The Video Game Revolution web site contains a lot of info on the history and development of video games. It’s more aimed at those with a interest in games rather than educational games, but the section on the impact of gaming has some interesting essays that are worth a look.
I was down in London yesterday giving a talk at the Heads of E-Learning Forum meeting on virtual worlds. There were also a couple of interesting presentations on Second Life from Steve Bennett from Hertfordshire University and Fiona Littleton from the University of Edinburgh. I was glad to see some more innovative uses of Second Life beyond the recreation of lecture theatres.
From these talks, for me, there seem to be four main pedagogic reasons to use Second Life:
I would like to think that Second Life (and other virtual worlds like it) have the potential to add to the student learning expereince (once all the technological glitches are sorted out) but would like to see more examples of innovative use that is rigourously researched.
A big thank you to Jane and Ade for my top birthday gift of the Battleshops game. It’s just like battleships but made acceptable for the tender female mind by basing it around a theme of shopping rather than blowing up ships. Oh and it’s pink, natch. This made me think about how easy it would be to modify the traditional ‘boys’ computer games around themes that we girls like, such as shopping, shoes, or ponies. World of Needlecraft anyone?
Okay, so I’m going to be hard-pushed to link this one to education, but here’s a cool robot building game. Perhaps it will come in useful when I need to get into training for taking over the world.
This is a point-and-click game created by Salford University, I think as a student recruitment tool. It’s very much in the style of the wonderful Samorost and quite as bizarre. I am stuck on level two.
Thanks to Katie Piatt for sending me this link.
I’ve recently had a few sessions with an excellent hypnotist, who has incidentally got me interested in hypnotism and neuro-linguistic programming and their potential (if any) for education, game-based learning and research. I started off extremely sceptical about NLP (basically because of all business-related hype and wild claims) and am now slightly less so.
I was recommended the NLP Workbook by Joseph O’Conner, which seems to be a good overview of NLP. However, it does present a lot of theoretical ideas a fact (for example the chapter on learning) and while many of the ideas seem like common sense there is an overall lack of academic evidence and rigour (not that it makes any claims in that direction).
Despite these reservations, I can’t help wondering if there might be something in it if considered with a critical mind (after all, there is lots of empirical and anecdotal evidence of its efficacy). Some of the questions I’ve been thinking about are:
Jordi Sánchez-Navarro, a lovely chap from Barcelona who I met at ECGBL, has sent me the link to photos from ECGBL on his blog. There are two photos of me looking decidedly grumpy. For my (albeit somewhat hazy) recollection of the evening, which consisted of good food, wine, and excellent company, I’m not entirely sure why this is… perhaps we are discussing some of the finer controvercial points of the concept of the game as a learning environment built within the constructivist paradigm. Or had we moved on to ‘truth or dare’ by then?
There are a lot more photos on the main ECGBL site. Sadly, I have only managed to make it in to one (just) - see 048. It appears that I am either saying something fascinating, or perhaps trying to start a fight.