Flow

The discussion of “Flow” from Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi (TEDtalksDirector 2008) and Nakamura and Csikszentmihalyi (2002)[4] really captured my imagination. This idea of reaching a heightened state of awareness and of filtering and focus, where one loses all track of time whilst absorbed in a task, is very recognisable and seductive as a state for learning. The further idea that even unengaging activities can become engaging if Flow is achieved (Nakamura & Csikszentmihalyi 2002 [4]: 92) is particularly pedagogically intriguing. In theory it suggests that if you can provoke efficient behaviour you can engage a student with learning though I think this would be a cynical and ineffective way to ensure your learners actually engage with the curriculum. However the related idea that a more skillful task and “skill stretching” (Massimini in [4]) is more demanding and helps promote a state of flow and engagement seems logical and it is self-evident in personal and/or many group learning activities that a lack of challenge can quickly lose attention.

How one creates and assesses a state of flow seems to be a significant challenge despite efforts to measure (e.g. Csikszentmihalyi & Csikszentmihalyi (1988), Mayers (1978) both in [4]) and create computational spaces designed for flow (e.g. Schmidt (2000), Trevino & Trevino (1992), Matocchio (1993) as discussed in Nakamura and Csikszentmihalyi (2002) [4]). But there seems to be a relationship between self-esteem and flow (perhaps in both directions) and a role for day to day success to contribute to flow (Schmidt 2000 quoted in [4]) - both aspects can certainly be supported by the pedagogic choices and mediation that takes place in digital or physical learning environments. Interestingly the fostering environments identified (Montossori schools, occupational therapy, exhibits in the Getty Museum in LA (in exhibits)) are about creating the freeing and open environments often associated with pioneering work spaces such as the Google offices in the US and Switzerland. The further example of Key School (Whalen 1999 in [4]) appears to offer facilities that enable proximal learning as well as fostering flow states and this is perhaps no accident. Indeed even if flow is not a useful theory (a question raised in our tutorial with Nicola Whitton this week) establishing creative spaces that raise learner self esteem and their sense of personal achievement can certainly have no ill benefits (whether in digital game-based learning, online or physical spaces).

From the more specific games angle Nakamura & Csikszentmihalyi (2002) talk about relaxation and flow as being two intrinsically rewarding states which would seem to raise a useful role for games in finding educationally beneficial flow. Furthermore LeFevre (1988 in [4]) talks about a desire for leisure even when workers are experiencing flow, a challenging effect but one which should further enforce the role of games in creating flow.

In reading about flow the part that rang most true for me was the idea of the “autotelic personality” - a person who enjoys life and/or does things for their own sake. Abuhamdeh (2000 in [4]) indicates that autotelics are less stressed and strained in flow than out (whilst non-autotelics experience opposite states). This resonated with my own usage of time and perhaps could be interpreted as the reasoning behind the idea that “if you want something done, ask a busy person”. However I found myself wondering about the conflict between useful and useless states of flow? You can, from what I can see, be autotelic and productive but you may also have trouble harnessing flow on the activity you want to focus or achieve progress on (vs. a fun or less important goal). Flow can also be interrupted so unrealistic or unmet goals, reminders or interruptions may trigger drops in self-esteem and breakage of flow.

I did not fine Crawford (1982) [3] as exciting. Crawford seems to suggest that exploration and fantasy must always be interlinked but I think my science and tech interests contribute to my personal sense that exploration is about imagination, trial and error and as free and creative a space as can be provided. However I don't think that fantasy is an essential to that process – even in games. Games do offer safety nets – I think we have discussed that throughout the last few months – and can offer some of recognition (I am not sure all games must have interaction at the core but a game like N0t Pr0n can be frustrating because it takes place on an individual and pretty much private space) . Crawford's suggestion that games were the earliest form of communication is problematic to me but I think if one thinks of playfulness as being a key part of survival I can see and accept that argument about the centrality to play and games.

Crawford also raises the issue of sensory qualities (“proof of games reality”) being important to motivating and enjoying game play. This harks back to de freitas (2008) [7] and her discussion of game quality as important to learning. I am not convinced by either Crawford or de freitas here but acknowledge that the prevailing direction of commercial games is towards the hyper real – whether in “realistic” visual scenarios such as war games or simulations (e.g. recent versions of The Sims) or real looking high definition fantasy games such as Final Fantasy and recent Zelda incarnations (see below - the latter video even agrees with Crawford and de freitas that better graphics make for better engagement).

As I have mentioned before on this blog I am not convinced that realistic games are automatically engaging nor that realistic high definition graphics are required to become immersed in a game but I wanted to note the similarity in those arguments from the very different perspectives of Crawford and de freitas.

ARGs (Alternate Reality Games)

The remainder of this week's readings complimented our games focus of Alternate Reality Games. Whitton (2010) [2] and (2008) [5] specifically examined the role of ARGs in learning contexts. Whitton (2010) [1] meanwhile discussed the complexities of assessing the effectiveness and learning from digital games as well as highlighting the importance of aligning engagement to desired learning outcomes, something particularly pertinent to sophisticated gaming contexts including ARGs and MMORPGs. Indeed such sophisticated games, by virtue of their complexity and the cost of development and infrastructure, will often be designed and run by commercial or external companies whose core focus is likely to be entertainment rather than education (even if their games may coincidentally be well suited to teaching and learning.

Whitton (2010) [2] is a case study of the University of Brighton's “Who is Herring Hale?” student induction ARG which consisted of 10 tasks over the course of students' first term at the university. In some senses this is a very encouraging case study as the facilities used to create and deliver the game were relatively inexpensive (with the notable exception of staff time) and take up, whilst not dramatic, was relatively good with around 15% completing at least one task in the game. Since these were involved explorations of physical student support services and resources this represents a significant amount of effort on the part of those taking part. Indeed the launch of the game was via a student quiz that offered two ipods as prizes, and the start of the game also coincided with the launch of a university wide social networking system further raising visibility of the initiative within the organisation.

What surprised me, however, was not the innovation in the induction game but how much like a professional development course the game was in terms of activities. This digital game revolved largely around reading information leaflets of rather general tone – rather than relating specifically to students own areas of study or interest. Additionally since the programme was linear in structure tasks like “find and apply for a specific job” will not be of interest/appropriate to many students and is a very involved and invasive task in comparison to later weeks' activities which involve reading leaflets. The responsiveness to real events is a nice idea but the timeline of 10 weeks seems excessive, particularly given the many other activities that students will be interested in as they begin courses and settle into the organisation. Reading through the numbers of participants it also seemed bizarre that only a tiny proportion of new students were invited to take part in the quiz and these were, by their selection process, those that were already most interested in official university information. Furthermore the “debrief” sessions only involved the 12 students that completed the ARG which seems odd since it is likely to be those students that did not, in the first place, get 70% in the new student quiz and those who dropped out of the game early – these seem likely to be students far more likely to be excluded (by their own choice or the choice of format) of existing induction processes. Although this game was measured and assessed I therefore question the measure of assessment since the audience was self-selecting, committed and interested in the game and the reasons for other students not taking part were not properly examined. I take Whitton's end of case study Tip on board – mysteries and quizzes are not for all – but I suspect that 12 people out of a possible 5000 may not represent a helpful proportion of the student body compared to traditional induction systems and the game may not financially be easily justified by this level of uptake.

Were I involved in the team behind the game I think I would have wanted to involved several students who had recently completed the first term (or year) of university and asked them to indicate the type of induction information they would want, the formats that appeal and the timing that such information would be useful. I would want them to inform the design significantly since the gap between information professionals and new students is enormous. To some extent it would be most appropriate to ask students completing secondary school to help craft the game as this would likely most match up to the expectations and needs of induction but there would be considerable complexity to doing this. However whilst looking at ARGs this week I became aware of SmokeScreen, a game built around internet safety and supported by 4iP (a funding arm of Channel 4). This game takes leverage from shows like Skins in it's alternate reality story and uses realistic looking social sites as part of the game. This seems more in tune with the expectations, aesthetic and digital savvy of young people though it will, of course, have cost far more money to initially set up. However the tasks are far more integrated to the story than those of Who is Herring Hale? and I think that is an interesting aspect of comparing different ARGs – the engagement possible in the alternate reality can vary greatly and whilst the slickness of a game may not matter I think integrity and narrative relevance of each task is crucial to building an involving scenario.

Of the ARG games I was able to test this week I found World Without Oil rather unengaging but this is probably a result of the fact that the game has finished. Video is a great medium for communication but I suspect this game was far more involving for participants than for viewers. Darfur is Dying was very effective in raising awareness of the bleakness of refugee life in the Darfur region of Sudan. However it's strength – showing how tough life is – is also the games biggest weakness as you cannot progress far enough into the game to become highly engaged. As an engagement and awareness raising tool it is excellent but I think as an ARG it has some problems. Indeed on the discussion board I have also been wondering about:

“how problematic - especially on a less learner centred course or one with a central strand of physical meet ups/tutorials - a truly emotionally engaging game is in terms of honest responses and reflections from learners. The risk factor in engaging goes up enormously in a group - especially the relatively random and relatively fleeting groupings that often characterise a single course of study - if the grounding is highly emotional and personal. I think the Darfur games this week is an interesting game from this perspective as it is instantly profoundly upsetting and game play, no matter how skilled, seems destined to always end in the death or rape (or both) of a character and there is, of course, the unsettling reminder that this game is based on real situations. I would have great trouble learning socially with a game like that as the natural tendency in a group play or discussion session is to turn to macabre humour or outrage. It is much harder to share the distress and reflect on how that reaction relates back to reality.”

Indeed I think role play – often a key component of ARGs - can be very tricky because of that issue of balance - it is risky to emotionally engage and be really part of the moment and taking a cynical attitude provides safety from exposure, particularly in social games or in public gaming settings (like a classroom or computer lab) where there is an aspect of performance. In the case of Darfur is Dying there is a great potential to feel distressed or shamed by failure if you are seen to try over and over again but still achieve no progress in the game and/or you are being seen to select children for tasks that will see them murdered, abducted or raped if unsuccessful.

Notpron was the game that most grabbed my imagination as the tasks were quite geeky and obtuse and that appealed to my explorative side. Although the game has been running for 6 years it remains fairly fresh though it's low resolution origins won't work for all and the lateral thinking required can be extremely challenging. Viola Quest was also surprisingly engaging. Although the look and feel was, compared to it's age, a little low resolution and there were uses of stock images that seemed at odds with the plot the actual puzzles and challenges were very enjoyable and appropriately challenging. As an induction process I am not sure if it would be the most efficient way to learn about Manchester Metropolitan University but I can certainly see that it would be a memorable and fun way to find out useful information in spare moments with a little competitive lure to bring me back regularly. Meanwhile Emergent Game, like World Without Oil, rather suffered for being complete but I loved the visual style of the site and the game certainly looked fun to take part in. Like Hunt The Poem there seemed to be a real sense of community around the game and that would certainly help motivate participation and retention of players. Planetarium reminded me a little of Myst (odd since I think Notpron was the most Myst like of all this week's games) and I failed to engage with the story and format of the puzzles – I think in part this was a resistance to register and login to the game (I didn't have the same response to Emergent Game partly because it was clearer who I was registering my data with and that they were trustworthy) as I found the initial puzzles difficult and not very entertaining at all.

Geocaching is a phenomenon I was already well aware of as there is a large geo community based at and around several projects and services at my work. I am actually not sure that I would previously have classified that activity as an ARG exactly. It's inclusion on the list made me wonder if communities of competitive bird watchers, mountaineers, etc. could be seen, in some way, as taking part in ARGs. This challenging use of labels resonates with an issue I raised in these week's tutorials as I wanted to explore what the difference between an ARG and a subculture might be since so many parts of being a key member of a cultural tribe or subculture relates to attaining or participating in competitive rights, learning cultural practices and vocabularies, and building networks and status in the group. It is not an issue I found closure on but it did make me reassess the gaming aspects of every day life again. The idea that one would go on a long walk uphill purely to geocache the experience seems bizarre to me, but then I rarely enjoy an experience until I have tweeted some sort of brief summary to share what I am doing and I certainly note and can (occasionally) be a little competitive about my popularity on the service. There are some really interesting examples of crowd sourcing sites that make really good use of creating a sense of competitive community so that contribution becomes a game. GalaxyZoo (http://www.galaxyzoo.org/) and the Australian National Library Newspaper digitisation project (http://newspapers.nla.gov.au/) both come to mind as they use tools like leaderboards and prizes to turn work (that could be costly and take a great deal of time to complete any other way) into fun.

Finally I also wanted to share a few links this week. First is a news item I saw after our ARG week had finished (but before I had completed this post). A child has racked up hundreds of pounds of debt in Farmville, a game which is a sort of a cross between an ARG and a MMORG that sits on Facebook. Although the story will provoke criticism of online games I think there is an aspect here that is quite intriguing. The sense of fantasy was such that this child spent all of their own real world savings to buy virtual goods and virtual points to progress through the game. This is a powerful and engaging game and, no matter to what extent the game is or could be educational, this shows the power of an absorbing sense of play (and flow?) that can be engendered in fantasy games (even those that are promoted as casual play experiences).

The other link was the Games For Change Toolkit which I thought was a great attempt to make the process of creating games as inventive and enlightening as the process of playing them. The initiative offers, as it's mission statement, that it will:

• “transform urban youth into successful students and global and community leaders by engaging them in socially dynamic, content-rich learning experiences.”

And the site is rich in useful content for game creation arranged in really unusual and visual ways that fit well with the mission for making social games. The site also features huge numbers of games that have been created using the tools and ideas of Games for Change so I felt it complimented many of the games which we have been looking at this week.

References

1. Whitton, N. (2010) Chapter 7, 'Assessing the Impact of Digital Games on Learning'. In Learning with Digital Games: A practical guide to engaging students in higher education, London: Routledge. (core textbook)

2. Whitton, N. (2010) Case Study 1 in Chapter 11, 'Who is Herring Hale?'. In Learning with Digital Games: A practical guide to engaging students in higher education, London: Routledge. (core textbook)

3. Crawford, C. (1982) Chapter 2, 'Why do People Play Computer Games?'. In The Art of Computer Game Design. (online html or pdf)

4. Nakamura, J and Csikszentmihalyi, M. (2002) Chapter 7, 'The Concept of Flow'. In The Handbook of Positive Psychology by C.R. Snyder and S.J. Lopez. Oxford University Press. (p89-91 specifically, online)

5. Whitton, N. (2008) Alternate Reality Games for Developing Student Autonomy and Peer Learning. LICK '08 Conference Proceedings, Napier Univeristy, Edinburgh (p32-40, online pdf)

6. TEDtalksDirector. (2008). Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi: Creativity, fulfillment and flow. Retrieved 29^th March 2010. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fXIeFJCqsPs.

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

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.