What do we learn at school?

This was a question I posed to my S2 class shortly before giving then an end-of-term creativity exercise, whereupon they were to design their own game (individually or in groups not exceeding 4) based on the 'mapping learning objectives', Concept Specification and Functional Specification templates provided by Whitton.  

As may be discerned, the overwhelming response focused not on a list of the subjects that they learned but the pupils invariably produced 'answers' which focused on the social aspects of school where "perceptions of the self and others are socially determined and constrained" (Lee and Hoadley, p.2).  This fortnight, Weeks 10 & 11 the Readings on Massively Multiplayer Online Games (MMOGs) explores the idea of virtual exploration of socialization as identity.  This interaction and exploration is evident in the 'roles' identified by the S2 pupils, who themselves are equipped and expected to produce versions of themselves in talk and creative writing, "and learning takes place during this enactment" (ibid., p.5).

MMOs are more flexible, draw on more than two or more senses and still allow thinking "from an alternate point of view and experiencing events situated in context helps students maintain interest and facilitates learning while the student grows into the alternate identity [and when] when students have a direct investment in the learning experience, they will more readily embrace their new knowledge as a vital component of their own personal growth and development" (ibid., p.5).

 

 

 

 

 

References 

Lee, J., and C. Hoadley. 2007. Leveraging identity to make learning fun: Possible selves and experiential learning in massively multiplayer online games (MMOGs). Innovate 3 6).
http://www.innovateonline.info/index.php?view=article&id=348 (accessed April 24, 2008).

 

I'm blogging a little late on these weeks but I did want to record some of my thoughts of the spaces we looked at. MUVEs (Multi User Virtual Environments) were the main space looked at – with Second Life a key space – but we had some really interesting discussions about playfulness and the concept of uncanny presences that covered a broader range of games and gaming environments. Motivation and the idea of “sugaring the pill” of education also came to the fore as many of the MUVEs are actually quite tough spaces to get used to – complex in nature and requiring a steep learning curve to become a participant.

Papert (1998 [1]) interestingly argues that the entire education system is weighted to reward failure (the retaking of years, additional help requirements etc.) in stark contrast to the commercial games and “edutainment” sector where the audience must always be engaged or they will abandon a product. This is a tricky stand to take given the involvement of businesses in schools (especially via the Private Finance Initiative) but the point about the development and quality of the end product is interesting: the motivators for creating good quality teaching are provided not by the education system but by demanding learners and proactive educators.

The idea that children enjoy “hard fun” that Papert puts forward is convincing to me particularly in light of the Talking Turtle clip (cynthiaso 2007) showing a 1970s realisation of Papert's ideas around learner empowerment and difficult play. The image of young children learning programming and mathematics by trial and error is quite inspiring to me as, as noted in the clip, mathematics is a subject rarely taught in social ways (in contrast to English literature or history for instance where discussion is a crucial part of forming a good understanding). Though the video has certainly aged since original broadcast I think there is much to be said for encouraging high challenge as part of curriculum design. This is problematic though as many prevailing attitudes focus on building a learner's core sense of self-esteem and tough challenging teaching moments can be (but don't have to be) in opposition to this building of confidence. However too great a level of confidence and too unchallenging a set of learning experiences fails to take advantage of the level a student may be able to achieve. In a week looking at MUVEs, including Second Life (SL), this is a particularly interesting balance to consider since the second most frequent complaint I've heard about SL is that it is far too difficult to learn how to use and is embarrassing to get things wrong in. Personally I think demos like Hackshaven (2008 [4]), perplexitypeccable (2007 [5]) and WadaTripp (2007 [6]) offer good incentives to learning how to use the space but the balance of challenge to reward isn't quite right for everyone and can be a hard sell compared to, say, online Solitaire where the challenge is relatively low but the hurdles to getting started are very low indeed.

As we do start to look at more complex spaces – like SL – in this course I start to notice several features that trouble me about the more sophisticated digital gaming spaces. Firstly as a Mac user I am (again) facing issues of compatibility between my own machine and the games on offer. Secondly I find that the more complex the game the more inexplicable the rules, ettiquette and introductions become – it may be best to just play a game to get started but when one plays in an embodied space the fine grained details of set up matter right from the beginnning. Bayne (2008 [1]) draws on Freud in her discussions of the uncanny and the idea of duplicates and ghostly presences in virtual worlds. Whilst she does refer to the appearance of avatars created by users in SL in this paper I would add that there is something weird and uncomfortable – for me at least – of taking editorial decisions about my SL double now that she is set up. I would no more change species, gender or significant physical appearance than I would (in real life) undergo cosmetic surgery. Thus my avatar has, since I first began to feel any empathy and embodiment to her, only changed weight, hair colour and clothing. These are things I would feel comfortable with in real life so feel right in SL.

My own concern that one becomes embodied through customisation and will struggle to remain embodied if major changes occur later on also raise another issue of any customisable avatar: the presence of extremely stereotypical and problematic default avatars. This is not a new issue for me – I think I have raised it on the blog before – but it is an important one to the use of MUVEs for education. No matter which space I have entered of this type I have never been presented with a default avatar who is old, non white, unconventional looking (not unattractive), transgendered or androgenous, etc. Indeed even in the explicitly for-kids Quest Atlantis game the default avatars for teen girls were thin, maturely developed and looked improbably adult. The male avatars are often more forgivingly crafted – you will see Brad Pitt lookalikes in SL but in far less quantities than you will see female avatars that would, in real life, feature substantial breat implants and would require eating disorders to maintain their figures. Personally I think it odd that fantasies in the social online gaming worlds should revolve around extreme versions of real world fantasies (I have far more sympathy for those whose avatars are a speck of light or a flying dragon or a dalek) rather than allowing a space to express more interesting variants of existing physical forms.

But then opinion differs on the role of realism in the space. de Freitas (2008 [3]) talks very much of the importance of realism and quality in the creation of convincing and absorbing digital games for learning. Indeed it is striking (and I suspect no coincidence) that a TV ad campaign for organ donation (currently running) uses a slow visual death in a very intense short scene which is highly reminiscent of the type of TruSim demos featured in Blitz Games Studios (2010 [7]). Such trickery and uncanny scenes induce immense emotional engagement and great empathy for the virtual patient. Where I have a problem personally is in the effectiveness of the learning from this type of tool. It is indisputably useful to have visual records of what death – and crucially near death – looks like in reality as it is simply too dangerous and inappropriate to provide medics with fatal cases as part of training exercises. Seeing and playing through a patients fate seems likely, therefore, to train any viewing medic in recognising signs of deterioration.

However the response mechanism – the treatment itself – seems a million miles from a mouse and keyboard input to me and this is where I think many of the MUVEs still have a long way to go. Ideally one would want to replicate the medical emergency as much as possible – advances to see deteriorating patients on a physical form that could then be treated would be hugely beneficial but so would the more simple idea of using more physically appropriate interfaces – clicking menus for actions presents several peculiar issues:

• Introduces a level of self-awareness that may take away from the uncanniness of the scenario

• Does not represent or simulate a realistic environment

• Provides an artificially controlled and limited number of options – unlike those that will be self-selected by a medic in an emergency situation.

• Potentially trains the player in the best way to complete the game rather than the real life situation they are training for – no physical competences are measured whilst in a real situation both intellectual and physical elements will come into play.

There is some interesting work on physical interfaces currently taking place (e.g. Watson (2010 [10]) that use mainstream console technologies – most frequently WII controllers which are cheap to adapt and use – that offer interesting possibilities in terms of taking immersive educational games (including but not limited to MUVEs) into and beyond the possibilities currently offered by the WII or novel physical controllers into the realms of an even truer virtual experience where one can effectively live (and re-live as necessary) the experience one is training or learning for rather than do so at one level's distance. The idea of taking a virtual submarine [4] tour is lovely but how much more engaging would that be as a collective experience where one dresses and feels physical feedback accordingly but, crucially, does not disturb the wildlife. The human mind is a wonderful thing but many elements that can be imagined into a virtual environment are the more obvious elements that one knows about – one doesn't know to look or ask about items that are unexpected whereas many serendipitous teaching moments come out of more physical experience that force awkward and invaluable questions that the abstract experience cannot.

Having said all of the above though I must acknowledge that an engaging game can get around many issues of visual quality or cinematic or even real life accuracy. Though not a MUVE I was alerted to an incredibly clever and absorbing game this week which inhabits a rich virtual space that appears sociable but is, in reality, a single player plus incredibly clever writing and loving programming.

 

Digital: A Love Story (Love 2010) is a downloadable game which recreates beautifully the experience of the very early days of the internet. Beginning the game opens up a wonderfully rendered 1988 desktop with one or two very limited option. You are the star of the game (picking your own username, giving your real name and, as needed, adding your own passwords) and are playing the role of a teen/young student accessing local bulletin boards via long winded (and wonderfully sound effect driven) modem connections to specific machines. Relationships and plot unravel from emails and messages that you can elect to send. There are hints throughout the game but the main game play method is to click around and try everything at first to find a route through the game that can then evolve as the game swiftly becomes more complex and the storyline more urgent.

Thinking about what I liked about Digital I couldn't help but think about how it did not feel like the game – I was using a mouse and keyboard as stand in's for... a mouse and keyboard. The laptop might be lighter and infinitely better spec'ced than the type of machine I had access to in 1988 it was still remarkable how real it could feel to play with a low resolution screen, super slow internet connection and very basic text and visuals. So this is perhaps a for and against argument for my own comment about what can be learnt in uncanny spaces. On the one hand any digital environment, of any quality can be sufficiently engaging if the story behind a game is sufficiently well written, realised and learning subtly scaffolded. On the other hand Digital is a great example of how being really and truly in that virtual space is all the more powerful. For other games that replicate computer based activities the computer is likely to be the best space for learning but I do wonder how much better suited other activities would be to a hybrid space of digital and physical. To some extent the mediation of every day life makes this easier – one can simply mock up a read out for a piece of medical equipment, scientific equipment, financial monitoring systems, or emails to enact an emergency scenario or workplace simulation or emotional encounter in every day life (as Digital does). Or one could use a realistic physical surgical model with an archive feed of surgery for training keyhole techniques for instance. There may be financial and administrative gains in hosting entirely digital educational experiences for these sorts of process but there are physical sensations and reflexes which must also be trained and I think it is worth considering – particularly when we talk about the uncanny, the real, the role of simulation, and the gaining of practical skills in digital contexts - the value of digital games as sitting along different points along a real/virtual spectrum rather than always being stand alone digital-only and computer mediated (only) phenomena.

At the same time I hope that MUVEs become more radical than their current forms. One of the sad things about the beautiful scientific models shown in perplexitypeccable (2007 [5]) was the contextual limitations imposed by the space – once could go inside a cell or look at living human models or examine an atom BUT one could only do this in the “real” world of SL – sky, horizon, ground, etc. all remain. One of the toughest challenges of helping learners conceptualise abstracted educational information is that it is hard to visualize the size of an atom or the texture of a cell or the interplay between different elements of an organic system. Models in the classroom can be good but can also still seem both too abstract and too real (who for instance can fail to find a full skeleton unnerving or a medical torso model too plastic?). In theory digital environments offer the very best possibilities for suspending disbelief but, by being grounded, in normalised concepts of a “world” much of that potential is lost. 3D modelling software lacks embodiment, embodied spaces lack that useful sense of abstraction. I think there much be a way to bridge both types of system to enhance the empowered learner exploration of abstract models and ideas but I think this will be an ever more exciting area of MUVEs over the next few years.

• [1] Bayne, S. (2008) Uncanny spaces for higher education: teaching and learning in virtual worlds. ALT-J, 16:3, 197.

• [2] Papert, S. (1998) Does Easy Do It? Children, Games, and Learning. Game Developer Magazine, June 1998, p88.

• [3] de Freitas, S. (2008) Emerging Technologies for Learning. BECTA research report, March 2008, Volume 3 (2008).

• [4] hackshaven (2008) NOAA Second Life Virtual Ocean Demonstration. Retrieved 28^th March 2010. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ut2qInl-9YU.

• [5] perplexitypeccable. (2007) Science Learning in Second Life. YouTube Video. Retrieved 26^th March 2010. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EfsSGBraUhc.

• [6] WadaTripp (2007). Virtual Social Worlds and Future of Learning (Agree/Disagree?). YouTube Video. Retrieved 28^th March 2010. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=O2jY4UkPbAc

• [7] Blitz Games Studios (2010). TruSim Triage Trainer/Patient rescue/Interactive Trauma Trainer. Retrieved 26^th March 2010. http://www.trusim.com/?page=Demonstrations

• [8] cynthiaso (2007) Seymour Papert - Talking Turtle. YouTube Video from an original Open University and BBC programme. Retrieved 28^th March 2010. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BTd3N5Oj2jk.

• [9] Love, Christine (2010). Digital: A Love Story. [Computer game]. Retrieved 28^th March 2010. http://www.scoutshonour.com/digital/

• [10] Watson, Paul (2010). Using Real Time data to Understand and support Human Behaviour. Presentation viewed online 18^th March 2010. Presentation retrieved 28^th March 2010. http://www.nesc.ac.uk/action/esi/download.cfm?index=4465.

In Gee (Chapter 7: The Social Mind in What Video Games Have to Teach us About Learning and Literacy) he extends the learning through video-games from single-player to multi-player.  As ever, he ends the chapter with a subset of the 36 Learning Principles (33-36) and these focus on the distributed nature of knowledge and the dispersal of this across 'affinity groups' - objects and systems as well as people - whereby he extends the notion of communities of practice and identity; all draw on traditional methods of storage and collation but importantly email, the internet, etc.

As with the classroom, players/participants work towards a common purpose, irrespective of race, class, gender, etc. This idea of common purpose and objective of all school pupils must be conveyed to pupils and allow them to acknowledge that it is their interest to work in partnership in order to support each other through their strengths and weaknesses (known as 'jigsaw method' defined by Brown & Campione (in Kate McQilly Ed. Classroom Lesson's: Integrating Cognitive Theory and Classroom Practice).

The idea of identity resurfaces, recalling the notion of 'multiple identity' whereby in such affinity groups "the norms and values of groups are contested and negotiated" (p. 184), bearing in mind that players - and us - modulate across a continuum of identity depending on context.  He finishes noting that this 'identity' should not only be in control but one who can modify content and the process itself.

These ideas accord with my periphery readings of Richard Riding's School Learning and Cognitive Styles where learners are negotiated into two dimensions of 'learning style' - wholist-analytic & visual-verbal.  In relation to the  affinity group that Gee promotes, Riding suggests that they, the learners, can work in partnerships that take into account differences / discrepancies in different learner types.  I think that this may have a significance in the successful presentation and reception of learning activities derived from digital games, and when you factor in collaborative learning I think that it is equally appropriate to look at compensatory pairing/grouping in addition.  

http://www.encorewiki.org/display/~hnajafi/Communities+of+Learners

I wanted to post a very short posting on playful spaces.

In this month's Wired there was a short piece on public games that combine public spaces
and communities in real time. 

The first game, Noticings, turns a private reflective sub domain of photography - taking pictures of obscure ephemera of every day life, street scenes, abandoned items etc - and turns it into a community games through creating league tables of participation and points for specific features (see screen caps below). It is a fun game but one could see more practical community uses (for instance the same structure of game but specifically being used to flag up graffiti, littering, etc.) or for learning games in the field - this is, after all, a sophisticated community treasure hunt that could be extended to feature more specific goals or reflective learning opportunities (as in, say, some uses of geocaching.

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The second game, created by KMA, was a really interesting way to engage people in a safe and interesting space. I don't think there is learning per se here but it is a great and fun use of playfulness in unexpected places:

What triggered me to make this post was however was attending Maker Faire in Newcastle a week or so back and wanted to record some of the really interesting learning environments that formed part of that event. The Faire was essentially around 100 stalls by people who make geeky things varying from high complexity robots right down to hand sewn merit badges. It was not a trade show, now a sales event but a space for sharing experience, knowledge and trying things out. There were contact cards and some small items for sale but on the whole it was a space for relaxed peer learning for fun. 

One of the more elaborate items on display was the Maker Bot (pictured above) a low cost open source self-assembly 3d printer. I think this is a really interesting example of a playful learning experience as the Bot's arrive in kit form and require mixed construction skills and a large number of hours - most owners quote between one and three days to built the kit completely. Once constructed the bot must be given complex 3D images and the owner must therefore be familiar or learn how to use those tools. They can then print an item of their own design enabling a relatively instant ongoing relationship between creative idea and manufactured prototype/limited run product. 

What cannot be seen in the video above is the wealth of resources - learning objects, advice, template items etc. - that the community around the Maker Bot have and continue to create. This is a peer supported and enhanced machine with small modifications, reuse of designs and communities of creativity around it. The hours required to build and use the machine are extensive but the number and usage of YouTube and Vimeo clips (see above) of owners proudly building and sharing there build of their machine turns this into a type of community game where the rules are that everyone builds the same things from the same kit, the community is a mixture of experts, new comers, and observers of how the game should be played, there are right ways to construct the kit but additional knowledge or experience can enable shortcuts, reflection is part of the process and the success is a complex mix of completing a working machine, doing so swiftly and/or stylishly AND participating in the ongoing community comparison of cool and interesting things. 

Maker Bot is quite typical of the types of work and creativity shared at Maker Faire - my partner and I spent 2 hours making a circuit and sewing it into a plush toy in one workshop, a further 2 hours learning a new programming language to create digitial art in which we exchanged designs in a game to adapt and change each other's work, and we spend half a day soldering items just so that we could plug them in and see if they worked and could be programmed (see above). It was all intensely playful activity and often structured to be lightly competitiv. Learning was scaffolded in a safe and mixed environment with peers and experts on hand to help. It was a really interesting experience to compare with the style of learning in other spaces (and it bore positive resemblence to much of the peer support and accessibility I associatte with this MSc) and gave me some ideas about what might or might not work in my final game design assignment which I am currently thinking about.

The weekend also reminded me how important the haptic dimension of play and games can be. Doing most of this course on a laptop or desktop machine isolates me from the devices many normally experience digital games on - handheld gaming devices, consoles, add ons (controllers disguised as skateboards, drums, guitars, aerobics steps, steering wheels and (very old fashioned) joy sticks even), and phones. The physical element is not something we have been considering in this module and I think it often overlooked in educational games designed for academic or workplace environments - where PCs or laptops are expected. I do wonder, especially for specialised and/or training games, how much that physical aspect is crucial to engagement, a real sense of embodiment and participation and a sense of emotional involvement in a scenario. 

uLearning (ubiquitous and context-specific) and Alternative Reality Games (ARGs)

The binding medium is generally the Internet, drawing on other forms of media. 

My understanding is that it is an inversion of the classic computer gaming paradigm, whereby the real-world characters are controlled or undertake a computer-generated narrative.

Where I think uLearning is interesting within this particular genre of gaming is that a context-aware environment can play along/maintain this invention of reality in supporting the narrative, therefore removing itself from the players’ physical domain and merely adopting symbols or metaphorical representations from of this narrative.

uLearning “enables users to interact and learn with sensors and radio frequency identification (RFID) embedded objects in their surroundings… As a student moves around the learning area, the system can detect their location by reading and analysing the data from the nearest RFID tag. Consequently, assessment can be conducted to evaluate the learning performance of the student in the realworld” (Liu et Hwang, 2009b, p. 1 & 4)

References

Liu and Hwang. (2009).  A key step to understanding paradigm shifts in e-learning: towards context-aware ubiquitous learning.  British Journal of Educational Technology (2009) doi:10.1111/j.1467-8535.2009.00976.x

Liu and Hwang. (2009).  Learning spaces, learning environments and the dis‘placement’ of learning.  British Journal of Educational Technology (2009) doi:10.1111/j.1467-8535.2009.00974.x

http://edutechwiki.unige.ch/en/Ubiquitous_learning
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ubiquitous_learning 

Chapter 7
The Impact of Digital Games on Learning

I found this an interesting read, especially in accordance with my own reflection upon the three classes currently using or having used digital games in order to complement some aspect of learning or having “the ability to make mistakes in a safe environment and and learn from them [which] is one of the key benefits of game-based learning” (Whitton, 2010, p. 104).

Commandos

On the 15th of March, the S3 pupils at Dunoon Grammar School sat their S3 exam ('mocks').  In order to foster relationships - a recurring factor in much of the material being amassed as part of my studies of the MEd in Education on The University of the West of Scotland's Chartered Teacher Pathway programme - I decided to look at the interaction within and between groups of 14 year-old boys, with each group taking part in the playing of the game projected onto a large classroom display.  Each of the 6 groups would control the mouse, direct commands and filter comments and suggestions from the other groups. The pupils are about to conduct research on a topic from which they will develop and deliver a solo talk presentation to the whole class, which will be summatively assessed in accordance with SQA Standard Grade Arrangements.  I am attempting to remove and existing barriers amongst pupils and to continue fostering the supportive and actively collaborative climate necessary in a single gender (all male) class.  These are noted as “unintended learning objectives” (Whitton, 2010, p. 108) and include: “Valuable transferable skills, such as problem solving, teamwork or negotiation” (ibid.).

I was not to be disappointed.

Initial uptake was slow: I put this down to the audience and 'public performance' factor.   There were instances of bravado and a carefree, less-than-interested approach.  One particular academic/quiet pupil made significant progress - suggestions as to having played before (private interview afterwards). 

I then released the 'walkthrough' now that they had mastered basic navigation.   Still, there were small isolated pockets of resistance: disengagement - post and pre-play.

However, there was plenty of humour - pupil-teacher humour and a fair amount of camaraderie/praise.

Sherlock Holmes



Whitton’s provision of examples whereby games can be justified as applicable within a learning environment lend to specific areas within which I have used this game:  

• Narratives associated with the action in the game (e.g. characterizations, back stories, future scenarios);
• Reflective accounts of actions taken in the game and the learning acquired from it; 

(Whitton, 2010, p. 105).

It is important to note Whitton’s view that adults require close connections to be made between game-based activities and learning outcomes and benefits.  With the S1 pupils, merely adopting the game as an adjunct to a piece of study and utilizing it for a generic lesson opening activity has been enough; whilst formative assessment of daily journals helps to deliver feedback about their writing attainment.  This is certainly a justification to anyone seeking educational merit!

Myst

After a single period of this game – used with an extremely able s2 class (aged circa 13) – I observed and detected disengagements that hadn’t been noticed before from the S1 class.  On the 16/03/2010 I passed around a Pros/Cons sheet and asked for at least one entry from each pupil. 

‘Bad graphics’ featured once, but interestingly the cons noted that it was “hard”, “no one can use it” and that it was “confusing” (no context or background is provided).  What also featured was the looseness of the lesson structure and that “we all shout out at once”.

It would be interesting to allow the pupils themselves to structure a ‘best practice’ approach…

On the plus, the idea was “fun” and that some enjoyed “puzzles” and the “mystery”, “scenes” and “setting” were positively remarked upon.  Whitton offers a more fine-grained ‘Engagement Questionnaire’ that could be used in future.

Overall, I was curious about the following:

 “higher levels of engagement with a learning activity are indicative of increased learning from it” (Jacques et al. (1995) cited in Whitton, 2010, p. 110).

But that it “is possible to be engaged while not actually in a state of flow” (Whitton, 2010, p. 110).

“Lepper and Malone (1987) provide evidence that there is a link between intrinsic motivation to learn, engagement and instructional effectiveness” (Whitton, 2010, p. 110).

I shall conclude these musings AFTER I have watched the Youtube clip on ‘flow’.

I wanted to do my game review on a game that would be relevant to my professional work – supporting the analysis of qualitative data. Initially, I looked at what educational games existed in that area.  Most of the educational games I found were aimed at K-12 students.  The people I teach are post-graduates and professional researchers.  I explored what was available for higher education. I did not find any games about analyzing text or visual media. I did consider ‘Revolution’ which is MIT’s Education Arcade’s multi-player role-playing game set on the eve of the American revolution.   http://www.educationarcade.org/node/357 It is a conversion mod of the pc game Neverwinter Nights. It is aimed at high school students but I thought it offered interesting possibilities of exploring multiple realities and perspectives on a social phenomenon.  However, the player is not acting as an analyst, so the game was not really what I was looking for.

 

 

 

I then decided to look at entertainment games – to see if any of them could be adapted for my purpose.  I felt that detective games would be the closest to the analysis of unstructured data. It puts the player in the role of an analyst.  I played Sleuth. http://www.playsleuth.com/ While I enjoyed playing it, I felt it was not what I was looking for. While the detective is in the role of analyst, he/she does not analyse material. It is more of a strategy game. You choose your character and design your avatar.  Each character has different skills so you need to devise a strategy that take advantage of your given skills and allows you to build skills in other areas.  The game automatically analyses the information you are able to collect.

 

I also looked at And then there was none – based on an Agatha Christie novel.  http://www.gamespot.com/pc/adventure/andthentherewerenone/index (My hard drive became corrupted after I played this game – I have no idea if this was just a coincidence.)  Again, it was not quite what I was looking for.  It was more about searching and collecting clues rather than analysis.

 

 

 

 

However, In Memoriam, released in the States as Missing: Since January was more of what I was looking for. http://www.inmemoriam-thegame.com/gb/gam1.htm  It is an adventure game mystery that mixes the game world with real world internet searches.  It also involves the analysis of textual (including emails) and video material.  The player is themself in this game.  I like the mixture of game world and real world and I think this game is the closest to what I think can be used to help in developing skills in analysing qualitative or unstructured data.

 

 

 

Drawn: The Painted Tower
I thought that this was an utterly beautiful looking game. Although some of the narrative segments involved pauses, cryptic message and faintly naff voice over it was still surprisingly engaging. As I explored the game I did have to be quite strategic about what I picked up, what I used, how I chose to progress... There was a lot of looking through an area of a room in the Tower and then having to find the tools/items located elsewhere in or near other parts of the room. On the negative side all those beautiful graphics came with several pauses as areas loaded (and as the areas involve only small-ish amounts of game play this could get tedious). It also felt like quite a lot of clicking around at times - just guessing at answers where I didn't know what to do. Gameplay felt a lot more fluid as I got more used to the cryptic format and I was quite disappointed when my hour long trial ended. Not quite enough to pay $6.99 but almost. I am not entirely sure what the educational value of the game is exactly but there was certainly an aspect of analysis, pattern matching and problem solving that was engaging and got my brain working in an interesting way. But it did feel much more like a highly sophisticated puzzle game more so than an Adventure to me.

Tradewinds Legends
This strategy game was quite fantastically addictive. The concept is extremely simple: you have a ship, a certain amount of cash, and a certain amount of debt. You can increase your cash (and your savings which start out at zero) by buying and selling goods around the series of coastal cities. You can also take on missions and you have to, on occasions, take on pirates. At it's heart the game is a simple trade game but there are also extremely subtle and engaging layers of strategy and analysis: you have to monitor goods prices; you can borrow or save money at different interest rates; you can choose how to arm or protect your fleet and you can expand and repair it as you need. There are lots of choices to make and almost complete control (the random factors being the quasi-optional tasks and the pirate attacks though you come to expect the latter).

Training elements are well integrated into the game - there are a lot of help screens at first and there is always help available either through help text or funny comments that indicate you are looking in the wrong place for something. Pleasingly there is no block on selling goods below their worth - if you want to play a very differnt strategy around the game then you are free to do so. Visually Trade Winds is ludicrously old fashioned but it feels bright and lively, the game play is pretty quick if you want it to be and there are some fun comedy comments, silly catch phrases and virtual banter that gives the game an enjoyable personality. And although the game is clearly very educational - there are a good number of small business owners that could do worth than use it for training themselves in some basic principles of buying, selling and doing well - it is also clearly aimed at adults with the cynical comments and roles of religious figures etc. in the game.

At set up I deliberately picked the one female character available - there were very few female characters in the game and those that were there were mystics/assistants in religious buildings whilst all the bankers, traders, etc. were men. That fits the Arabian Nights theme but is a bit irritating as a female game player. In my one hour of game play I got my character out of debt, into profit and purchased her two new ships. I was delighted and was getting enormously excited about making good trades, getting a good interest rate on my savings, expanding my fleet... I think there is a fairly good likelihood that come the end of this module I may shell out the £17 for the full version. Although the format of the game also reminded me of more sophisticated looking games, particularly things like The Legend of Zelda: Wind Waker, the actual strategies were more grounded in reality and more rewarding to play. I could see huge educational potential here for conveying basic ideas around business strategies and investment. I also thought it was a more realistic way to get a first person "Around the World in 80 Trades" type experience. Overall I found it a very engaging enjoyable game.

SimCity Classic
Sadly SimCity was yet another game which was not compatible with my Mac. Which is disappointing. Having registered for the website the only game I could access with my home computer was a water skiing game which is more of a random element than a true example of game play.

However my partner's computer (also a mac) has a copy of Sims 2 installed so I had a wee look at this instead of the online game. Although my partner has become extremely engrossed in the Sims several times (playing several different families though only usually one at a time) it is not a game I've ever been able to feel as involved in. Although I respond well to the level of control you have over decisions and the personalities of your Sim I have never been wildly impressed with the level of basic knowledge your Sim arrives with. For instance not burning down the house, not using the bathroom when needed, not cooking when hungry... if you are playing an adult Sim these are all skills that are intensely boring to train into your character.

Interestingly I have also always failed to make my own Sims embody my own sexuality because I have confused the game with my choices. I have always found it intriguing that my Sims end up baffled and juggling unsuccessful chaste relationships whilst my partner has successfully created extremely functional same sex partnerships (with an appropriate level of "woo-hoo!") in the game and her characters have been able to also adopt children in the game. I think there is something about how well the game detects your style of play that actually makes it work better for some players than others since it is hard to feel invested and embodied by a character that is not behaving as you would like. I don't think my personal goals in life map conventionally enough for the games algorithms and I suspect this may be part of the problem with my Sims achieving those goals.

There is much talk in both Gee and Whitton books about whether simulation qualifies as a game in any sense. I think the Sims offers an interesting space to consider this as the Sims is very loose and free in form but there are goals and achievements that are imposed on Sims and there are uncontrollable elements that encourage game-like play. Still I don't think it is a game exactly, particularly if games must include an element of competition. Educationally it is an interesting game as whilst it involves various lessons about life and there are some aspects that have quite interesting possibilities. For instance players with mild Aspergers could find the game's rather unintuitive/mechanical analysis of emotions and the ways in which Sims maintain relationships quite a useful aspect of the game for understanding the real world. Teens facing their first experience of independent living might find the games messages about the balue of work and planning useful. And the game has an ongoing message that education and the reading of books and acquiring of skills is always useful which is clearly positive. Having said all of which I don't think there are profound educational lessons innately included in the game. It is the subversive or agenda driven plays of the game that can lead to really interesting learning outcomes - for instance the innovative and touching homeless Alice and Kev experiment in Sims 3.


Google Earth Games

Finally I wanted to pull together my experiences of the team games we built in Google Earth this weeks. Most of my comments here are adapted from my posting on the discussion boards/on the wiki but I felt these were worth recognizing in the blog here.

Team Lara
This was my team's game so I will not discuss my thoughts of it (see my blog post for weeks 5&6 for that), only link to it: http://goteamlara.wordpress.com/



Team Zelda
Team Zelda created a game using a PowerPoint introduction (which caused a few Mac hiccoughs but looked fantastic when I got it working) that explained a mission to identify camps for victims of the recent Haiti earthquake.

The tough part for me was trying to find any sort of site that might be suitable for a camp. I didn't get organised enough to contact my Team Lara colleagues and take part as a team mission - this was something encouraged in the game's introduction and I can see that this would be better was to play - but did lots of exploring on my own. I found the many Haiti layers (provided in a special package created for Google Earth after the earthquake) a little confusing but, more than that, I also found the material quite upsetting to view. It's one thing to see footage on the television but the sheer density of housing and the level of destruction of those buildings made the task at hand quite daunting.

I explored around for several hours as there was absolutely no issue of my not feeling engaged or involved in the game I just felt involved enough that I wanted to do a good job. The aftershock layer really concerned me - I felt I should be looking up further information on earthquake areas and long term damage as I really don't know much about this topic and the idea that my role in the game was taking responsibility for setting up a camp like this (even just within the realm of a game) made me feel under-qualified and nervous about cementing my choices.

In the end I went for sites that looked safe, clear, and relatively accessible:

• 18°32'57.18"N, 72°20'50.86"W
• 18°32'23.27"N, 72°20'59.49"W
• 18°32'54.10"N, 72°20'53.82"W
• 18°33'4.06"N, 72°20'49.63"W

I suppose it would have been good to have a better idea of the pluses and minuses of different sites (particularly those further outside town) in terms of long term issues but I think the bounds of the challenge were well set out in the mission document.

I really liked the game but it was tricky to find the time to do it justice. I could see it working really well in a classroom context as there was a huge number of really interesting and educational discussion points that would be raised by browsing the images and maps and trying to find a good site. I particularly found that the images allowed me to find out so much more about the poverty and organization of Haiti that made sense of subsequent news covefrage around international assistance and practical matters of delivering aid. I found this game a really interesting way to gain insight of a current event and part of the world I soon realized I only knew a tiny bit about. I thought it was also a clever way to leverage all the specially collated resources that wouldn't otherwise have been available for this part of the world.


Team Mario

The Team Mario Game revolved around Food Miles. It was a short simple game in which you watched a video about food miles and the origins of super market food and then had to select items for a stir fry with each decision a trade off between food miles and ethical points.

From the decisions I made I travelled 4609 foodmiles and scored 22 ethics points. A pretty good score based on the guidelines for the game.

I really liked the simplicity of the idea and the execution was beautiful. I did think there should be a more ambiguity in the choices though, perhaps allowing me to make choices before telling me the various good and bad points of each ingrediant. That way I would be more likely to be surprised and find the information memorable. The game's protein choices were prawns and beef but as I was playing my partner also suggested that a vegetarian option like Tofu would have raised a number of useful food miles, ethical and environmental issues that are interesting and useful to discuss. One observation of this game was that it didn't quite feel like a game but I did like that the game allowed the player to make their own choices and the difference in the miles/points clocked up by my coursemates showed how differently it was possible to play.

It would have been great to have a follow up and/or reflection activity to go with this game, particularly if it made you take a look at your own supper or fridge contents or shopping habits (how you get to the shops/waste etc) with a similar critical eye as this would help with the further discussion of grey areas in ethical shopping. In the game as it stood I did really like the contrast of food miles and ethics that was painted. The idea that there are positive ethical and economic benefits to consuming produce from developing countries is a nice touch since awareness of food miles and waste is more acute than awareness of complex agricultural issues at present.


Team Sonic

Team Sonic built their game on a Climate Change layer created by the Met Office. Game play involved undertaking a number of small tasks around the issues of climate change and requiring the reading of first person accounts from the developing work, completion of quizzes, etc. in order to find letters for an anagram that would complete the game.

I found this a really interesting game and the tools and accounts certainly help highlight risks and issues surrounding Climate Change. I think the anagram was a nice idea to bond the game together but I'm not sure if the path from the [final resolved meaning of the] anagram to the specific issues raised in the game is really that clear cut which is an issue in an educational game. Cause and effect are extremely complex in this context and although personal accounts and predictions illustrate the possible consequences of climate change I felt that there was scope here to highlight the problems inherent in such a grey area - say by bringing in issues of natural and man made carbon release, politics around renewables etc. In a classroom context and/or as part of a sound curriculum on the intensely complicated interplay of factors in climate change and the cost/benefit implications of various courses of actions I felt this could be a really useful game though.


Overall I found this a fantastically stimulating few weeks of game design and game play leaving me with huge food for thought.