I must revisit my initial idea of peer-feedback, after some very constructive critical comments on the discussion board. Indeed, the ‘thumbs up and down’ idea could be subject to abuse with colleagues giving each other more positive notes than to other members of the board.

But I will still maintain that some peer-feedback would be of use. One focusing only on positive feedback, where the ready-given responses to feeds/entries could be as such:

“How would you rate the above entry in terms of its relevance to the discussion topic?

·        OK

·        Very relevant/useful

I am beginning to realize the problem a lot of people have with online marking, responses or criticism is that, unlike spoken words given here and now, the online feedback stays there permanently. We don’t want to hear of our flaws (in deeds or in thinking), and if we already do, then the right course of action is to reflect and move on. Negative online feedback is a painful remainder that on that particular occasion we were wrong.

I wrote in the previous posting that the basic principle of online communication is to remember the human, which means consideration for other online users.

Simple and basic as it is, it might seem difficult to implement in online settings, especially in asynchronous ones where we often don’t see the person at the receiving end of the message. Considering the diversity of online communication tools (both synchronous and asynchronous), I wonder if some of them are more successful in helping us comply with the rule. For example,  using videoconferencing should theoretically help us be more human than, let’s say, on an anonymous discussion forum (like the one found in online versions of tabloids where people regularly slag others off for trivial things like an unfetching hat or crazy haircut). And how about instant messenger type of communication tools, including mobile phones,  which sometimes might fall somewhere in between synchronous and asynchronous modes of communication. Due to their frequently limited size (text messages, direct messaging on twitter), users often have to take shortcuts when expressing their views. There is also a question of emotional closeness to the recipient; for example mobile phone messages tend to be more personal so the ‘humanness’ index should be higher. Twitter  is a bit more controversial, especially when you think of its use as a back channel where somebody can be heckled, or tweckled! See Steve Wheeler's post on Weapon of Mass Destruction. Strangely enough this happens when you actually see the person but this sadly doesn't prevent you from forgetting the human!

More loose thoughts related to entry two to follow.

Imagine this; A world where you and your friends meet in the pub, a restaurant, or a coffee shop, order drinks, and sit down to socialise, and talk, and share your experiences. Someone starts talking about something, someone responds , two other people respond, not one after the other, but:

BbOoTh AaRrEe TtAaLlKkIiNnGg AaTt TtHhEe SsAaMmEe TtIiMe

Three and then four people start to talk, not waiting for each other to finish, and to make matters worse, you're each saying something different in the same tone, and then all 8 people join in !

Who do you focus on? can you focus on anyone? Maybe if 2 or 3 people are talking you might be able to pick out a voice but 8 people? What about 16 people? They never shut up ! But you manage to pick out something that some one is saying, and now you want to respond. Everyone is still talking VERY LOUDLY so you close you eyes to focus on your own voice, and join the conversation, or the shouting, or whatever you want to call it. You don't really know if anyone heard you, but when you finish what you're saying, you stop talking to pick out something new from the chaotic situation, and then you close your eyes, and start again.

Welcome to the world of on-line text chat ! But with a difference. You use your eyes, and not your ears. Ten conversations are going on at the same time, but it does not matter because your eyes can pick out the conversations that you want to participate in. If you want to remember what someone said earlier on, you can scroll up, read, and re-read it as many times as you like ! (If there's no video cam, you can also join the chat unshaven, in your pyjamas, listening to some music, watching TV, and eating a tub of Ben & Jerry's).

You can also save the conversation on your local drive, or on the university e-learning discussion board for future reference.

Chat can be a fantastic tool for online learning, where in a very short space of time great minds can meet, focus on a particular topic, and share their ideas. This is true especially when discussions are joined by experienced tutors (Like Rory and Sian) guiding the conversation topics at various intervals.

So until we can develop faster than light travel, go to a nearby star system (Distance and speed depending on how far back in time you want to see), and use a super high resolution telescope with a very wide lens pointed at earth in order to lip read what was said by a particular group of people at a certain time (I don't think sound can travel that far). Until we can do all this, we should certainly further explore the benefits of text chat !       

I thought I would use a post to list a few quotes from this week’s readings. Hopefully they will be useful when I come to writing the synoptic paper :-)

Greenfield (1984) This paper is somewhat dated. However it summarises the early research of video games. Many of it’s findings are still relevant today:

• “Video games have been dubbed the marriage between television and computers”
  
• “Popular arcade games involve tremendous amount of visual action, and is may be one source of their appeal”
  
•  “Video Games are the first medium to combine dynamism with active participatory role for the child”
•  “Another concern about video games is that they are merely sensorimotor games of eye-hand coordination and that they are therefore mindless”
•  “The motivating features of video games are beginning to be put to more explicit educational use” 

Kane (2005) A General Theory of Play. Considers all the dimensions of play.

Caillois (2001) Classification of Games

Newman (2004) What is a video game?

• “Elements of the video game table 2.1: Graphics, Sound, Interface, Gameplay and Story”
  
•  “What a video game is not: a bunch of cool features, a lot of fancy Graphics, a series of challenging puzzles, an intriguing setting and story” (Rollings and Morris, 2000)
• Why do players play? “Rouse (2000) identifies a range of player motivations and expectations. Among them, three are particularly notable: Challenge, immersion and players expect to do, not to watch”.
  
•  “Video games may be understood as a form of ‘embodiment experience”

Photo Credit: tjmwatson (under CC)

As mentioned in my last post, as a child, I was a huge fan of the Commodore 64. About four years ago, I decided to purchase an old C64 on eBay and relive my youth (not sure what happened to my original?). The C64 was released in August 1982. It was the best selling model of the 1980’s. It had a huge 64KB of RAM and a graphics chip with 16 colours! It really was state of the art. My parent’s bought a C64, in 1986, with the intention of using it to manage farm accounts. This was not to be so. It took my Father 4 hours to program the machine to play ‘Ba Ba Black Sheep’, let alone, create, calculate, manage and save any accounts. With so many failed attempts he gave up and passed the machine onto my brother and I. I don’t actually know anyone who used the C64 for anything other than gaming. This is where my passion for all things ICT initially began. I would spend hours working out how to programme the C64 to do very simple (and at the time, fascinating tasks) I managed to play small monophonic tunes, draw very basic pictures and of course there was the game playing. I find it incredible to think that 20 years later I am now able to do the same tasks and much more from my mobile phone! With regards to gaming I was an avid user. With 16 colours the C64 games were just fantastic! ‘Hungary Horace’, ‘Dizzy’, ‘Wheelies’ and ‘Road Blasters’ to name a few (others not the most PC in this day and age). It gives me a very nostalgic, yet strange, feeling when I set up this piece of computing history. Seeing the famous blue C64 screen, holding the ‘Run/Stop’ and 'shift' buttons simultaneously, waiting in anticipation for the game to load; will it load or willit come up with ‘system error’?

C64 Interface

 Hungry Horace Screeshot: Level 1

Photo credits: tjmwatson (under CC)

When I bought the computer some four years ago, I asked for my purchase to be delivered to the school where I was teaching. I couldn’t resist setting it up and letting my pupils see my new toy. At the time, my Intermediate 1 Biology class were working on the subject of ‘Alcohol and Its Effects’. Under the umbrella of this subtopic is ‘Reaction Time’. What better a way to demonstrate reaction time than with a good old 10 minute game of ‘Crazy Cars’ (This is a game where you have to race around a circuit avoiding other cars and potential hazards, ideal for testing reaction time!). After overcoming the basic graphics (one boy asking me, ‘but where is the car?’) the pupils surprisingly got really into the game. They were also very inquisitive as to how the machine worked (i.e. loading of cassettes and the general setup). You can now play many of the C64 games on the iPhone ,however nothing beats the real thing ;-)

The Commodore 64, such a fabulous computer of the past, they have even commissioned a classical orchestra to play the music from the games!

 Pac-Man Screenshot (iPad) Photo Credit: tjmwatson (under CC)

Pac Man was a game that I was first introduced to as a child in the late 1980s. I can't remember which computer I played the game on, but Amstrad springs to mind. The Pac-Man movements are controlled by the game player. The object of Pac-Man is to eat as many Pac-dots as you can without getting eaten by the different colored ghosts that roam around the pac maze. If you eat a large Pac-dot it will turn all the ghosts blue. When the ghosts are blue, you (Pac-Man) can in turn eat them. Fruit also appears at random points in the maze. If you eat these fruits you will gain more points.

For the purpose of the course, I downloaded Pac-Man "lite" (the free version) for my iPad.

I think this is a great little game for testing reaction time and small scale problem solving. However in terms of learning, I am not sure exactly what the player *is* learning? I guess there is a certain amount of physical finger coordination to be learned and perhaps the Thinking Correctly Under Pressure (TCUP) theory, but how could this be applied in another context? Perhaps when playing sport and choosing your tactics?

As Greenfield (1984) states video games are "merely sensory motor games of hand-eye coordination"; quite a sweeping statement but applicable in the context of Pac-Man and many of the basic games of the era. Other similar games of the 1980s that spring to mind Hungry Horrace (the first computer game I owned for the Commodore 64) and the Dizzy Game series (more in another post)

How things have changed with touch-screen technology and augmented reality just some of the things that I am looking forward to investigating further during this course :-)

Photo Credit: tjmwatson (Under CC)

Hello fellow students and tutors!

I thought I would use my first post to (re) introduce myself. Sorry if you have already read my introduction on the discussion board!

The Games Based Learning module is my fourth course. I am also studying the Research Methods course this semester. After these modules I am hoping to go on to the dissertation. I was a teacher of Biology and Science for 7 years. For the last three years I have worked in project management (ICT classroom based initiatives and VLEs). My current role is elearning community facilitator for the Scottish Traveller Education Programme (STEP). My current project is called eLearning and Traveller Education Scotland (eLATES) I am supporting, coordinating and managing the deployment of Glow (the Scottish Schools Digital Network and VLE) for mobile and Travelling Children. I would class myself as a *casual* gamer. As a child I was a huge fan of the Commodore 64 computer. More recently I was involved in a number of games based learning trials in the Primary Classroom (2008). These included the use of Sony PSPs as tools for learning and also using Desktop PC software such as Media Stage and CrazyTalk.

I am looking forward to exploring the potential that digital games have to enhance learning experiences for all ages and sharing practice, knowledge and experiences with others on the course :-)

More information about my online life can be found on my website: www.tessawatson.com

Please feel free to leave me and comments or questions (positive or negative!)... They are what makes blogging so worth while :-)

Ok I am rather sheepishly bring my seeping epistimological wound into my own blog where I can lick it quietly.  Sorry I know that is gross but you know what I mean - we had enough fur and feathers flying in the forum, that even though everything has settled down nicely I feel a bit nervous about rubbing my hands together and saying...

 "So, epistemology eh?"

It began here:

Me:  But in this case, I just don't see this because, it is for the purposes of our current discussion unknowable - the nature of truth and reality. It seems like quibbling to discuss this when a certain functional acceptance of true and false is necessary to get simple tasks (like writing dissertations and cooking chickens) done. Especially as much of it seems like semantics. Truth like greek love and eskimo snow has many different forms, and one of us picks one and an other picks another and then we have a discussion - which is essentially meaningless because we are talking about different things.

Hamish:  In writing your dissertation you will be planning to come to some conclusions, I assume? It is really rather expected. De rigueur, you might say. So you will be making truth claims. That is the nature of it. You need to know then, what it is you are doing. You are not doing journalism. You need to understand what you are saying and, impostantly, what you are *not* say, or able to say. That is what we are about. And it is challenging.
 

This is the thing, and I fear I may have exaggerated my lack of understanding along the way somehow, but I get what Epistemology is, and how it differs from Ontonology.  (I have no idea why I am capitalising them, maybe I have a German ancestor, or possibly just giving them the respect of Very Important Words I Don't quite Feel I Can Relax Around.)  Anyway, the thing is I am not sure why we have to bother with them in order to do research. Lol, I could hear the collective gasp of horror from everyone who has every done research ever after I typed that. Shall I explain here that I have never done research ever or leave that for another blog post.  Ok, ABP.  I really want to be convinced, by the way - I am very much lawful good when I play dungeons and dragons.  I would love to conform, I just can't fake it.

Anyway, according to the whims of epistemology I need to get off the fence and have an opinion about knowledge.

When I make a truth claim about something either (and these are the main current contenders, not an exhaustive list, and assuming my research is good) the meaning I am offering up:

a) it is there, in stuff, and is therefore something I have discovered - and had I not discovered it, it would still be there

b) it is in my head when I 'look at' stuff and I inflict it on whatever I am assigning meaning to, but it is not inherent in the thing itself

c) it is constructed in the relationship between me and stuff

If I  believe the former I am an Objectivist, if I believe the one in the middle I am a Subjectivist and if I believe the latter I am a Constructivist which is apparently the coolest position to hold at the time of writing - and you can see why, it is like the democrat of the epistemological world.

I look at those 3 choices and think "no I don't want to be any of them because I can see that all are equally possible and equally unknowable" and if I am picking one, then it is because I have to, or because it comes with good research tools and therefore I will be an agnostic when it comes to knowledge kthanx.

What makes it worse is that you have to pick one (and I get it that you don't have to be 'it' forever, you can select a stance for a particular research interest) because the rest of anything to do with research is totally dependant on this issue.  If you don't have an epistemological stance you can't have a theoretical perspective, if you don't have a theoretical perspective you can't have a methodology, and yes... Crotty concedes rather magnanimously you can have methods because they are rather promiscuous critters who will hang out with anyone, but if you have a bunch of methods without the other parts then pretty much everyone is going to be tittering behind their hands when you hand in your dissertation.  

I feel like I am being told that in order to read a Bible I need to be a Christian, and if I fancy taking a peak at a Qur'an I must convert to Islam (but don't worry I can go back to being Christian when I have finished).  And when I wail "but I am agnostic" I feel like my inner voice says, "oh well then why not adopt a Buddhist Approach, because that is essentially agnostic, it is not like they believe in God, and then you can read  the Tripitaka, which is pretty cool, it has the fire sermon in it and everything.  Go on, be a Buddhist, it will make Hamish happy.

Apparently we have been recommended to keep a blog for Research Methods.  I feel like I have had so many blogs my MSc in E-learning, but in fact it has been 2 main ones, this for IDEL and a Wordpress blog for Digital Cultures.  I didn't know I could access either still until Damien mentioned Holyrood Park blogs and I went there hit a few links and found this old girl sitting here all neglected like Miss Havisham. 

Seems appropriate that my IDEL blog gets to be my Research Methods blog.  If I had my time again I would continue to keep a blog after IDEL through every course, as I think that would have been invaluable.  Just thought I would mention that in case there are any IDELers wandering past, lol.  

Anyway, Research Methods... yikes.   A month ago I was in the blissful state of just worrying about the maths, little did I know that that worry would be utterly subsumed by my need to worry about everything else.  I am currently in the zone where everything I say on the DB seems to be wrong, or off the mark somewhat - so it will be a relief to come here and mutter to myself in my inappropriately humorous, journalistic manner.  I have struggled with being insufficiently academic from the beginning - I bet there is a blog about it back there somewhere - and hoped that one day something would click and I would have access to an appropriate mode of discourse (whether this would be a new way of thinking or simply a new way of presenting my ideas I don't know), but now I am going to do myself the favour of not worrying about it.  Hopefully I will be able to muster enough faux gravitas for my dissertation but ultimately I accept it is not me.  I am not academic.  Nuff said.

That isn't to say I haven't loved it.  I fully appreciate every piece of wisdom that has gone in.  I just don't seem to have much control over how it comes out, lol.  And before I give the impression that 'this is the end my friend' it isn't... I have one more course after Research Methods before I can consider myself a Master *snort* oh yeah, and the small thing of the dissertation. 

Lolz.

 Anyway, as ever this blog will be public and comments are welcome from all and sundry, especially the sundry.

I have to admit that when I first heard about the digital natives and the digital immigrants, specifically within this environment of e-learning, my immediate thought was that the Digital Natives are teachers and lecturers (You) wanting to persuade and teach students (Us) about learning technology, so that we can migrate to a new way of learning (e-learning). 

But that is not the case ! As defined by Mark Prensky [1] the originator of this theme, the Digital Natives are students that: 

"have spent their entire lives surrounded by and using; computers, video games, digital music players, video cams, cell phones, and all the other toys and tools of the digital age."  

But how strict is this definition? Speaking from personal experience, I was once upon a time a High School student during the early 90's in Syria, which at the time was certainly not very digitalised. My only experience of using a computer during that time was a 1 month summer course learning BASIC programming using a Commodore 64. I didn't begin using computers properly until starting university in 1995, as a Computer Systems Engineering Student at Sunderland University. I have not spent my entire life surrounded by Digital Gadgets, but I do not consider myself less comfortable using such technologies than those who have.

I turn to the Internet first rather than later for information, I enjoy experimenting with how to use new technology first before turning to a manual, and I do a fair bit of on-line socialising. So by Prensky's definition, am I a Digital Native, a Digital Immigrant? Something in between? Or are computing and technology graduates an exception to this definition? 

Also, the most complete and popular social networking site on the internet at this time is Facebook Launched in the year 2004, 3 years after Marc Prensky's paper: Digital Natives, Digital Immigrants [1]. So there seems to be a new generation that came after the original Digital Natives of the late 1990's, what do we call this new group? 

  "If we ask ‘native of where?’, we begin to see that each demands a territory, a nation‐state or a landmass"[2]   

 So I am slightly confused about what is meant by Digital Natives and Digital Immigrants, who belongs to these groups? Findings in [3] suggest that there are a number significant minorities within the younger generation that are not as technologically adept as their fellow students, and that there are indeed differences between age groups, and between student groups in difference locations. The paper suggests that "age maybe less important than exposure to technology", a statement which makes more sense to me than Prensky's definition.

My mother and elder members of my family have been exposed to technology for a relatively short period of their lives, but they are confident Digital consumers. And I'm not sure how they would react if I told them that in some academic and learning circles they are known as "Digital Immigrants". They would probably laugh, but even so I don't see the point in using terms that divide directly or indirectly people from each other based on their age.  

Having said all this, I do agree with Prensky's intentions. This is an age where students (of any age) have access to the conveniences of the Digital world. There are more ways to interact with each other than ever before, and they have access to anything they need when they need it. They don't even need to go to the library to find information because it can be found from home on the internet in many formats; Wikis, Videos, News Articles, Blogs, etc.

Therefore teachers must adapt and make use of this technology in order to make learning more of an effective and enjoyable process. But also, the appropriate educational bodies must provide teachers with all the support they need so they can this.  

[1]Digital Natives, Digital Immigrants

http://www.marcprensky.com/writing/Prensky%20-%20Digital%20Natives,%20Digital%20Immigrants%20-%20Part1.pdf

[2] Digital native' and 'digital immigrant' discourses: a critique:

https://www.vle.ed.ac.uk/webct/RelativeResourceManager/Template/readings/bayneross.pdf 

[3] Net generation or Digital Natives: Is there a distinct new generation entering university?

https://www.vle.ed.ac.uk/webct/RelativeResourceManager/Template/readings/Jones_2010.pdf