Out of Hibernation

It's that time of year again: EDTEC 670 is yawning and stretching after a nine-month nap. This year is unusual: we have more students in the online section than on campus. This should make for some different and interesting dynamics.

Also new this year: a more formalized project based on Second Life. This will be an opportunity to closely examine the affordances of SL and come up with learning activities that aren't just glitz.

I'm directing the campus section and webcasting the presentations to the distance students. Karl Richter is in charge of the distance section, and Cathy Arreguin will be on board for her Second Life expertise during October and November. The Dream Team!

WikiBook Beginner's Guide for Inform 7

I thought to look on the web for some Inform 7 Beginner Guides, and stumbled upon a Wikibook Beginner's Guide to Inform 7. It has some sample code for stories, AND it gives lots of examples and explains what language structure Inform needs in order to translate properly.

Could've come in handy a few weeks ago!!! A good resource to have anyhow, right?

Beginner's Guide to Interactive Fiction with Inform 7 Wikibook

Second Life: The Official Guide

In the Second Life project, I have to say that I can not live in SL without Cathy and Peggy's coaching. The new participants in SL indeed need coaches or job aids to explore the fantasy world . Here is the official guide of Second Life that Bernie mentioned in the class.



Book Description Link to Amazon

The first part of the book, “Getting a Second Life,” acquaints potential and new players with the Second Life world. It describes the metaverses geography as well as its society, explaining the written and unwritten rules.

The second part, “Living a Second Life,” deals with the practical and economic aspects of Second Life: creating and customizing an avatar, building objects, scripting, and making money.

The third part of the book, “Success in Second Life,” discusses ways to enjoy Second Life more. This section includes profiles of successful Second Life residents, discusses fascinating in-world events, and examines how some are using Second Life for business, training, and other purposes.

Do you know Wii yet?

A Wii bit dangerous
Wii is a bit dangours if you see recent news.This is a blog with videos talking about "Never play Wii with sweaty hands."

What is Wii? (reference:wikipedia)
The Wii is a video game console released by Nintendo.The console was previously known by its project code name of Revolution, and is the successor to the Nintendo GameCube. Although the Wii console primarily targets a demographic different to that of Microsoft's Xbox 360 and Sony's PlayStation 3, as part of the seventh generation of gaming consoles it competes with the other two on some levels.
Why Wii different?
A distinguishing feature of the Wii console is its wireless controller, the Wii Remote, which can be used as a handheld pointing device and can detect motion and rotation in three dimensions. The console also notably features WiiConnect24, which enables it to receive messages and updates over the Internet 24 hours a day while consuming very little electrical power.

Training for 'PlayStation medics'

A training system has been developed for doctors raised on computer games on consoles like PlayStation.
Read more

Online nation simulation game

Perhaps someone's stumbled on this already... Sounds interesting

Cyber Nations
"Welcome to Cyber Nations, a nation simulation game. Create a nation anywhere in the world and decide how you will rule your people by choosing a government type, a national religion, ethnicity, tax rate, currency type, and more in this new geo-political, nation, and government simulator. Build your empire by purchasing infrastructure to support your citizens, land to expand your borders, technology to increase your nation's effectiveness, and national improvements to build your nation according to your choosing."

Games for Health Competition

Monies to had.

http://www.gamesforhealth.org/competition/

Wells Fargo

I found this article interesting. It is about a video game that helps young people learn financial responsibility .Wells Fargo Bank has introduced a pilot project of an online video game built inside Second Life. The pilot project, known as Stagecoach Island, invites groups of people to help them learn something about money management in a fun and engaging way. Although Second Life is open to everyone, the Wells Fargo islands are accessible only by those who have received invitations from the bank, so it is branded entirely as a Wells Fargo environment.

“Stagecoach Island players are given $30 in imaginary money with which to buy clothes, pay for rides and the like. The idea, though, is to teach the players to save money--they earn 10 percent per day on "deposits"--and to learn new things about money management through a series of quizzes that, when completed, reward players with $5 of new funds.”

Dr. John Bransford Presentation inside Second Life

I was certain that someone had already brought to our attention the presentation of Dr. John Bransford in October inside Second Life, but after checking all the blogs, I did not see an entry. The presentation is a great example of learning inside Second Life. He combines the immersive direct experience of the 3D environment with a reflective, colloborative, descriptive exercise that follows. The direct experience inside Second Life was captured as a video for us who were not involved at the time of the presentation, and it works very well. Here is a link to the transcript of his presentation that includes another link to the video segment which he describes in his discussion.


http://www.simteach.com/wiki/index.php?title=John_Bransford_Transcript_2_October_2006

Health Info Island

Health Info Island
Here's an interesting podcast about Educational and Non-Profit uses of Second Life. Carol Perryman, a PhD candidate at UNC, is developing the Health Info Island project, a medical library and virtual hospital in Second Life. There is a vast amount of medical info on the web that can be overwhelming to sift through and may not be the most current or valid. The project aims to support virtual reference services for an underserved population looking for medical information by creating a welcoming, trusting, and guided experience. Virtual patients will be interviewed by health professions to assess what information they will need and deliver the information using simulation. The project is under development, but once complete, medical consultation will be available for free to a global audience.

Learning and Fun for Toddlers

I try to not let my 3-year-old watch too much T.V., but when I do it's almost always a PBS kids show. She loves all the characters like Clifford, Caillou, and yes, even Barney, the big purple dorky dinosaur. We have discovered a new realm of PBS and their online resources for parents and kids.
At pbskids.org every show has his own page filled with music, games and coloring. My favorite right now for my daughter are the ones that have her drag and drop letters to spell simple words. They are just right for her and she loves playing.

Find Out your Favorite 5

On T-mobile website, I saw the latest promotion plan- my favorite 5 , and there is a performance support tool called My Faves. By answering the questions step by step, you can find out who are your 5 favorites in the daily ife. This makes me think about the performance support tool example-the best dog breed for you in Edtec540. The questions they asked are designed like some psychology quizes. I don't think it is educational but it definitely attracted me to play with it.

*This is not an ad ...I don't work there!! :-)

Content Meets Virtuality

What could be cooler? Two things I'm very interested in are combining. It's like chocolate and peanut butter. I'm devoting part of Christmas break to mastering Drupal, a content management system and generalized toolkit for making all kinds of online things happen. And of course, I have a longstanding interest in Second Life. So today I learned about a SecondLife group devoted to marrying the two. So cool!

Location-Dependent Gaming

Long road trip with kids? Avoid complaints of "Are we there yet?" without numbing their minds with music or videos or the standard handheld video games. This New Scientist article discusses Backseat Playground, where the players interact with the game through a handheld computer and a GPS. The gameplay changes based on the car's position, and players interact with real-world objects - all from the back seat of the car!

Gaming With a Social Conscience

One of my student’s parents who works for the United Nations here in India, recently told me about a game that the UN Food Programme has developed. Called Food Force it is a free game whose purpose is to teach middle school students about global hunger. In the game, you take the role of a relief worker who as part of a team races against time to feed the starving inhabitants of Sheylan. The game play is very engaging and the graphics are excellent. It has become so popular that since it was launched in April 0f 2005 the game has been downloaded over three million times and translated into six languages other than English.

Military Games

Future Force Company Commander
The U.S. Army has paid for the development of a high-tech warfare simulation game to gain the attention of potential recruits. The game, Future Force Company Commander, takes place in 2015 and puts players at the controls of weaponry the military is currently using or developing. Reviewers of the game say while the game "creates strategic thinking and tactical thinking...it presents an artificially rosy view of warfare". I remember when the first-person shooter game "America's Army" was available for free download a few years ago which tracks player's performance. The game also presents realistic tactical deptictions of combat but I still think the game leans toward a misleading representation of what military life is truly like. Sure, these are only games, and shouldn't be expected to truly capture what it's like in combat but I think they are being promoted as such. In particular, this more recent game suggests warfare can be directed from the remote safety of a joystick when in reality most new recruits will likely find themselves fighting on the front lines.

Games of the future...

I just read that today's high speed elevator has more computing power than the Apollo spaceshuttle that brought first brought man to the moon. The amount of Internet content also grows by over a million pages a day! Here is a really interesting article I found about the future of games. It gives a unique perspective by showing what game aspects were prophesized by experts of yesterday to finally become reality. Some were pretty far off!
http://www.mud.co.uk/richard/tfog.htm

-Nelly Aragon

MIT-GHOST

It is always challenging for new students to adapt to a new campus environment in many aspects. The challenges range from finding the buildings on campus to understanding the cultural background of campus, department, dorms, and even potential roommates.

I have seen an article on a project “MIT -GHOST” initiated by Comparative Media Studies and MIT’s Information Services & Technology department. The purpose of this project is to make MIT cultures accessible online by the prospective students.

In the article, it is claimed that the project is inspired by multi-player online games such as Second Life where users can generate content and represent their own cultural identities.
Likewise MIT Ghost provides the basic representation of the campus and the corresponding buildings. Via using the APIs and modtools, users can extend the representations using their own imagination and artwork.

Dilek

Disaster Training and Katrina

I recently returned from a week of volunteer work in New Olreans. While there I had my eyes opened wide to the fact that there is still so much work that needs to be done and that there were so many things that went wrong during this disaster. I am not sure if the city of New Orleans had a disaster plan or training for their responders if something like this was to occur but there should have been. We have discussed several times in class and on this blog about how games could be used for disaster training and Katrina is a sad but true example. The situation with Katrina went wrong on many levels but there are lessons that should be learned from it. The picture you see is of the first home we worked on removing debris and gutting the house to the studs. You'd think there would be more rebuilding but sadly many people aren't even to that point yet, many have just returned their homes and need them gutted so the mold treatments can be done. New Orleans is several years off of recovery, don't let the downtown tourist areas fool you.

The World of AI and Games Pair Up to Help Patients

I found this article extremely interesting about how robots and games are being used to help stroke victims regain the use of their limbs. The work looks to be moving to also help MS patients and autistic children. The use of games helps build physical dexterity and allows patients to regain their movement and motor skills with the use of robots or robotic pieces. It's truly amazing how far we have come and the hope that we can now provide people who have been injured or suffer from a dibilitating disease.

http://www.topix.net/content/ap/2121147013192772149231162595061436072885

Home schooling and unschooling

Indirectly related to gaming, is the trend towards unschooling. I am curious what others think about it. I have mixed feelings. I suppose it's like anything, there are good and effective games and not so good ones. And there are good schools and teachers and not so good ones. And there are parents with good ideas and not so good ones. To say "it depends" isn't a cop out, I really do think it depends on a lot of stuff.

Read more

Croquet Project

The Croquet Project is an international effort (including Duke University, Carnegie Mellon University, UCLA, Hewlett-Packard and Apple Computer) to promote the development of Croquet technologies in research, industry, and education.

Croquet is an open source software platform that supports communication, collaboration, resource sharing, and synchronous computation among multiple users.

Croquet's advocates argue that it can be used "to construct highly scalable collaborative data vizualizations, virtual learning and problem solving environments, 3D wikis, online gaming environments (MMORPGs), and privately maintained/interconnected."

Croquet "is also more extensible than S.L. in that it is free to share, modify and view the source code (due to a liberal license), it is not hosted on a single organization’s server (and hence governed by that organization), and it provides a complete professional programmer’s language (Smalltalk), IDE, and class library in every distributed, running participant’s copy."

We should keep our eyes on this...

Musical Performance Simulation Software

InTheChair

A new musical performance simulation software is available that allows music students to virtually play along with professional symphonies. Right now the software only supports students playing a handful of symphony instruments such as the flute and cello. However, they are currently developing a version that supports guitar students. Similar instructional products have relied on MIDI equipment to interface with software; often sacrificing the 'feel' that is so important in music. “In the Chair” allows students to use their own instruments which they play through a microphone plugged into their computer’s soundcard. This provides a practice environment that more closely resembles playing an instrument in the context of a real, live performance. The software’s recognition engine can detect a multitude of musical characteristics from a student’s playing. It provides them with immediate feedback on the timing, dynamics, tone, and pitch of every note they play.

Second Life Worm?

I found this article this week while cruising for some Second Life info. It presents the issue of a tool called copybot which allows people to replicate others' virtual identies and belongings without paying for the intellectual property. Which is something interesting that I hadn't known to be an issue in the VR world. I also learned that Adidas, Reuter's and Big Brother are using Second Life within their organizations which is very intriguing!
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/technology/6164806.stm?ls

More efforts to incorporate video games in the classroom

The vast majority of primary age students and high schoolers are hooked on video games. There is no question that these individuals see the value and entertainment that video games have spawned on their daily lives. With this in mind, researchers from the University of Wisconsin, Madison and MIT have developed a virtual reality game that goes into the Revolutionary War into great detail. These researchers see that potential impact that video games will have in the classroom. They have already developed a game entitled "Supercharge" which explores chemistry and provides students with an extension activity regarding atomic particles. Why not make learning fun? Teachers will be pleased and students will look forward to being in the classroom.

Serious Games

Is that an oxymoron? Apparently not, since there was a
Serious Games Summit in Washington DC.
Since I've been taking this class and playing around on SL and Lemonade Stand, to name just a few, I've also been blogging about my fascination with gaming as a leisure activity as compared with watching TV. Most of my peers do the latter. I found myself feeling a bit guilty for "playing," even in the context of a class. I blogged about it, pointing out the cognitive underload of TV to justify my choice and wished more "adults" would losen up and play online PacMan.
With so many serious games being created, I wonder if those less serious games won't be quite so snickered at.

Using Virtual Reality to Practice Surgical Procedures

For years, those training to become surgeons have had the grueling task of learning how to make incisions or stitch up an open wound. Much of these surgical procedures have been performed on animals and cadavers. Although surgical simulators have been implemented just recently, a break-through technology has been discovered and will undoubtedly impact the medical field.
Suvranu De, a professor at Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute, created a virtual reality simulation that allows the intern surgeon to perform surgical procedures in real time. Having such a medium will allow the intern to practice common procedures with confidence, not having to worry about any mistakes or mishaps that may occur.

Simulations & Learning Games Website

Here is a link to a website about games and simulations. This is a useful resource that provides names of and links to relevant books, magazines and articles, as well as information about organizations that focus on games/simulations and companies who are building tools and games for training and education. Check it out!

Online free educational game

www.sheppardsoftware.com stores a variety of free educational games. These games involves various topics, such as vocabulary, geography, science, history, math, health, animals, etc. It provides games of different level that suits for different level learners. These games are suitable for Adult Basic Education, ESL and Literacy education. There are also games for students preparing college admissions and exams, such as SAT / GRE exams.

Fantasy Congress

Fantasy Congress "where People play Politics"

Fantasy Football. Fantasy Baseball. Fantasy Congress??? In Fantasy Congress, citizens "play politics" by drafting a team of real-life legislators from the U.S. Congress and score points as the legislators push bills through the steps to create a law. Your team is formed from a group of 16 legislators based on their seniority: 2 senior Senators, 2 junior Senators, 4 senior Representatives, 4 mid-range experience Representatives and 4 junior Representatives. Players have the choice to create a league of their own to play with family and friends or they can play against other citizens of the U.S. Each member of Congress has their own "bio," (as would the football or baseball players) along with their latest actions. Representative Henry Hyde, for instance, recieved 120 points because of a law that became public. Your next question would be, "well, what law became public?" You can then click on the legislation information to see a description of the legislation.

I think this is a great way to get the public educated and involved in politics. Educators can also create a fantasy Congress league for their classrooms to get more students involved in what could be a "dry" subject.

Book you have to check out

http://www.iam8bit.net/

This is a book I found at the museum in Balboa park I went to this weekend. It really made me think of how artistic some games area and how much they've integrated into our culture. I really loved it, here's a little more desription:

I am 8-bit: Showcasing the talents of over 100 artists who provided their memories of pre-1995 video games on paper, canvas, wood, or somewhere in between.

Video game development boot camp

With a $1.2 million grant under their belt, the University of Denver is giving both low socio-economic students and high school classroom teachers the opportunity to learn the development of video games. Through a 2 week summe boot camp, the participants will learn how to create 2 dimensional video games such as Pac Man. From this training, these teachers will have the opportunity to teach video game development throughout the course of the regular school year. University of Denver realizes the popularity of gaming amongst teenagers. Surely mathematics and sciences are the core subjects linked to developing video games; the University of Denver provides video game development boot camp to lure students into these disciplines and gain an interest when they enter college.

Virtual Technologies for Autism

Dr. Dorothy Strickland heads a government funded research group that focuses primarily on using Virtual Reality (VR) to teach children with Pervasive Developmental Disorders such as autism.
http://wwwx.cs.unc.edu/Research/assist/et/notes/strickland/index.shtml

During her research she developed this clever VR java applet to help children with autism associate facial expressions with emotions.
http://www.do2learn.com/games/facialexpressions/face.htm

Also, second life is being used as a platform to practice socialization for people with Asperger's Syndrome (also from the Autistic spectrum of disorders).
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/7012645/

Virtual reality and the human limbs

A recent article in Science Daily notes that virtual reality is giving amputees the opportunity to regain any missing limbs. Through the use of a headset, patients are placed in a virtual world where they have 2 limbs. They control their missing limbs with any limbs that physically remain on their bodies. For example, in the virtual world, an amputated left arm movement can be manipulated by the amputees right arm.

Most amputees suffer from physical discomfort known as Phantom Limb Pain. However, using virtual reality and making one think s/he has and can move a missing limbs diminishes the pain. See virtual reality and amputees for more information.

Nobel Prize Educational Game

Do you want to understand the work of the Nobel Laureates? You worry that you can not understand? Here is the Nobel Prize Educational Game. By playing those games, you can increase knowledge in economic rules, physics, chemistry, etc. All these games were build on Nobel Prize-awarded achievements. It is fun! Games really makes difficult and boring learning to be fun.

Christmas gift for the brain

An article in CNN suggest Brain Age as one of the ten best gifts for gamers. Inspired by a Japanese neuroscientist Dr. Ryuta Kawashima, Brain Age features activities designed to help stimulate your brain through mental exercises. You solve simple math problems, counting people going in and out of a house simultaneously, drawing pictures and reading classic literature out loud. It's for the Nintendo DS and the claim is train your brain in minutes a day. It is designed to get the most out of your prefrontal cortex and they have MRI images on the web site to prove it. The design is supported by a study published in the Journal of the American Medical Association which surveyed 801 older Catholic nuns, priests and brothers. The results linked reading newspapers and participating in other brain-stimulating activities with a reduced risk of Alzheimer's. I thought being celibate might play a part, but then I realized they were talking about Catholic priests. So you have the choice of either buying the game, become a devoted Catholic or forgetting who you are by age 80.

Educators explore 'Second Life' online

Educators explore 'Second Life' online

This article is about educators using Second Life. It features Rebecca Nesson who teaches a class offered by Harvard Law School and Harvard Extension School. Nesson uses SL for class discussions, office hours and to introduce international perspectives from distance students all over the world. The article continues to discuss common benefits and drawbacks for using SL in an educational setting. "Second Life on it's own doesn't force anyone to do anything....it's a blank slate and whether it develops into a useful tool depends on what sort of structures are created within." -Marc Prensky

Making Physics Fun

I slept through physics in high school because it was sooo boring, and in college physics seemed very "plug and chug" - memorize a formula, apply it to a few textbook exercises and canned labs, then regurgitate it on the test. Obviously, Richard Feynman was not my instructor! I couldn't relate physics to real life, since I had developed a bias against the subject. Perhaps I would have been more engaged if I learned about physics through videogames.

The Wall Street Journal Online has a free article about how physics make videogames fun by making games seem real, but not too real, thus giving the player a plausible escape from reality. Basically, physics drives the gameplay, and not just for shooters - it is used in creating the look of flowing water, trees swaying in the breeze, and don't forget gravity! There is a reference to the blog Fun-Motion.com, which reviews and lists physics-focussed games. (One is Line Rider, referenced earlier this month in the EdGames blog.) There is also a startup that is developing a specialized physics processing unit (PPU) which promises to further enhance gameplay - read a preview of the PhysX PPU at PC Perspective.

Game in training

Many companies and organizations are now using game in training. Such as GametoTrain, it does learning and training based on game-base learning approach. www.thiagi.com
aims at performance-based training, but it also realize the game effect in training and developed games for training. There are also many such companies and organizations, such as Virtual U.

It has showed that games not only work for kids but also for adults. It adds fun and relieve learning stress. Why it works discussed several effect the game in organization training. It states that game not benefit learners but also benefit the trainers. Trainers use it to figure out what parts of their course content need adjusting and what topics need to be reviewed. However, does game and simulation really increase the learning effectiveness? Games and simulations in workplace eLearning is a study that tried to answer the question by explore following question:

• How games and simulations can be used to create an effective eLearning product?
• How does the use of games and simulations succeed in offering the user an engaging learning experience?

It included the market research of the US for games and simulations in eLearning. And it also had case studies for three elearning games, The Business Challenge, The Monkey Wrench. Conspiracy,The MoneyMaker. According to the authors, it is difficult to find quantitative evidence on learning effectiveness of elearning with game and simulation. But apparently game and simulation can spark interest for learning. And engaging the users is a condition of effective learning. However, to maintain engagement throughout the learning process and ensure effective learning, relevant content and design is also important. In addition the authors mentioned that flexibility and storytelling are also important engagement features.

Do You Have A Future In Second Life?

You might...

Reuters reports that IBM is ramping up its push into virtual worlds with an investment of approximately $10 million U.S. dollars over the next year. Big Blue will increase it's presence in SL (already over 300 employee avatars) and develop its own 3D intranet. Hmm... wonder what a proficient instructional designer with Second Life experience would be worth?

Second Life in New York Times

Matt Gross recently wrote an article, “It’s My (Virtual) World,” published in the New York Times. The article reflects on Gross’s weekend spent in Second Life’s virtual reality. Gross describes Second Life (SL) as a “casual travel destination” that is not really a game in the sense that we usually understand them; it’s not like the multiplayer online role-playing games with the primary object being winning a competition. Gross adds, “The goal is simply to interact with the million-plus other residents, explore the planet and, in a unique twist, create new parts of it.”

The article also enables neophyte Second Lifers to slightly understand the technical side of the virtual world as well as various business implications; in particular, growing attention from companies like American Apparel who are looking to advertise and sell their products in the virtual world. Additionally, Gross mentions events he attended based on recommendations found at http://www.secondlife.com/events.

This is a useful resource for our class and others interested in the vast opportunities within SL. At the end of the article Gross even lists his own recommendations for places to visit, shop, see, and do. Furthermore, Gross writes vividly about his experiences, making this article an interesting read.

Simulation Game Used for Disaster Training

This article "Games Tackle Disaster Training" was very encouraging to any of us who know that disasters do occur. Basically, the CDC has started creating simulation games to train health care workers on how to deal with disasters. There are many benefits to this type of learning...saves money, people can train on their own time schedule, creates more realistic scenarios than other types of training, they can cross train for different jobs. The first game was developed to train health care workers and first resonders on dealing with an Anthrax breakout. Trainees learn how to distribute meds and how to notify the public without causing panic. They are scored on their speed and appropriateness.

I think this is a great use of a simulation type game. Obviously, they can't create a real breakout and when simply discussing a scenario or even role-playing, a trainee does not get the full effect. But now they can respond like they would in a real situation and figure out what they need to work on. What a great idea!!

Serious Games Conference

Did you miss the Serious Games Summit in Washington D.C. on October 30th and 31st? Fear not! The presentation materials for most of the sessions are freely available for download. The audio files however are $7.95 a piece.

The Serious Games Summit D.C. gives professionals from the public and private sectors, policymakers, contractors, military personnel, government administrators, educators and experts in the game development arena an opportunity to meet and learn from successful serious games applications, as well as forge links between the traditional videogame industry and program managers for homeland security, state and local governments, military agencies, and educational institutions.

While performing my content analysis for our eGame project I found useful material from this conference and discovered a SecondLife alternative called There.com

Finding two useful things from one site... you've got to love the Internet!

Video Games & The Classroom

I'm always up for finding new ways for students to learn. For the most part, I've seen teachers spending half their time with classroom management as they try to cover material for their students to learn. I think a working academic environment is one where students are engaged in the learning. They need a hook, something that will capture their interest and attention.

Video games are the hottest trend among primary students and middle schoolers today. After doing a search on learning and video games, I found this article: http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/education/1879019.stm

The article discusses the option of integrating video games/simulation into the school curriculum. I think such an idea would be effective because 1) computer graphics/animation is hot commodity among kids and 2) students will be engaged to learn.

Educational Games by Kids for Kids

A group of Brooklyn teens at South Shore High School with help from Global Kids (a non-profit group that strives to prepare urban youth to become global citizens and community leaders. ) and Gamelab have just developed and released Ayiti: The Cost of Life.

Ayiti is a role playing game that allows you to take responsibility for a family of five in rural Haiti. The player can experience the struggles of a family on the edge as they try to stay healthy, stay out of debt and become educated.

The game play is fairly simple and straight forward which coupled with the excellent graphics and solid thinking make this simulation one that kids at a variety of grade levels could enjoy and learn from. As an instructional tool it has excellent potential for initiating discussion and thinking about a variety of issues including human rights, poverty, and population issues. Very cool stuff. Apparently the groups next foray is to develop a Global Kids Island in Teen Second Life.