Wednesday, August 31, 2011
Visual Organization
Creating various quest chains and weaving them into a class for GameLab is complicated. A lot like mapping out all the alternate routes in a game, I imagine! Here is my first attempt at a flowchart to keep track of my fall 11 HUM 101 class. I'm using Xmind.net, a mind mapping program.
Wednesday, August 17, 2011
Jane McGonigal Blew My Mind
I've been reading about games and education for a while, primarily James Paul Gee's books. Gee makes a lot of sense and his arguments were sound, but I had a hard time making the connection between the games he talks about and the process of teaching. Not learning. He convincingly shows how video games do a great job in encouraging players to learn. But how to translate that into the classroom? I didn't feel Gee ever really made that clear. Or, at least, I couldn't see how to make the connection.
Then somewhere, probably on The Colbert Report, I saw an interview of Jane McGonigal, whose book Reality is Broken sounded pretty interesting.
So I ordered it and read it last spring. And Jane McGonigal blew my mind. Her description of the way that games elicit positive emotion and response, even when they are hard or frustrating (and indeed, especially when they are so challenging that they create a sense of "blissful productivity") struck a chord with me, because I dearly love to discover new things. I recognized in her observations of video gamers the experiences I have had in researching my many odd and varied passions. And what I want my students to experience as they tackle their own research projects.
McGonigal's book led me to alternate reality games, and to the main website devoted to that genre of games, ARGNet. And it was there (I think) that I found a reference to 3DGameLab and the summer camp devoted to its beta testing. So Jane McGonigal is responsible for my participation in this quest to evaluate her ideas! And clearly, I'm a believer. I'm very much looking forward to implementing some of her ideas in my fall Popular Culture class via the GameLab interface, and seeing how that goes.
So, thanks, Jane!
Then somewhere, probably on The Colbert Report, I saw an interview of Jane McGonigal, whose book Reality is Broken sounded pretty interesting.
| The Colbert Report | Mon - Thurs 11:30pm / 10:30c | |||
| Jane McGonigal | ||||
| ||||
So I ordered it and read it last spring. And Jane McGonigal blew my mind. Her description of the way that games elicit positive emotion and response, even when they are hard or frustrating (and indeed, especially when they are so challenging that they create a sense of "blissful productivity") struck a chord with me, because I dearly love to discover new things. I recognized in her observations of video gamers the experiences I have had in researching my many odd and varied passions. And what I want my students to experience as they tackle their own research projects.
McGonigal's book led me to alternate reality games, and to the main website devoted to that genre of games, ARGNet. And it was there (I think) that I found a reference to 3DGameLab and the summer camp devoted to its beta testing. So Jane McGonigal is responsible for my participation in this quest to evaluate her ideas! And clearly, I'm a believer. I'm very much looking forward to implementing some of her ideas in my fall Popular Culture class via the GameLab interface, and seeing how that goes.
So, thanks, Jane!
Wednesday, August 10, 2011
Tuesday, August 9, 2011
Narrative Games 5 Quest: This is Not a Game
Well, as the whole of this blog indicates, I'm a real fan of alternate reality games and I'm convinced that they are the future of narrative games in education.
In order to show that whatever is being taught is relevant to our students, we have to make the connection between class topics and what students experience and care about outside of the classroom. It's not that RPGs and MMORPGs can't do that. An advantage of virtual worlds is that the stakes are lowered and failure is not a catastrophe; you can always reset and try again. That's a huge benefit of "gaming" the learning process, failure becomes an opportunity to try again, rather than a judgement of a student's capabilities in the class. And ideally, the tasks and knowledge learned in-game should transfer seamlessly out to the actual world. But that just doesn't seem to happen very often. The social and problem-solving skills learned in current MMORPGs may have tangible effects on their players, but that doesn't seem to reliably translate to higher grades or better coping skills. If it did, the idea that video games can have a place in education wouldn't be so controversial.
ARGs, on the other hand, allow for a space to play without fear of failure by the imposition of a storyline on the learning task, without moving students into a virtual reality. As the saying goes, it's not role playing, it's real playing. And it is therefore easy to see how those real-life skills sharpened in a game context could then be used in other venues. The skills to research a topic online or in a library is the same, whether the task is to uncover the history of a house reputed to be haunted or to understand the role that photography played in the Civil War. And either of those topics might be a part of a game or a part of a class assignment. The line between reality and game is blurred in an ARG like no other type of play.
However, it is that ambiguity that may be the biggest point of concern in using ARGs in education. How do you maintain the TINAG philosophy without allowing your students to confuse what is invented for the game and what is factual information? If you invent a character to lead students through a historical mystery, how do you ensure that they achieve the learning objectives without assuming that the character herself is part of history? This will be a delicate balancing act, one that might demand debriefing with players after the game has ended, to clarify what was deliberately obscured in the game itself.
I am very excited by the potential of ARGs for education, especially their potential to gamify the very skills and qualities we want our students to develop: collaboration, research, evaluation, skepticism, curiosity, independence. Our future literally depends on fostering the critical and creative thinking that will be needed in the 21st century. And that is not a game.
In order to show that whatever is being taught is relevant to our students, we have to make the connection between class topics and what students experience and care about outside of the classroom. It's not that RPGs and MMORPGs can't do that. An advantage of virtual worlds is that the stakes are lowered and failure is not a catastrophe; you can always reset and try again. That's a huge benefit of "gaming" the learning process, failure becomes an opportunity to try again, rather than a judgement of a student's capabilities in the class. And ideally, the tasks and knowledge learned in-game should transfer seamlessly out to the actual world. But that just doesn't seem to happen very often. The social and problem-solving skills learned in current MMORPGs may have tangible effects on their players, but that doesn't seem to reliably translate to higher grades or better coping skills. If it did, the idea that video games can have a place in education wouldn't be so controversial.
ARGs, on the other hand, allow for a space to play without fear of failure by the imposition of a storyline on the learning task, without moving students into a virtual reality. As the saying goes, it's not role playing, it's real playing. And it is therefore easy to see how those real-life skills sharpened in a game context could then be used in other venues. The skills to research a topic online or in a library is the same, whether the task is to uncover the history of a house reputed to be haunted or to understand the role that photography played in the Civil War. And either of those topics might be a part of a game or a part of a class assignment. The line between reality and game is blurred in an ARG like no other type of play.
However, it is that ambiguity that may be the biggest point of concern in using ARGs in education. How do you maintain the TINAG philosophy without allowing your students to confuse what is invented for the game and what is factual information? If you invent a character to lead students through a historical mystery, how do you ensure that they achieve the learning objectives without assuming that the character herself is part of history? This will be a delicate balancing act, one that might demand debriefing with players after the game has ended, to clarify what was deliberately obscured in the game itself.
I am very excited by the potential of ARGs for education, especially their potential to gamify the very skills and qualities we want our students to develop: collaboration, research, evaluation, skepticism, curiosity, independence. Our future literally depends on fostering the critical and creative thinking that will be needed in the 21st century. And that is not a game.
Monday, August 8, 2011
Saturday, August 6, 2011
Narrative Games 3, Or Why Rescue the Princess?
As I played the Zelda Game for this quest, I realized that I'm not really interested in games in education as I am gamification. I enjoyed the nostalgic thrill of the interactive fiction in quest 1, but both the subsequent action and the action-adventure games bored me to tears. Okay, I enjoyed the snarky narrative of Peasant's Quest, but that was an ironic veneer laid over the original action game format. But rescue a princess? Please. Not only is that a sexist reinforcement of gender roles WAY too evident in video games, but who is Zelda to me? Why should I care about her? And more importantly, why is the skill I need to progress the story the ability to hit the space bar at exactly the right time? What does that have to do with being a hero?
In the Just for Fun group in 3D GameLab, I've been playing some contemporary flash games, and enjoying them quite a bit. But I've only chosen games from the "puzzle" category. When I completed the HexBrain gamer personality quiz, my two top types were Mastermind and Seeker, and those characterizations were spot-on. I like to figure out puzzles, and I like to explore new places and ideas. And I love stories. So despite the quite primitive graphics of The Company of Myself, for example, I loved its emo narrative and the twist at the end. I wanted to solve each level just so I could find out what happened next. Now I'm playing Little Wheel about another lonely character trying to find out his own history. There really isn't much different in the game play between Zelda and Little Wheel really, other than the sophistication of the storyline. But for me, that makes all the difference.
Of course, that's my mastermind/seeker gamer personality talking, and I recognize that for other types of games, the action and action/adventure games hold a lot of interest. But in terms of education, I believe I'm on the right track. When people think about games in education, I think they too often envision playing Jeopardy to review class topics or little Flash games that drill vocabulary. Nothing wrong with that, of course, but it doesn't really touch the power that can have on engagement and motivation. For that kind of involvement, students have to invest in the effort, not just the result. The game itself has to be the motivator, not the score or the prize. To me, that means the game can't just be challenging. It has to be relevant to who I am and what I want. It has to involve me in a narrative that puts my actions in context.
This could mean writing fictions or creating scenarios that establish a compelling context for class work. That is the basis of alternative reality games and augmented reality games that I have great promise in education. Alternate reality games (ARGS) take elements of role playing and blend them with real-life skills and activities to overlay a narrative on the real world. Manchester Metropolitan University, for example, uses a fictional story about a stolen viola to direct incoming students through a series of collaborative problem-solving quests that introduces them to university resources, orients them to the surrounding community and encourages socialization. Augmented reality games use new mobile technology to add a virtual experience to a physical space. Programs like ARIS, developed at the University of Wisconsin at Madison, allow the creation of situational documentaries and place-based games that blend digital and actual worlds in a way that encourages exploration and analysis.
But luckily, especially for those of us who do not fancy ourselves as writers, educators already have a compelling narrative to tell. We don't have to invent a story about why what we teach is important. We already know it's important and why. Otherwise, why would we be teaching it? And a game structure, especially the structure of interactive narrative games, seems ideal for shaping our telling not just the how and why of our topic but the process by which you become an expert in it. Who needs to rescue a princess when you can level up in life? You start as a newbie, without the skills or knowledge you'll need to succeed, but as you vanquish each monster (or equation), unlock each puzzle (or literary theme), discover each treasure (or new theory), you see the bigger picture and you get better at monster slaying, puzzle solving or treasure hunting. Or learning.
In the Just for Fun group in 3D GameLab, I've been playing some contemporary flash games, and enjoying them quite a bit. But I've only chosen games from the "puzzle" category. When I completed the HexBrain gamer personality quiz, my two top types were Mastermind and Seeker, and those characterizations were spot-on. I like to figure out puzzles, and I like to explore new places and ideas. And I love stories. So despite the quite primitive graphics of The Company of Myself, for example, I loved its emo narrative and the twist at the end. I wanted to solve each level just so I could find out what happened next. Now I'm playing Little Wheel about another lonely character trying to find out his own history. There really isn't much different in the game play between Zelda and Little Wheel really, other than the sophistication of the storyline. But for me, that makes all the difference.
Of course, that's my mastermind/seeker gamer personality talking, and I recognize that for other types of games, the action and action/adventure games hold a lot of interest. But in terms of education, I believe I'm on the right track. When people think about games in education, I think they too often envision playing Jeopardy to review class topics or little Flash games that drill vocabulary. Nothing wrong with that, of course, but it doesn't really touch the power that can have on engagement and motivation. For that kind of involvement, students have to invest in the effort, not just the result. The game itself has to be the motivator, not the score or the prize. To me, that means the game can't just be challenging. It has to be relevant to who I am and what I want. It has to involve me in a narrative that puts my actions in context.
This could mean writing fictions or creating scenarios that establish a compelling context for class work. That is the basis of alternative reality games and augmented reality games that I have great promise in education. Alternate reality games (ARGS) take elements of role playing and blend them with real-life skills and activities to overlay a narrative on the real world. Manchester Metropolitan University, for example, uses a fictional story about a stolen viola to direct incoming students through a series of collaborative problem-solving quests that introduces them to university resources, orients them to the surrounding community and encourages socialization. Augmented reality games use new mobile technology to add a virtual experience to a physical space. Programs like ARIS, developed at the University of Wisconsin at Madison, allow the creation of situational documentaries and place-based games that blend digital and actual worlds in a way that encourages exploration and analysis.
But luckily, especially for those of us who do not fancy ourselves as writers, educators already have a compelling narrative to tell. We don't have to invent a story about why what we teach is important. We already know it's important and why. Otherwise, why would we be teaching it? And a game structure, especially the structure of interactive narrative games, seems ideal for shaping our telling not just the how and why of our topic but the process by which you become an expert in it. Who needs to rescue a princess when you can level up in life? You start as a newbie, without the skills or knowledge you'll need to succeed, but as you vanquish each monster (or equation), unlock each puzzle (or literary theme), discover each treasure (or new theory), you see the bigger picture and you get better at monster slaying, puzzle solving or treasure hunting. Or learning.
Friday, August 5, 2011
Narrative Games 2 Quest
Our quest today was to play and evaluate a simple action game, similar to those that were popular in the late 1980s and early 1990s. I played Peasant's Quest, and while it was a nostalgic blast from the past...
Note-taking in Blended Learning
I was surprised that there wasn't any mention of wikis in the assigned blog posts here and here. I've seen some of the programs mentioned in Ningthoujam's article, but they all seem to be focused on individual note taking (though I recognize that some of the programs have sharing capabilities.)
What I'm really interested in is encouraging group note-taking, a class project that everyone contributes to. And a wiki seems to be the easiest and best way to do that. I was very much inspired in thus by Richard Buckland's video.
I've tried requiring a class notes wiki in two classes so far, one in the spring and one this summer, and what I've discovered is that students have NO idea what I'm asking for. In the middle of the summer class, I asked everyone why they weren't adding to the class notes, and the response was, "We don't understand what you want from us." They can't envision what class notes would look like or be used for. Part of it is that I find few students take extensive class notes at all. And even those who do see them as completely private, something that you might share with a friend who missed class, but that's it. (An assumption shared by the articles on note-taking programs we read.) So I'm going to have to do a lot more to introduce and encourage this activity, before I see anything like what I was hoping for, which was essentially a summary of the class topics and examples of the day.
What I'm really interested in is encouraging group note-taking, a class project that everyone contributes to. And a wiki seems to be the easiest and best way to do that. I was very much inspired in thus by Richard Buckland's video.
I've tried requiring a class notes wiki in two classes so far, one in the spring and one this summer, and what I've discovered is that students have NO idea what I'm asking for. In the middle of the summer class, I asked everyone why they weren't adding to the class notes, and the response was, "We don't understand what you want from us." They can't envision what class notes would look like or be used for. Part of it is that I find few students take extensive class notes at all. And even those who do see them as completely private, something that you might share with a friend who missed class, but that's it. (An assumption shared by the articles on note-taking programs we read.) So I'm going to have to do a lot more to introduce and encourage this activity, before I see anything like what I was hoping for, which was essentially a summary of the class topics and examples of the day.
Are Games Better than Real Life?
How video games that are getting better and better at simulating real experiences will affect those who play them is a hot topic right now. The worry that the human brain will be irrevocably altered by the substitution of the virtual for the real has prompted a lot of fretting. Even game-designer Perry in this TED talk seems somewhat conflicted, in his presentation of a student video of a self-confessed video game junkie who fears losing touch with a reality that doesn't measure up to the designed worlds of his games. Maybe so. Maybe there will be a profound and unpredictable shift in the way humans think, as virtual worlds become better at evoking emotion, providing clearer meaning and touch us more deeply than the life around us does.
As a humanities scholar, however, I'm not too worried. Games can only move us, change us, if they reach us on a human level. They can't make us less human if they are striving to reach those very things: emotion, purpose, meaning, understanding, feeling as David Perry puts it, that connect us to the rest of the human race. And those are the very things that define all the great imaginative, creative efforts of humankind. Music, literature, art, theatre. You can get lost in any of these pursuits. You can neglect the real world in favor of dwelling in the ecstatic realms of perfect creation. And yes, you can become consumed by an obsession, but no one argues that this makes you less human. No one argues for LESS virtuosity, for fear of luring the impressionable away from reality. So why so worried about the emotional power of games? There is not a game in the world, nor any hint of one coming, that can touch people the way great literature or art can. And until that happens, I'll put my money on the positive transformative power of art, in whatever medium, rather than worry that human creativity can make us less human.
Wednesday, August 3, 2011
A Blended Learning Exercise
I find that adding online discussions even to F2F classes enriches the subsequent classroom discussion. Here is an assignment I use in just about every class and find very useful.
Monday, August 1, 2011
Interesting Challenges in Learning Games
What do you find most interesting about using Games for Learning YOURSELF?
What do you PERSONALLY consider the biggest challenge to using Games for Learning in your Learning Environment?
What do you PERSONALLY consider the biggest challenge to using Games for Learning in your Learning Environment?
Moving On
I started this blog to document the Villain Training ARG that was my introduction to Alternate Reality Games, and then morphed it into my EDU 255 final project, to bring together my assignments, research and activities in educational technology. Both are over now, so now I'll use the blog for the 3D GameLab summer camp that I'm in right now. Next, who knows?
So, narrative games. I played a bit of Zork I and...
So, narrative games. I played a bit of Zork I and...
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