potion to make him strong and, as they do not want humans to know they exist, they told this boy not to tell anyone about them. When the boy defeated the enemy, he was asked how he accomplished such great things, he lied saying he just happened to be there, and one of the Gummi Bears over- hearing him said "good boy!"

Wow...

Video Game History. Here is a site for the history of video games:

http://www.emuunlim.com/doteaters/play4sta1.htm.

My problem is that I cannot find any theoretical work on the history of games. Everything is abou games that have been found recently (The past 1500 years). Has anyone seen a site that talks about games from prehistoric times???

Game Designers

I interviewed a game designer this last week end, and boy was it an experience. This guy knows nothing about the theory of game design. He was shocked that there was a major like Educational Technology, and he wants to take over the Games and Simulations class. He was unbelievably intelligent and a riot. I missed 50% of what he said because he spoke so fast.

If you are planning to interview someone, take a tape recorder!! if you want to check this guys web site try www.sarsensstuff.com.

Games and History

Hey, I am here. I think that I accidently posted my first few blogs to the wrong place???!

Anyway, for anyone interestes in GAMES AND HISTORY the following site my work out well for you.

http://www.ahs.uwaterloo.ca/~museum/index.html#countcap

Bots

Just read an interesting article from Forbes called Invasion of the Virbots. From a business point of view, they describe the virtues of having a tireless, endlessly patient entity available 24/7 as a real estate agent, help desk, or corporate info provider.

They also mention Extempo, a company run by Barbara Hayes-Roth who wrote the article in our course readings on improvisational puppets, actors and avatars. She's looking ahead to the use of bots in educational web sites. Anyone who has ever taught an online course can tell you how work-intensive it is. They'd be first in line to buy an effective bot that could handle the 90% of questions that come up in these settings that are routine and not very interesting to handle. It will be awhile before these things will get smart enough to be useful though, I think.

And of course, coming up with a playful bot that will make learning more gamelike would seem to be a good idea.

Gender and Glitz. I am about to undergo the rite of passage known as "comps' so I'll keep this brief. Perhaps after this weekend I will have achance to elaborate. With regards to games, violence, and gender ..... [I am on the gender team]

I believe, from my research findings and personal experience, that there are certainly differences (in GENERAL, not saying ALL) between gender preferences with regards to computer games and the type of game (related, somewhat, to violence). Girls and boys tend to approach the computer and games in different ways and for difference uses. In general, we found (from the results of the survey) boys tended to prefer highly visual games, with lights and sound effects. Girls, on the other hand, did not even mention this ONCE as being one of the most improatant aspects of a game. On a personal note: My husband LOVES sports - he loves playing and he loves watching. Ask him the reasons why, and they are VERY different than my reasons for playing and watching. Anyway, I've got to go before I lose this again...

Violence and Responsibility. This blog is in reference to Eric Logan's and Bernie's blog on age influencing people's opinions toward violence in games. From what I have read the older kids playing these games don't seemed as concerned with the hype over how much violence there is in today's games, obviously because they can tell right from wrong (or at least we hope they can...). But is it necessary to make the legal age 17 to rent these games. I would think that if this were the case, the gaming industry would lose a huge part of it's clientele. At the same time though, how do we know when kids are old enough to decipher right from wrong. I agree with Elaine, who makes these rules, and who decides whether or not they are justifiable or not. As of now, there is a somewhat lackadaisical rating system where there is an overwhelming majority of parents that disagree with it. Do I think there should be stricter restrictions on kids' access to these games? Yes, if they can't handle the so called responsibility. Do I think that producers of these games should lessen the degree of violence? No, then that ruins it for the rest of the people such as Eric and his Quakers who enjoy playing each other in these games. But in the end, it all goes back to the responsibility of the parents. It is there job to decide what there kids have exposure to not the makers of the games.

Not Just for GenY. This posting is in regards to Bernie's post on 11/1/00. Bernie brought up an interesting point. Age is another perspective from which to consider the topic of "violent" video games. I could be wrong but I think Bernie might have implied that my opinion on the topic is colored by my age. With that I must disagree.

I know quite a few people who are 10-20 years older than myself and they're much more into games than I am. In fact, some of my seemingly liberal opinions would be conservative compared to theirs as far as this topic is concerned. Since I'm at it, I'd like to share a brief story with everyone that I find hilarious.

As I'm sure everyone knows, I'm one of the younger people in this department. Quite a few people in this department have been "kind" enough to make sure I knew it. That's a whole other story in itself. ;) Back to the main one.

Anyway, I was working in the IML lab one day when the topic of video games came up. Two of my "favorite" people from this program decided to use this opportunity to poke fun at my age. They were no more than 10 years older than me, 15 at most. They made fun of the fact that I enjoy games like Quake, Unreal, etc. They pointed out, in their infinite wisdom, that I still enjoy childish games like Quake etc. because I'm young, have too much time on my hands, and perhaps immature. I'll keep this story short by saying that they went on for 15 minutes about this. Their unwarranted egos were just growing incredibly.

Funny enough, 3 months later they were playing Quake 3 Arena. By all accounts, they were fanatics about it. To my knowledge, they played it during the week, and they played it during the weekend. They played it more than me! Can you imagine how much I was laughing inside when these hypocrites were asking for my advice about the game?

More on Violence. Okay, the post from Eric helped me see a connection between a form of "enjoyed violence" that I already understand (sports like football, boxing, hockey) and the "enjoyed violence" in computer games. I guess it's easier for me to see how human nature is just wired to be physically agressive (and the socially accepted form of that is sports). But harder for me to acknowledge that this agression can be satisfied by games that have no physical component. I guess I've always wanted to believe that the intellectual, creative, and imaginative part of human nature was the part that was moving away from needing to conquer, slash, burn, kill, destroy. Anyway, the post from Bernie provided a lot of insight too. Maybe the whole deal is not that the violence found in games is promoting violence in real-life, but that violence in games helps prevent violence in real-life. We just don't have a way of measuring how violent our crowded planet would be these days if it didn't have access to so many types of game violence. And, I agree that it's really up to parents and other adult mentors to guide kids. Requiring cards, or rating movies or whatever is a poor substitute for caring supervision.

Playing the Future. Greetings from North Carolina. I'm going to violate my own suggestion about not doing all your blogs at once because I've only got a small window of opportunity here between travel time and being on stage giving a workshop.

The book I brought along to read on the plane seems to shed some light on the discussion about violence in games. It's Playing the Future: What We Can Learn from Digital Kids by Douglas Rushkoff. It was written a few years ago before the web really took off, but it's an interesting and optimistic view of how life is different because of our media and networking, and particularly how kids are different from the rest of us because the world they grew up in is very different the the one we were kids in.

Rushkoff has this this to say about video games:

"In each case of an archetype's development, the games progress from objectified viewpoint to increasingly participatory ones. They turn from stories told or observed into stories experienced. The world is generated, on the fly, by the game console as we move through it. In some games, you can even see the scenery being rendered as you move toward it. But, like dreams, the scenes are from a weightless reality. A real ball never descends an incline plane, nor does a real Nazi ever fall to the ground dead. As our tolerance for the reality of dream-death increases, we can accept more and more realistic and riveting portrayals of violent events. This doesn't make them any closer to flesh wounds -- only to a more consciously experienced catharsis.

As Jung would tell us, the archetypal struggles in dreams remain the same, even if the symbolism changes from era to era and culture to culture. In video games, the central conflicts and universes remain the same over time: Our world is being attacked; I am in a struggle against another individual; or I must accomplish my quest. These are the same structures underlying dreams. But if a person goes to a psychiatrist because he is having problems in life, does the doctor try to change the patient's dreams? No. He gets the patient to remember more about them, or even dream consciously in the form of guided visualization. Dream deprivation studies have shown that if a person is not allowed to dream, he will develop psychotic delusions -- hallucinations in waking consciousness. The same is true for cultures. If we deny ourselves or repress our cultural dreams as they express themselves in our media, we will experience cultural hallucinations like paranoid conspiracy theories, New Age magical thinking, UFO abductions, and more. We should not try to change our world by changing or eliminating our dreams, but we can look to our dreams for answers about why we do what we do in real life.

The unique opportunity offered by a mediated dream space is that we all experience the same dreams together. A particular game becomes popular because it offers a dream in which many kids wish to participate. Should we fill a child with shame because he has a violent dream? No more than we punish the Shaolin priest for practicing martial arts or reading the Tibetan Book of the Dead. Nor should we condemn them or ourselves for participating in violent game play in the weightless realm. Unlike boxing, no one really gets hurt. In mediated play, like no other, we can push ourselves into ultraviolent, physically impossible acts of aggression, and everyone can live to tell the tale. Most video game consoles come equipped with modem ports, so that players can find opponents or co-combatants anywhere in the world. Kids will wander through the corridors of Doom together, teaming up against the monsters. Most computer quest games also have networking capabilities, so that four or more players can work together or against one another over the internet. It is as if video games comprise a technologically realized collective unconscious. A shared dream."

Is this what Eric is experiencing when he goes to a LAN party to play Quake and blasts the bejesus out of his friends?

And is the important difference of vantage points among the members of the Game Violence team due to gender, or is it because of age? Eric and Shawn might be younger enough than Sharon and Noelle to have lived all of their conscious life in the warm glow of computer screens. Did that change their wiring in ways that go beyond their plumbing?

(And isn't it hilarious that, according to Eric, Quake devotees are called Quakers? If they're going to be named after a religious group, wouldn't "Islamic Fundamentalist" be more appropriate?)

The Forgotten Learning Style. Bill's mention of the survey of AARP learning styles coincides with an important article I just read on a related topic. Should we be broader in our thinking about the way we deal with learning styles in games? Are we leaving nasal readers behind? Are we missing an opportunity to teach the whole learner? Perhaps it's time to add one more orifice to our repertoire.

Carding for Violence. In regards to, "It was asked why we should begin to card before renting video games. But don't we card before those under 17 get in to see a 'R' rated movie? What is the differnece?," there is a difference. As you may recall, some have made the mistake of applying data from research studies on violence in movies and tv to video games. They're not the same thing. As such, there is no one size fits all. Besides, as I understand it rating systems are rather controversially vague right now anyway.

Believe it or not, I do agree with the perspective that some games are inappropriate for children. But, where do we draw the line? Should we just start rating everything for the sake of it? Should we just apply a bandaid to an open wound so that "we" can feel better? I don't profess to have the answer for an issue with so many sides. But I do know that rating everything and "carding" everything won't solve "the problem" that this issue is proposing.