Nicola Whitton
This blog contains my personal musings on games, learning, computers, engagement, fun, playfulness, technology, and other stuff that takes my fancy.
playful thoughts on games and learning
Passively multiplayer online gaming
The link to the Passively Multiplayer Online Game has been sitting in my ‘to investigate’ list untouched for a couple of weeks as I was worried that when I started playing I wouldn’t get any work done at all. Fortunately, while this game is undoubtably cool, I’m not totally addicted (yet).
PMOG is essentially a FireFox extension that allows you to play while you surf the web, collecting Datapoints and undertaking missions. So far the missions I have completed involved navigating through a series of web sites and reading the message attached to each one; I love the way that the game allows you to interact with existing sites within the browser in new ways that only other players can see – adding treasure, laying mines, and providing new layers of links.
I can see an immediate application for this sort of game for creating guided tours of web sites, highlighting resources for students and sharing information online. However, I think I’m not totally immersed yet because so far it has been limited to navigating the web – but then I have only been playing for a day and am still officially a ‘newbie’. I look forward to undertaking new missions and hopefully uncovering a whole new layer of interactivity.
And I call this work… 
)
Posted in Games
There’s a good vlog by the creators of PMOG here:
http://vlog.rheingold.com/
At the end of it, Justin talks about helping people udnerstand the power of tracking all this information.
anybody here know of a good site to find more info on multiplayer websites? I\’ve got this site bookmarked and im gonna keep checking it out, but i still would like to find a site that covers multiplayer websites a little more thoroughly..thanks
I am researching games and how educational institutions can positively use them in the classroom. Game play is currently all around, from children to adults. I am looking at game play and game development as an instructional tool to engage and motivate students. This post is interesting because it makes Passively Multiplayer Online Gaming sounds a little like Geo Caching (http://www.geocaching.com/), but specifically for an online environment, and has the same characteristics as online research (necessary for 21st century learners), but with a fun twist! I am interested to see how this form of game play would work in education and if it has evolved since the initial post on this topic!
Thanks for the feedback Shanna. Since this initial post, PMOG has transmogrified into The Nethernet (http://thenethernet.com/) and is worth a look. A group of colleagues and myself have been looking at this model for supporting learning but have so far been unable to get anything funded
( I’d be very interested if you hear of anything.
What options have you currently pursued for obtaining funding…the different avenues you and your colleagues have focused on?
We put a bid together for JISC e-learning innovation funding, but we’re unsuccessful – it’s a call that is very heavily oversubscribed. When I get a bit more time I really need to re-activate this idea and start looking elsewhere.