Video games gone bad

Today on CNN there was an article how Grand Theft Auto inspired 2 teenagers to go out and live the game and ended up killing one innocent bystander and seriously injuring another. Not too long ago there was a write up on how there actually may be some educational value in such a game (i.e. using non-examples to help people think about values and ideology). But what is left out in that line of thinking is that it takes the right kind of person to gain such a perspective.

And in the process there are others who don't understand the non-reality simulation aspect of the game. All the while the question is on who to blame - the player or the game maker? Though, as the article states, there is no evidence that violent games lead to violent behavior, there is a lawsuit filed against the game developer in this case. However, taking a brief look through online article databases reveals several studies examining the positive link in such behaviors.

Highly addictive and interactive Web application

I came across this site while cleaning up my Favorites folder but I can't remember where I found it. Anyway, after a short debate about how appropriate it was for the EdGames blog I decided that it was way too engaging not to share. Besides, anything that can keep my attention for as long as this site did HAS to be considered relevant to what we are learning.

Given the simple integration of color, shape, sound (music)-and real interactivity-there must be something we can learn from this type of experience in the development of simulation and games.



Hint: Once the program is loaded click anywhere on the screen to start the application. Moving the mouse around the screen enables the interactivity and left-clicking on the screen cycles to a new scenario.

(This site requires Shockwave)

Personas for Design Projects

Using "hypothetical archetypes" (aka personas) to help designers visualize what users want and need in information sites is a cool idea that I think would work great for game developers! A composite persona is created based on audience research, to identify real goals and needs of real potential users. Having these personas in mind throughout the design process helps guide decisions by the design team. Check it out in this article in ONLINE Magazine. I found this courtesy of elearningpost.com

Inner Active Game

I saw an article about this game in the Union-Tribune and then went to the website, The Wild Divine Project , for more information. The game uses bio-feedback monitors to teach you to self-regulate your body. The monitors fit over three fingers on your left hand and measure heartrate and perspiration. In order to progress through the game, you have to learn the meditative skills to calm yourself or boost your energy level as the situation dictates. The scenes you move through are very rich and have been compared to those in games like Myst. The game is supposed to become available in November. I found the whole idea very interesting and the learning situation one I would never have associated with computer games.

Language card games

Here is a personal site by Marmo Soemarmo of Ohio University that appears to no longer be updated, but that still includes a number of interesting card games used for learning phonetics and vocabulary. Look around a bit for the meat and potatoes (my apologies if you're a vegetarian, Marmo.)

http://www.ohiou.edu/~linguist/soemarmo/games/menu.htm

SET game of visual perception

This game seems familiar. I'm sure I've run across it before, and there very well may be other postings about it on this blog. Nonetheless, I thought it was worth posting this information. This is a game that matches visual perception with mathematics. I haven't tried to play it, but the visual aspects are appealing and I think I will investigate further. The site is located at:

http://www.setgame.com/set/index.html

Games for kids

funbrain.com/

This webpage offers a number of games for kids to play with and learn at the same time. The games are mostly for kids in kindergarden to 8th grade in multiple subjects. I played a few and found it to be quite entertaining. School teachers should check it out.

Emotional Design

This is an intriguing concept, since many of the elements that can make digital games powerful learning tools are related to emotions, such as fun, excitement and pleasure. A new book by Dr. Don Norman of the usability consultancy group, Nielson Norman Group, addesses the importance of feelings in technology design. The book "Emotional Design: Why we Love (or Hate) Everyday Things" will be coming out in early 2004. Norman says that beauty, pleasure and simplicity are just as important to technology design as function. To find out more see the BBC News Article: Technology to make you go "wow".
BBC Article

Create Your Own 3D World at Active Worlds

Active Worlds is a site where you can participate in a 3D virtual reality experience and also build your own 3D World for others to participate in. For educators there is the Active Worlds Educational Universe where you can develop classroom simulations and instructional virtual reality experiences. You need to download their broswer to participate in the virtual worlds but it was an easy and quick download and install. When I ventured into one of the worlds I encountered many participants actively engaged in the experience. I can see how you can get lost in these virtual worlds and also how you can use them to try on a new persona or experiment with new behaviors. But I hesitate to venture into them very deeply for fear of a "virtual addiction".

Career Voyages.gov Plays like a Game

My never-ending quest for career sites that integrate some measure of fun for the high school audience is bringing me closer to an ideal find. To my surprise, the United States Secretary of Labor, (the government of all sources) has put together an impressive site that comes close to game-like activity. I'm satisfied that they didn't use the word "play", but as you move around the Career Voyages site, you feel as though you're having fun while simultaneously learning. The vibrant colors grab your attention, and the elements of sound and multimedia keep it. The real test will come in the classroom by those who are soon destined to enter the workforce. I'll keep you posted.

FunSchool.com

A pretty neat site, with lots of interactive (Shockwave-based) games targeted at pre-school through 6th graders. It's a subset of a more commercial, "for fun" game network, but I won't hold that against it if you won't.

http://www.funschool.com/

LearningWithGames: A Wiki Page

Doug Holton, the brainy and eclectic Vanderbilt grad student who created the Ed Tech Wiki, has set up a page called LearningWithGames within the wiki. It might bear watching, given what we're all working on for the next few weeks!

Career Game- More work than play!

A search for games on the web related to career exploration turned up a game that is more work than play. Career Games is a site that masquarades as a game. However, this so-called game requires so much work that any sane person logging on would immediately log off having felt bamboozled by the experience. Therefore, the search continues for a career game that will have true appeal for the high school audience. Since their acuity for a good time is very sharp, I'd rather not take chances with this pseudo-webgame. See what you think when you're in the mood for true labor.

Kids' games

I've been interested in games kids play for some time. Specifically, I'm interested to what extent playground games I played as a kid have similar versions in other cultures. In discussing this with my students in Taiwan, I've found that some of the simpler games I played as a kid in the US, such as crack the whip do have similar versions here in Taiwan, while that similarity fades as the complexity of games increases, unless of course the game has been borrowed by one culture from another. In any case, I found a site with a good listing of kids' games: www.gameskidsplay.net/.

Extensive, expensive, math game

The Math Game includes 16 decks of cards and 18 game boards, and 3 video tapes among the 14 needed game pieces. The math skills that this game teach range from whole numbers to basic equations. Players are guaranteed to reach a state of flow while learning at the same time. I wonder if this game could be part of the answer to the math crisis we now have in our public school system and also whether this game could be adapted to include higher lever math skills? Yet if the authors really want to help students, why does it cost so much? ($229.95) The poor keep getting....poorer.

A New Blog about MMRPGs

The newly hatched Terra Nova weblog provides commentary on the rapidly emerging synthetic worlds of cyberspace.

"We include in that definition massively multiplayer role-playing games such as Ultima Online, Lineage, and Everquest; toy worlds such as the Sims Online and Toon Town; social worlds such as Game Neverending, Second Life, and There; and occasionally other virtual reality spaces such as CounterStrike servers and text-based MUDs. Note that these places all have traversible terrain and some level of built-in resource scarcity; Terra Nova won't report frequently on social software that does not have these features, such as blogspace, smartmobs, and the like. We also won't say much about games in general, especially not single-player games. Rather, we are interested in exploring the growing interactions between the emerging many-user 3D worlds on the internet, and the old world from which they fantastically extend, especially in the areas of law, economics, and public policy."

This isn't just a blog by gamefans. It's run by academics, authors and a lawyer. If that doesn't spell F-U-N to you, then you might not like it.

Grand Theft Auto with the Simpsons

To piggy-back Lori's posting, I read an article today on CNN.com about a spin-off of Grand Theft Auto with The Simpson's characters. First, it is amazing the number of sequels or spin-offs of GTA there are out there. Second, linking the notion from the Carlson article (see blog post from Lori Getz 2 below) that GTA may actually hold some semblance of educational value in terms of helping people think about values and ideology makes one realize that such games likely are not going anywhere anytime soon.

Are there free games on the Internet?

This is a very cool site called Free Games!

It’s, as the title suggests, a directory of free games available on the Internet. Actually, it’s more like a promo site for free game trials and downloads. But if you look hard enough you’ll find a truly free game here and there. There are game forums, reviews, game rankings and links to all types of games. A category listing gets you started—shareware games, action games, board games, casino games, computer games and on and on and on—and then you’re off to the races, so to speak. If you’re looking for a listing of games you can download, this is a good place to start.

Can Grand Theft Auto Inspire Professors?

This is actually a journal article from the Chronicle of Higher Education. It deals with the argument of whether or not video games help learning and literacy of students. According to the article more and more scholars (who once snubbed the idea of using video games to enhance literacy) are now seeing the value of educational video games. What is so interesting to me is it is looking at an older audience and seeing how childhood video play is affecting learning aptitudes of adults. For the Full text version of this article see Can Grand Theft Auto Inspire Professors?

Language game

Here's a site with a free online language game that is more sophisticated than most online language learning material. It's definitely for high-level learners and was developed with the European student in mind. Scroll to the bottom half of the page for the link to the game.

bellenglish.com

Mind controlled video games

In a recent story on CNN and in Scientific American, there were articles about a man who had an artificial arm that was able to be controlled by his own brainwaves. Pretty advanced and amazing technology to re-wire brain waves!

That said, it was rather interesting when I came across webpage of a company that has a product that creates a brain/computer interface. One of their claims is that they have a way by which people can play video games with their minds! It sounds amazing and interesting! It also calls up the question as to what makes a video game fun. Would a video game be equally as fun if you played it with your mind rather than the manual manipulations to a controller? Based on our readings, it should still be fun assuming there are goals, outcomes and challenges, although the challenge may seem to be diminished having taken away the hand-eye-coordination component...

Serious Simulating

Here's what newsgaming.com is all about:

"Simulation meets political cartoons. We are a team of independent game developers who believe video games are not simply an amusement.

Games and simulations can also make us think about what is going on in this world. Periodically, we will use games and simulations to analyze, debate, comment and editorialize major international news."

So far, they only one they've got up is called "September 12", an admittedly biased simulation of the fight against terrorism. I wonder what they would come up with to simulate our upcoming recall election.

Video Games really are good for kids.

I came across a link to a good book titled What Video Games Have to Teach Us About Learning and Literacy. The author is a sociolinguist named James Paul Gee. He argues that principles of good teaching are found in good game design, and builds a strong case for all of us who are believers in not just the funn factor of games, but their strength as a teaching tool.

It has been a good read so far and I recommend it to anyone who is interested in linguistic elements of learning (there seem to be a lot of us in this class) or is interested in more ways to justify the power of games as a learning tool to non-believers. I'm enjoying it, at least.

Your Tax Dollars at Play

Interested in a job extending your EDTEC 670 skills with an almost unlimited budget? Here's your opportunity.

The Washington Times: CIA pursues video game:

"The CIA is set to spend several million dollars to develop a video game aimed at helping its analysts think like terrorists, The Washington Times has learned.

    The agency's Counter Terrorist Center, or CTC, is working with the Los Angeles-based Institute for Creative Technologies on a project designed to help its analysts, 'think outside the box,' a CIA spokesman said. The project is close to approval, but officials wouldn't comment on the exact cost of the program.

    The institute, part of the University of Southern California, works with Hollywood movie and video game specialists."

The Impact of Digital Games on Education

Here's a very interesting article on The Impact of Digital Games on Education. A very good review of the use and benefits of digital games, their general acceptance in educational settings and stimulating thoughts about future research. You'll find our elusive Prensky text referred to and quoted often. This article is from a peer-reviewed Internet journal titled First Monday . The content is all about the Internet!! Seems like a very informative site in general. I reached this site through another good site for games and simulations. It's called N A S A G A, the North American Simulation and Gaming Association. The home page has links to stimulating articles like the one above.

GameTheory.net

http://www.gametheory.net/

An interesting compendium of game design and information and samples. There are lecture notes from game design lectures, textbook reviews, interactive samples and strategy games, as well as a dictionary of gaming terms.

The site is the work of Mike Shor, an economics professor at Vanderbilt.

Gross Out

In search of fun and exciting games, I found a web site featuring a bunch of medical-related games, including "Gross Anatomy". The one thing I like about this game is that it's actually six games in one, and it appears to be very interactive. You can build a skeleton, challenge other players with blood and guts trivia and even go it solo and test yourself with a quiz. Check it out! They also have one called the "Infection Game" that's kind of like operation-perfect for medical students or hypocondriacs alike.

Telecollaborative Lessons as Simulations

On this website called "virtual-architecture", Judi Harris talked about using telecollaborative lessons as interpersonal exchange, information collection and analysis, and problem solving.

Under the last category, over 10 websites are provided as examples of using telecollaborative lessons as simulations. The projects listed cover a variety of topics, such as news coverage of a trial, election, electronic UN, and Federation Role-Playing Game, etc.

Click here to find out more exciting telecollaborative projects as instructional simulations!

Great article on games and simulation in education

This article, posted at PressI.com, highlights a technology and education workshop at a recent Higher Education Leaders Symposium held on the Microsoft campus. The workshop "examined the ways in which games and lifelike simulations can create virtual worlds that teach real-life lessons."

"Technology allows us to take approaches that have never before been feasible. As all of those things converge, perhaps it isn't surprising that many people are beginning to look at games and simulations as effective learning environments."

This topic must be hot if Microsoft is getting in on the action.

Be Your Own Mint

Hasbro has just released a PDF that replicates the artwork of Monopoly money. Click here and print yourself a fortune.

Technology for Education

I found some eGames on the web, go to: http://www.twitchspeed.com/site/news.html.

Although some of the technology used to develop the games was interesting and I did get a chuckle out of a couple of the games, it was easy to get ahead in some of the games without reading the questions. I started to question the educational value.

I did, however, find the game, Move-it, interesting. I got to play the Ethics version. The game had (1) well written instructions, (2) feedback for right and wrong answers, (3) a reference link available, (4) a link to concepts/facts. Try it out, I actually played a couple of rounds - believe it or not.

http://www.games2train.com/games/moveit/moveit.html

Ancient games

Here are a couple of sites that discuss ancient games. There are some good pictures at both sites, with rules and histories included. Most of the ancient games discussed appear to be race games, and they are still played in various forms today.

There is something appealing about the simple, straightforward quality of not only the games depicted at these sites, but the materials used to play them.

Games of Petra
Ancient Board Games and the Nabataeans
The Online Guide to Traditional Board Games

A new game genre?

Interesting article from BBC News about a PC game released this year called, Republic: The Revolution, based in part on the book, Crowds and Power, by Nobel Laureate Elias Canetti.

The game combines elements of real-time strategy and simulation which adds another level of believability for the player and basically creates a new genre, according to the game designer.

"...the sociological model in the game is as realistic as has been achieved so far".

"The game producer (Elixir) is talking to academics about how the artificial intelligence behind the game could be used for research purposes."

The game's fictitious country of Novistrana even has a website that extends the reality of the game to the internet.

Game links from Prensky

While trying another option to get the Prensky book, I got caught up in Marc Prensky's website. He has an entire section devoted to URL's and resources for game-based education, training, and e-learning. The first section is URL's for game companies for those interested. The second section are links to projects and products. The remaining sections are resources, both online and in print. At the very bottom is a small section of resource sites. This could be a great resource as we start to build our own games for this class and later. Also, a good resource for Comps...

New Report on "All Things" Simulation

Brandon Hall has just released a comprehensive report (725 pages) on simulation products and services. You can download the 26 page executive summary free of charge. Who should read it? "This report is sure to be a must have for instructional designers, e-learning professionals, product purchasers, SMEs, and anyone else interested in how simulations are changing the face of e-learning." The report profiles 54 simulation vendors, compares simulation authoring tools, and has information on emerging trends, e.g., "Over time, we are finding simulation products to be more dynamic, easier-to-use by novice developers, and making more efficient use of limited bandwidth resources."
simcover2004.jpeg

Food Chain Simulation

Students can simulate food chains and understand how they work with this simulation
of a virtual lake. Food Chain was developed by High Performance Systems as a by product of their Systems Thinking software iThink and Stella. The company newsletter The Connector (published bi-monthly) has regular articles about introducing and teaching Systems Thinking in schools. Systems Thinking is a fascinating subject that seems to offer many opportunities to stimulate new ways of thinking and to develop insights into how decisions and behavior creates changes for an entire system--a company, nation, family, school, or ecosystem.

Simulations and the Learning Revolution

Here's an interesting interview with Clark Aldrich, author of the forthcoming book Simulations and the Future of Learning:

"JM: What advice do you have for teachers who want to construct simulations for their on-campus or online classes?

CA: To understand simulations, the first thing to do is get comfortable playing computer games. Try The Sims, the newest Midtown Madness game, and Roller Coaster Tycoon. Then find an online community that builds modifications for existing games. For starters, try SimsFiles.com, X-Plane.org, or JediKnightII.net. After you have explored various options, choose a computer game that you like, and try implementing modifications that can be downloaded from community sites. This may sound complicated, but the communities are full of newcomers who also need step-by-step help."

Cool Industrial Waste Game Board for 8yr Olds

I was on a business trip and found an article advertising business games for kids. The one that caught my eye was an Industrial Waste board game. The players are the owners/managers of companies that are competing in this new world where profit, innovation, and environment must be balanced to be considered successful. Not only do players have to fatten the bottom line, they've got to temper their drive for profits with concern about pollution and other ecological damage. Careless players are slapped with government penalties.

Other games that were interesting were Bean Trader and Settlers of Catan.

Check it out: https://gamesurplus.com//detail.asp?id=2081

The Yoga Garden Game

While googling for game ideas, I came across this atypical one: The Yoga Garden Game.

It is aimed at children learning yoga, but rather than have the players compete against each other, the focus is on mutual growth and enjoyment. It is typical race game, but it's definitely "outside the box" in its emphasis on physical movement and creativity (children imagine the animals the poses are named for, and have the opportunity to create their own).

Workshops by Thiagi

We are going to talk about Sivasailam Thiagarajan and his games later in our class. He's an amazing person.
Check this out: Workshops by Thiagi
There are many "freebies" on this website.
My friend has told me that you are gonna love this guy. Are you? ;-)

Elliott Avedon Museum and Archive of Games Index Page

The University of Waterloo has been developing the Elliott Avedon Museum and Archive of Games Index Page since the very earliest days of the web. It contains a searchable collection of over 500 pages detailing games in the museum's collection. A good source of ideas.

Curriculum Mismatch as the Source of Boredom

In this month's issue of Educational Leadership there's an interesting article titled Boredom and Its Opposite.

"If, as research indicates and many teachers suspect, student achievement is more highly correlated with student interests than with cognitive ability, then we should make curriculum design based on human interests a primary focus for professional development during the next decade. It's time to make students and their natural human interests as important as the standards and tests that our states now mandate."

The authors boil it down to four sources of interest: mastery, understanding, interpersonal and self-expression. They point to an instrument that let's you see how individual learner profiles differ along these four dimensions and give a rubric for measuring a particular lesson or unit.

Not a bad article, though after going through the readings in this course I think you'll see that there are more than four dimensions. But four is a good start.

The Course Reawakens

After a nine-month slumber, EDTEC 670 is slowly returning to life. This site, and the syllabus attached to it, haven't been updated yet as I'm still playing a bit with the options. For those already enrolled, though, I can preview some of what looms ahead.

What's the Same?
We'll still use the two texts from last year. There's a new text on simulation that I might add to the list as an interesting optional reading but I haven't had a look at it yet. As it did last year, the course will culminate in the egame project in which you'll document the design of some form of interactive game or simulation.

What's New?
For the first time, EDTEC 670 is being offered online in tandem with the campus-based section. I'm open to people who are physically here partnering with distant peers out there on the net. I think it will add an interesting dynamic to our conversations.

Our first project will be the design of an educational board game, a tradition that the course has had for more than a dozen years. This time, though, you won't need to find a board, decorate a box, or ransack your kid's toy box looking for just the right game piece. This time you'll create and deliver your board games as a PDF document. That makes the game completely self-contained, easily reproduced and instantly distributable.

Something else that's new: we'll be using Moodle to organize our asynchronous discussions and assignment feedback. I used Moodle for EDTEC 570 over the summer with great success and I think you'll find it to be a bit smoother than Blackboard.

Another first: we'll be using a wiki to organize one of the major assignments of the course. A wiki is a system for creating hyperlinked documents that are open to being revised by all the participants. It might sound chaotic, but it's really a powerful idea for knowledge management. To get an idea of what a wiki is, take a look at Wikipedia, a free online encyclopedia with tens of thousands of co-authors. We'll be doing something similar but narrowly focused on the domain of this course.

Well... that's enough of a teaser. Of all the courses I teach, this is my favorite. I look forward to throwing out the first ball when we meet on September 8. See you then.

Rock-Paper-Scissors-Spock-Lizard

This is an interesting variation on Rock-Paper-Scissors. I remember when my son Alex was young we made up several variations on our own and had a lot of fun both inventing them and playing them. I think I'll use this as an exercise in 670 next semester. [via Boing Boing]

Games, Not School, Are Teaching Kids to Think

Felicia Douglis alerted me to this piece from Wired echoing the Prensky reading we use in the course.

"The secret of a videogame as a teaching machine isn't its immersive 3-D graphics, but its underlying architecture. Each level dances around the outer limits of the player's abilities, seeking at every point to be hard enough to be just doable. In cognitive science, this is referred to as the regime of competence principle, which results in a feeling of simultaneous pleasure and frustration - a sensation as familiar to gamers as sore thumbs. Cognitive scientist Andy diSessa has argued that the best instruction hovers at the boundary of a student's competence. Most schools, however, seek to avoid invoking feelings of both pleasure and frustration, blind to the fact that these emotions can be extremely useful when it comes to teaching kids."