We’ve finally completed the web site for the ARGSOI project.
This contains the research findings from the project (see the Evaluation Report in deliverables) as well as a page of resources the team has created for anyone wanting to develop their own educational alternate reality game using the ARGOSI framework.
I would very much appreciate feedback from anyone who makes use of the site.
Big thanks to Daniel Livingstone for highlighting this blog, Net Gen Skeptic, which aims to “provide a balanced exploration of research and commentary on generational differences, particularly the net generation discourse and impacts on learning, teaching and the use of technology”.
I’m still amazed at the amount of times that terms such as ‘digital natives’ and ‘internet generation’ are still bandied around uncritically when such limited evidence exists. Any resources that question the assumptions that underlie these models can only be a good thing.
I’ve just discovered the ECT-Press site, which offers academic, open source versions of the books it publishes. There are already some interesting texts available, with more in the pipeline.
I was quite excited when what I think is the first twitter game, Spymaster, was launched recently. Essentially, when you sign up to join the game you have complete tasks, recruit other spymasters from your twitter network and assassinate other players. While I think the idea of a game built around something like twitter is a great idea, in principle, I have a couple of concerns about spymaster:
So, while I love the idea of embedding a game into a tool like this, I think it’s essential to make it unobtrusive to the majority of users who have no interest in game playing.
On Wednesday we were lucky enough to have Dr Richard Hall, from de Montfort University, come and present a seminar on autonomy and the read/write web at my work. Richard managed to hit the balance just right, I felt, between catering for those who are interested in the theoretical and socio-political angles and those with an interest in application and practice.
You can view the slides here (without video clips).
On Thursday I spent the day at my Faculty’s Learning and Teaching Conference, and was pleasantly surprised with the focus on play spaces, creativity and ‘messy’ learning. I presented an introductory session on using games to support learning, which seemed to go well (in that I no one left half way or was physically sick). My presentation is available here.
There has been a lot of discussion recently about ‘digital identity, what it might mean, how we manage a host of multiple identities (or do we need to bother?) and the implications of having an enduring web presence. I’ve been particularly interested in the context of the characters people create in multi-users virtual and gaming environments, why they chose to represent themselves in the way they do and what this might mean for learning.
Dave White wrote an interesting blog post recently, in which he suggests that we need to move beyond philosophical discussions of digital identity to consider “not what digital identity is but where it leads“. His argument being that it is the relationships and social interactions that having a digital identity facilitates that are interesting, not the identities in themselves.
Big thanks to Scott for pointing this out to me.
In the past I’ve focused on those activities that span games, puzzles, plot and mystery (I’m guessing ARGs and adventure games would fit in here) as those, for me, were the ones most closely linked to learning. However, I’m now wondering about the potential of magic for learning and how game theory might fit in. This taxonomy has opened my eyes to other possibilities.
Also, I now realise that my knowledge of offensive-sounding card games is sadly lacking.
I’ve been thinking recently about how gaming principles could be applied to everyday activities in order to make them… well if not quite fun, at least palatable. My friend Emma has a really inspiring (and funny) blog in which she documents her ongoing weight-loss journey, and I found her recent post, in which she describes how she applies gaming principles to the process of losing weight, very interesting.
It also reminded me of an older post by Jane McGonigal on how she is using gaming principles to make the process of book writing more engaging.
When I’m approaching a piece of work that I know I’m not going to find overly engaging (e.g. writing a report, searching for papers for a literature review) I tend to break the task into chunks (e.g. writing 500 words, searching five databases) and ‘reward’ myself for completing the chunk with five minutes of something more interesting (important stuff like Facebook, Twitter or another level in the new CSI game). On reflection, I realised that I’ve been doing what I would advocate as being very poor educational game design - offering extrinsic rewards that are not related to the overall learning task.
I’m not entirely sure what I should learn from this… perhaps my method of making disengaging work less tedious isn’t the most efficient or educationally sound approach, but it works for me.
I’ve just spent a happy couple of hours walking in a park near my house. This is actually a very unusual Sunday activity for me as I usually get bored of walking within about 20 minutes. I do like walking, but only if the aim is to get somewhere specific (i.e. it has a very clear purpose).
However, I’ve recently discovered GPS Mission for the iPhone. This is basically techno-orienteering, and at the moment is my favourite app by far. It’s a really simple premise - there are missions that you have to complete and gold that you have to collect (although so far I haven’t attempted any missions as there are none near where I live) by going to their location on the map. However, even finding gold is very compelling (particularly the ‘ker-ching’ noise it makes when you walk over the right spot) and adds purpose to a simple Sunday afternoon stroll.
At present there don’t seem to be many other players around where I live but I can imagine that the addition of a competitive element (once gold has been collected, that’s it - gone) would add a new dimension.
My enthusiasm for this new game got me thinking about the potential uses for learning, particularly in terms of induction activities to help students find their way around new parts of a city or campus, or as a way to motivate reluctant exercisers. I’m sure it won’t be long until projects that use this sort of location-aware technology in education start appearing, and I look forward to seeing some really innovate uses.
GlamStart is an excellent example of a simple game that is being used as part of student induction at the University of Glamorgan.
The game allows players to take on the role of a virtual student, navigate through virtual versions of the real campuses, get information about locations, talk to people, pick up objects and make decisions about student life. By undertaking a range of challenges students can get an idea of the types of thing they will need to consider as new students (e.g. time, finance, social life, study) as well as win real-life prizes.