e-Clippings (Learning As Art)

Shootorials: Kongregate Teaches You How To Make Your Own Games

Kongregate, my favorite place for demonstrating the endless variety of Flash-based game potential (currently 8,334 free games), is now hosting a tutorial section designed to teach you how to build Flash-based games.

They provide a side-scrolling game called "Shoot!"...so you play the game, then you download the source code, and off you go. Currently they have three tutorials up with 6 more in the pipe.

I love this - how smart is Kongregate being?

"The Effectiveness of a Web-based Board Game for Teaching Undergraduate Students Information Literacy Concepts and Skills" (D-Lib article)

Abstract: "To teach incoming undergraduate students information literacy skills, a research team at the University of Michigan School of Information developed the Defense of Hidgeon, a web-based board game. We opted for a game in lieu of other approaches because what people are doing when they are playing good games is good learning. This article describes the game's backstory, how to navigate its 34-space game board, and special game-play features. The research team invited a class of undergraduate students to play the game, gave monetary awards to winning teams, and interviewed students about their game-play experiences to determine what they learned and obtain their suggestions for improvements to the game. The authors offer three premises for the redesign of the Defense of Hidgeon and discuss these premises with regard to the design of future information literacy games."

Latest Issue of The Escapist Focuses on War Games and Gaming

Not All Fun and Wargames:
In spite of first-person shooters such as America's Army having been used by the military for recruitment, the focus of military training simulations isn't thinking with your proverbial rifle. The Army is using games as tactical decision aids, training soldiers to make better decisions and preparing them mentally for what they will experience.

Future Battlefields in the Palm of Your Hand:
But as game developers are thinking up new tools for players to use in their quests for galactic salvation, there has been another company slowly bringing those ideas to a battlefield near you.

The Thinking Man's Warfare:
More than most other areas of popular culture, videogames have demonstrated awareness of their historical moment, as the plethora of military shooters and dystopian plotlines can attest. But thus far, games have avoided engaging the real-life issues to which they are responding.

From Gamers to Soldiers:
The dilemma above is not an unusual one for a U.S. soldier serving in Iraq. While traditional training programs prepare young soldiers well for day-to-day tactical and operational functions, there are learning gaps that leave them underprepared for issues involving leadership, improvisation, cultural awareness and interpersonal relationships. So how do military training commands and schools teach soldiers to handle these delicate situations, where they are forced to make decisions that could save (or cost) lives? Increasingly, they are turning to virtual experience learning systems and advanced training simulations that pause to allow users to weigh their options at critical decision points, providing a safe environment in which to make these choices before facing them in potentially life-or-death conditions.

To the Front Lines:
When videogames become a hotbed of public controversy, the enraged gamer's default defense is "it's just a game." But when told that interactive entertainment is nothing more than a brain-rotting waste of time, he'll declare it a medium of artistic expression. Pundits decrying violent or sexual content in games are taking them too seriously; everyone else isn't taking games seriously enough. Never shall the two conflicting defenses meet.

   

Tim O'Reilly asks the Question that Raph Koster Asked Back in February...are we working on the right things?

Raph Koster, at the last Game Developers Conference (1, 2), shocked a few people when after showing pictures of Club Penguin and Second Life - he juxtaposed those with images of Darfur and Haiti. His point was to ask why game developers are doing what they do - and if they were perhaps squandering the potential of this powerful medium in which they were engaged. Seems that Tim O'Reilly is now asking the same question of the Web 2.0 world.

At the latest Web 2.0 Expo in New York, O'Reilly asked that in the face of global warming, a growing income gap and the unprecedented financial crisis - if developing a Facebook app so that we could 'throw sheep' at each other, was the best use of our talents.

These two pieces just have me wondering - is the learning/training industry asking itself this question? Is theer any expectation that it should do so? If we do ask the question and the answer is something other than compliance training and page-turners - then how do we answer the inevitable follow-on: how do we do something more meaningful and still pay our employees and our rent?

Video Game Catch-Up: Tech, terrorism, autonomous AI and an MMOLG

First the tech:
What’s Powering the Next-Generation: A review of the current and up-and-coming game engines

Top 10 Game Technologies of the Next-Generation: Tech beyond just engines (like physics engines) that will create next-gen capabilities

The best gaming laptop money can buy: Categories include budget, performance and extreme - also has a link to the Best gaming Desktop Money can Buy

Now the terror:
Pentagon Researcher Conjures Warcraft Terror Plot: Yes, that's right - with a lot of effort and going to some ridiculous translation lengths, the possibility exists that terrorists could plan an attack in something like World of Warcraft. OMG, that means I bet they could also use exotic technology like email and cell phones and cars......

The AI looks cool:
"The xaitThink module enables agents to learn by experience or inference, to react to varying situations and to act autonomously within their world." Now all you have to do is use their rule-based system to create your own normed-out environment and then build all your compliance testing for things like sexual harassment and ethics inside that system. That's all.

Oh and Holy Zork Batman! Turns out video games are actually good for kids:
A study by the Pew Internet & American Life Project found that "that virtually all American teens play computer, console, or cell phone games and that the gaming experience is rich and varied, with a significant amount of social interaction and potential for civic engagement."

...almost forgot, meet my new friend, GrockIt the "Massively Multi Player Online Learning Game." GrockIt is currently getting ready for a closed beta (sign up here), but according to a story on TechCrunch - here is how it works: "After logging in, users are presented with a list of active classrooms, each of which consists of less than a half dozen students. Once the session begins, the students are presented with a question along with a set of possible answers. Students can use an embedded chat box to debate on the possible choices, and can also leave comments beneath individual answer choices. After choosing an answer, Grockit highlights the correct one and an explanation detailing why it was the right choice. As the sessions progress, students can award each other with "Grockit Points" for participating, which allow them to increase their Grockit rank (up to a level 10 blackbelt). The company says this leveling system gives users an incentive to play smart, and play often, and has worked well during its beta testing." Hmmm...getting users actively involved in their learning and working with others...hmmmm.....where else could we apply that dynamic...hmmmm...I wonder....

"Studies: Video Games Can Aid Students, Surgeons" (CBS News)

(link)

"Researchers who gathered in Boston for the American Psychological Association convention detailed a series of studies suggesting video games can be powerful learning tools _ from increasing younger students' problem-solving potential to improving the suturing skills of laparoscopic surgeons."

"U.S. Spies Use Custom Videogames to Learn How to Think" (WIRED)

(WIRED link)

excerpt:
"In the wake of the intelligence bungles that propelled the United States into the Iraq war, it's no secret that the nation's spies have been working to improve the quality of their analysis. Now the top U.S. military intelligence agency has come up with a new tool for teaching recruits critical thinking skills: videogames.

The U.S. Defense Intelligence Agency has just taken delivery of three PC-based games, developed by simulation studio Visual Purple under a $2.6 million contract between the DIA and defense contractor Concurrent Technologies. The goal is to quickly train the next generation of spies to analyze complex issues like Islamic fundamentalism.

Given a choice between a droning classroom lecture or a videogame, the best method for teaching Generation Y was obvious. "It is clear that our new workforce is very comfortable with this approach," says Bruce Bennett, chief of the analysis-training branch at the DIA's Joint Military Intelligence Training Center.

Wired.com had an opportunity to play all three games, Rapid Onset, Vital Passage and Sudden Thrust. The titles may conjure images of blitzkrieg, but the games themselves are actually a surprisingly clever and occasionally surreal blend of education, humor and intellectual challenge, aimed at teaching the player how to think."

SHOCKER: Most Kids Think That Learning from Games Would Be a Good Idea

Paul McNamara over at Network World's BuzzBlog reports on a study from Project Tomorrow.

This survey data is evidently drawn from all 50 states, American DOD schools, Canada, Mexico and
Australia including 319,223 K-12 students - 25,544 teachers - 19726 parents - 3,263 school leaders
from 3,729 schools and 867 districts. According to the report the responding schools were 97% public schools – 3% private schools, 32% Urban – 40% Suburban – 29% Rural, 43% Title I eligible; and 29% majority – minority student population.

Some of favorite findings:

Games make it easier to understand difficult concepts – 51%
o I would be more engaged in the subject – 50%
o I would learn more about the subject – 46% (56% of students in K-2 chose this as their #1 reason)
o It would be more interesting to practice problems – 44%

Here is another: "Only 3% of elementary students say they don’t play electronic games on some kind of device, 9% of middle school kids and 17% of high school kids."

Hmmm....wow....I wonder if maybe we should continue the debate about whether or not games are good for learning or maybe, here is an alternative...just shut up, accept the data and start really figuring out how to do it write and for PETE"S SAKE understand that design principles, ESPECIALLY design principles (except they aren't really design principles are they Adriana? ;-))...are not crafted in stone and can and should change and that BY ALL THAT'S GOOD AND PURE the classrooms and instructor-led training  were  probably NEVER studied RE their effectiveness as learning environments but rather as production environments. I'm sure that the Romans thought their empire wold stand for all time as well and look what happened to them.

Phew....Someone had me my water bottle.....sorry...its just that some of the comments on the original article are so wrong-headed that they just sent my blood pressure reeling - you should read them...

Grid 16: How Fast Can You Learn, Prioritize, and React?

OK...take 3 minutes and head over to Kongregate and try Grid 16. I don't care if you're a 'gamer' or not (whatever that means)...head over and see how you do...no instructions...just the admonitions to "Use Your Gamer Logic" and "Do Not Panic"....play it twice...did you get better?

Now take a look at the results page....
...nice feedback...I'm glad I scored high on "Prioritizing" ...I think it really matters in which order the mini games come up too....wow...nice experience though and the music alone is enough to get your heart rate up....

"The Core of Fun" (Raph Koster via IT Conversations)

Why I just found this podcast, I don't know (it was recorded a year ago). Still, its a great listen and may actually become a collector's item or at least an object that some will point as being from the "Pre-Dark Raph" era. ;-)

(excerpt)
"Fun is something everyone loves and it can make any experience better, but few people really understand it. Fortunately, Raph Koster has turned fun into a science and he breaks it down in this keynote from the O'Reilly Emerging Technology Conference. He gives a list of ways in which an activity can be made more fun, with examples from social media and ecommerce. Fun comes from learning and mastering new experiences. Just as any game is composed of smaller sub-games that need to be mastered, so can any activity be broken up into sub-activities, all of which can be made more fun. Some of the elements of fun are that how you complete an activity should matter, it should be hard enough that there's a chance of failure, that should be able to get better with practice, and that context should be provided and should matter for every action."

...and by the way....everybody should support The Conversations Network.....