Newman's HiFives

Kapp Notes: What are the Technology Goals of Higher Education?

2009-03-05T15:07:00.000-05:00

Kapp Notes: What are the Technology Goals of Higher Education?:

Karl Kapp's excellent edutech blog.

Tom Haskins makes a comment and a suggestion about how we teach University students:

"3. Reverse the use of classroom/homework dichotomy so that the lectures get watched alone outside of class and the homework gets done together in class. Offer the presentations for download onto handhelds to then be watched anywhere."

I think that's a great idea!

Games Without Frontiers: How Videogames Blind Us With Science

2008-09-10T15:06:00.000-04:00

Games Without Frontiers: How Videogames Blind Us With Science: "This led Steinkuehler to a fascinating and provocative conclusion: Videogames are becoming the new hotbed of scientific thinking for kids today."

Games are not what people think. There are large misunderstandings in the educational community. If you are interested in educational games, Please read steinkuehler and her husband, Kurt Squire.

Clark Aldrich's Style Guide for Serious Games and Simulations: Might the best schools not be schools at all? Are summer camps a better starting place?

2008-09-08T15:17:00.000-04:00

Clark Aldrich's Style Guide for Serious Games and Simulations: Might the best schools not be schools at all? Are summer camps a better starting place?

Great link from Clark Aldrich that inspired some good comments. Little known fact: I was a camp counselor this year in Cleveland. Based on that experience and my experience as a camper, camps are really a place to examine for student development.

I love Downes comment about little two month experiences ... and to add, why not mediated experiences via books, movies, and even games. This month we are all pretending to be Fire fighters - read about, write about, play as a firefighter. Might be a good idea

Water Cooler Games - Grinding on the Treadmill

2008-09-02T12:32:00.000-04:00

Water Cooler Games - Grinding on the Treadmill: "Exercise really is much more similar to the MMO grind than to other kinds of games. It's something you have to do everyday, or every few days. It never really changes, but you do get better at it slowly, over time."

Watercooler games has had some interesting posts lately. They panned the Dogwood Alliance's pac man game (deservedly so, it's not a great game - but done with the right intentions). This post is about MMO games and exercise. He also points to an URL from Jonathan Blow who argues that MMOs are more like drugs than games.

I've heard people and repeated that I want to create addictive learning. That I want to use the research and application of addiction (it's all aroung us) for learning environments. Getting people addicted to thinking or sharing ideas or brainstorming doesn't seem wrong... or is it. Perhaps we need to clarify what is addiction. Also, what is play? and then finally what is learning?

Reality is Broken: GDC08 Rant by Jane McGonigal � SlideShare

2008-03-20T09:02:00.000-04:00

Reality is Broken: GDC08 Rant by Jane McGonigal � SlideShare

Hey I found this link on Ralph Koster's site. For those who don't know Jane, she does the reality games, like the one where people blog about rising energy costs and she is a serious games designer and big thinker.

It reminded me of a talk at this year's TLT (Teaching and Learning with Technology) conference given by Laura Christopherson. Basically, she gave a detailed presentation about why World of Warcraft was relevant to education, but ... well one person in the audience, wanted to know how to use the actual game in the classroom - like, "Okay, class login to the game and let's all meet in Elwynn forest". hmmm - I would love that, but prolly not gonna happen. I asked my friend Lucas Gillispie about it and we agree that it's not "how to get education in games", but "how to get games in Education" ... Schools stifle so much happiness it's not funny. Games are happiness engines. How can we take some of the 'stuff' that runs that happy engine and mix it up with the classroom or other educational environment.

So, I'm really hoping that Laura will post her slides on slideshare for me to see.

Oh, and I saw this on slideshare as well - "What we can learn from game design?"

Wii wants to play ... and learn?

2007-08-06T19:41:00.001-04:00

Wii + Second Life = New Training Simulator

The point, says Stone, is that "the ability to easily integrate a wide range of psychomotor activities with simulations running on standard computer platforms will change the ways people interact with computers."

I'm visiting my Sister's family in Cleveland this week. My brother-in-law was playing a Brain Builder type game when I arrived late a night after the long drive from North Carolina. The first thing I noticed was that the controller was wireless - He was just sitting on the couch. The next thing was that he was pointing and not using a joystick. As I played, the controller felt like a mouse instantly and I had no trouble using it to navigate the menus and select items on the screen. I quickly recognized the potential of the Wii remote and interface in a training environment. Game ideas came to us - fishing game, spear fishing and a javelin game, Dentistry, etc...

The article talks about training sims and games with the Wii remote. I belive we will see more controllers like the Wii for other consoles and the PC. And this is just the tip of the iceberg.

Doug Noon and Stephen Downes write about future education and classroom reform

2007-07-22T12:58:00.001-04:00

Good Morning HiFives Readers...

Doug at Borderland pulls together and explains his thoughts after reading Ivan Illich’s Deschooling Society and others School 2.0 ideas and resistance to systemic change in schools. The spawn event was working on a committee to rewrite his school's mission statement. Where the idea for a Wiki to complete the work was shot down by a ... reactionary colleague.

I had a similar experience with a volunteer at a Non-Profit, where I volunteer. Without going into detail, when I suggested a blog and wiki to handle some of the admin communication and scheduling, this guy said "I've had this same conversation many times before." My Dad says this to me as well. I think that's a problem of over generalization and wrong headed. However, not being defensive and being very Edward de Bono, I took his perspective and tried to figure out what the real objection. I think I convinced him that, indeed, things have changed since 1999, when he had "the same conversation". The very next week, the org started a new schedule blog. Change happens.

Doug is great about spreading around the good links. He linked this Downes article and I found the following quote.

Half an Hour: To The School or Classroom 2.0 Advocates

We need to stop employing students as fast-food servers and sales clerks. They are capable of much better than that, and an exercise in corporate demeaning is probably not the best way to introduce them to society.

We should begin offering students full-time employment in certain fields as alternatives to their formal studies. Such a program should logically begin at the higher grades (grades 11 and 12) as well as being brought on-stream as an alternative to college and university.

Most such employment involves the creation of some sort of content or another. The ranges of possible employment are covered in my diagram:

- students could provide ultra-local news, entertainment and sports reporting
- students could provide up-to-date surveying and inventories of civic property
- students could conduct scientific field-research such as bird-counting, ecosystem sampling, pollution-measuring and the like
- students could help supervise younger children

and more - the possibilities are limited only by our imaginations.

I feel this is exactly what Sandra and Mr. Meador are trying to do with Topsail High School here in Pender Co. They are making a Project based curriculum around a school new production. And it reminds me of the project at St. Martin De Porres High school in Cleveland (Thanks Karen Nestor) ... And it is exactly what I want to do with the MIT program in UNCW.

The trick to making this attractive is to present it, not as the dog-eat-dog struggle for survival that characterizes our existing economy, but rather as a large and complex game, played partially on the computer and partially in RL, in which they play an increasingly important role.

Now here is the Edu-Gaming part - Thank you Stephen Downes. YES! This is what I think of when I play WoW (the famously popular World of Warcraft) hmmm... enough for now.. Thanks for the inspiration.

Educational Simulations

2007-07-16T09:27:00.001-04:00

Clark Aldrich writes about an educational simulation example from Iowa State University.

You Can't Learn to Ride a Bicycle from Google...: virtual experience space: how I would train consultants

What strikes me about this post: Most of what we do is in the 'virtual space' anyway. Our jobs involve little 'face to face' contact and really we only need key bits of information to perform duties. Basically, you can set up a fictious company or situation and manipulate it to allow the trainees to practice (learn) a particular objective. The learning environment to performance environment could be identical - If your company uses google docs and email to pass information, then so could the simulation.

This isn't Ender's Game, but it lays the seeds. Ender's Game is a SciFi Novel by Greensboro writer, Orson Scott Card where the performance environment is passed off as training simulation. The switch between training and actual performance is not announced and un-noticed.

hmmmm

This calls into question what is training and what is performance? In the Army, we said "Train like you fight." Meaning, the Training officers wanted to recreate a realistic battlefield and lessen the gap between the training and performance environment. Again, the context of the training is key... but what if there is NO difference. ... That can't happen in 'real' meat space warfare / work, but what about virtual environment work / warfare.

Perhaps this article about remote control fighter jets sparked my attention ...
Robot air attack squadron bound for Iraq - Yahoo! News

BALAD AIR BASE, Iraq - The airplane is the size of a jet fighter, powered by a turboprop engine, able to fly at 300 mph and reach 50,000 feet. It's outfitted with infrared, laser and radar targeting, and with a ton and a half of guided bombs and missiles.

The Reaper is loaded, but there's no one on board. Its pilot, as it bombs targets in Iraq, will sit at a video console 7,000 miles away in Nevada.

It think this is exactly like Ender's Game. I'm sure the pilots training is exactly like the actual missions, expect for things that could be easily manipulated by the commanding officers. Hmmm, is this spooky? Looks like the British are using the same system, but only for 'recon' missions.

(putting on tinfoil hat)

Enough of talk about me... what about you?! So, I think the future of work is the future of training. As more jobs become virtual then training must be virtual. It would be interesting to make a chart of Work / Performance environment vs. Training environment - to see how close they are.

I'll save that for later - cheers, Newman

Edu-Gaming: I’m Bored at

2007-07-02T13:30:00.000-04:00

Edu-Gaming: I’m Bored at: "... in the hopes that some day we’ll have educational designers working on the same team as professional game designers and developers, to weave the educational content into the fabric of the game"

I think that creating a culture of Gamers that play AND CREATE games is a good goal for HiFives. The students who play, need to learn to create. The teachers who create, need to learn to play. And, instructional designers, need to figure out why games are intriguing and educational in order to 'weave' educational content into the game.

Weaving is a good word for it. It implies that these new educational gaming design teams must be equally expert in both the game and the education. That content can't simply be grafted on the game at some step in the design. When people graft on, say, a quiz that appears on a wall during a FPS type game, the student really isn't using the game at all other than as a reward. To climb Bloom's taxonomy, you have to weave the educational content into the game play that targets those areas.

Research is going on to figure these things out. It's research and development that could make a big difference.

Day 5 - Final Shutdown / poweroff

2007-07-01T23:57:00.000-04:00

Reflecting back over the week long hiFives workshop, I want to thank Dr. Annetta and his group. I'm grateful for the vision to bring together this mix of students and teachers and getting them to create something.

The workshop helped me to gain a deeper understanding of the 3D worlds on the computer in respect to creating and education. The ideas I've had about how to use these tools are worth it - not to mention the good friends that shared the time with me.

I had two ideas I want to share - One: just because we can make the world in Virtuoso like the real world, doesn't mean we have to - AND - it doesn't mean that a arealistic world is more condusive to learning. I imagine a game where the player / learner is on a platform that moves up and down according to answers on a quiz. The last of the 'show and tell' students gave me the idea. He had people teleporting to boxes in the sky that fell or toppled over. I thought "Let's make these learners move." The Havok physics engine gives us the opportunity to have things move in random (interesting?) ways.

The second is the idea of place - I imagine a classroom built in Virtuoso - the units could be different areas that the student must run through. in order to get to unit 5, the player must physically (virtually?) run past units 1 through 4. Might this help activate those memories. You can communicate so much with place. For instance, in MIT 500 we went from theory to practice. One week theory, Next week practice. Only, the units 'looked' the same - same layout, color, style. What if the theory units were set high on a misty mountain top or a city in the clouds (stereotype alert!!!) and the practical units were set in a warzone or on a raging river. Lucas built some very believable, memorable environments - those could be used to help intergrate information in the learners mind.

So, as the workshop settles in my mind, I wonder what happens next. I couldn't help but think about my own experience with computer camp during this week. I wonder what Ryan, our super cool rising Senior student representative at the cool table, will do with what he learned at HiFives. He asked Dr. A how he could be more involved, and Dr. A invited him to visit with the group on campus. I hope he does.

And I hope that the little community that we established last week continues to exist. It certainly has the potential for great things! So please feel free to comment and drop me a line from time to time.

Also, I plan to keep posting my "Games in Education" links and thoughts here... so come on back or subscribe.

cheers!
newman

Day 5 - Afternoon

2007-06-29T12:52:00.000-04:00

Who supports and who benefits from your participation in this project?

I obviously benefit. The people who are in my learning network benefit. The people reading this blog, for instance. Support... hmmmm. I don't have an organization.. although the MIT program is allowing me to transfer credit. That is a support. My buddy and collaborator in game creation, Shane Baptista supports my efforts at game design.

What other technology do you wish you could use or have support for?

Technology to be used this week? I really do wish we had a better group communication tool... I guess I should be happy about the blog... that's a good start, but I feel like it's not imediate enough. I think a discussion board that captures .... here is my entry from my FreeMind notes:

Can we have a resource that captures all the information being shared?
Oliver is answering alot of questions for the benefit of only one person. The information isn't captured and it used only once. If we were tyuping the questions in a Wiki then the knowledge would be available to everyone, here now and there in the future.

Here is the link to my FreeMind... finally got it up.

Day 5 morning

2007-06-29T10:16:00.000-04:00

How do you see this game as a tool for connecting with your students?

Day 4 Shutdown / Poweroff

2007-06-29T09:48:00.000-04:00

I really am interested in the collaboration aspects of the conference. Most of my experience with this type of thing is from the online world - forums, wikis and blogs. Seeing it in RL is changing my perspective.

One point about the RL version - It really is frenetic. These school teachers can really handle the pace and energy. I really am unaccustomed to it. I am so happy and 'jacked up' on the energy of the place - that it's hard to focus.

Okay - about today. Ryan, a rising senior in high school, helped me solve the problem with quizzes. Instead of getting a feedback of text - your Right, good job! or Wrong, try again. which is very 2D - I'm going to have them touch the correct answer and get a nice sound... if they don't they fall through the floor and into the shark tank....

Okay... more later.

Day 4 - Afternoon

2007-06-28T12:05:00.000-04:00

What interested you in video games as a form of teaching?

Games and simulations have interested me for quite awhile, but when I starting my first MMO, World of Warcraft, last Fall, I began to study it as a way to teach and as a learning aid.

What interested me was the way that WoW actually taught new players how to play the game - basically they start with very easy 'quests' and give pop hints as the user needs them - that is to say they make success easy to begin with and then add contextual help. This helps the user to feel successful and accomplished.

Also, I see games as a way for schools and education in general to move into the new paradigm of learning. Charles Reigeluth talks about this shift in the video link to the right. The famous SciFi novel "Ender's Game" by Greensboro author Orson Scott Card also relates how games might be used in the future.

Day 4 - Morning

2007-06-28T09:15:00.000-04:00

What do you do well when connecting with your students? Do you have any concerns about connecting with your students?

I do have concerns about connectiong with students. Frankly, I think most teachers and school systems are out of touch. But regardless of what I think - I know that it's hard to do and easy to misjudge your connection with students. For example, my Taiwanese grade school students would tell me during the Introduction / "getting to know you" part of the class that they play videogames. I thought, wow, I play videogames too. PacMan and supermario... We didn't really connect because they were playing completely different games and I didn't take the time to play with them or try the games on my own. I overestimated my connection.

I think the first question means - What do you do when you get that connection? What happens well when you establish a good connection? If the students feel like you care, they will care too if they are connected / engaged.

Community is all about connection. During this workshop, I've talked about community, which is a group of connections. When thinking of an example of a good teaching / learning connections, I think of Augmon. He and I talked about cars, interestingly enough, to begin. He was showing me his favorite car, a famous Nissan called Skyline. I showed him the Wikipedia entry for the car. Then, once the workshop began, I asked him about the project and we worked through some problems together. This was building the connection or bridging the connection from non-instruction related to something instructional. I realized the connection when his teacher came over and tapped me on the shoulder saying Augmon wanted to show me something he had created in Virtuoso. Then the next day he was completely engrossed in his work - like the screen had his eyes in a tractor beam. Now he comes over from time to time to show me what he has done.

He knows I care about it, so he cares about it too. I think it's cool, so he thinks it's cool too.... hmmm... is that right? Maybe it just opens the door or allows him to think it's cool as well. Anyway, he is more likely to spend 'time on task' with something that others think is cool.

I think there something about connectionism, the George Siemens (sp?) model. In this workshop, Augmon and I are part of a group and the interaction is reacting and changing everything we do.

... okay enough.

Day 3 - Shutdown and Poweroff

2007-06-28T09:00:00.000-04:00

Day 3 was great. I think the groups are coming together. Lucas, Cathy and I worked on a few problems in Virtuoso. The 'Cool Table' is happy and working well. The community is the most important thing that I'm taking away from the workshop. It's great to have Lucas, old friends. And to meet and work with new friends, like Augmon who is a high school (?) student who is working with a very cool scene in the game.

We are getting more familar with Virtuoso. We worked on Quizzes and Sounds. Dr. Park explained quizzes as a way to communicate to the players... which is a question that I had... I've started to write all my questions in FreeMind, so that when an instructor comes by I'm ready with a volley of questions.

I'm going to try to post the freemind here ...

Day 3 - afternoon

2007-06-27T12:03:00.000-04:00

How do my students learn best?

I've taught two distinct groups of students - Adults and children. Of course, it varies according to the indivdual students, but I can relate some of my assumptions about how I best help students learn.

My primary school children in Taiwan loved to sing, dance and act out stories. Because they loved it, does that mean that they learned the most? or was it a good way to make the time go faster... dunno. But I can say that they were engaged and the conditions were right for learning to happen. I believe that a teacher's job is to create the conditions for learning - a Teacher can 't make a student learn.

My Adults who I tutor one-to-one and at night school learn differently. I believe they like to do something that is 'real' to them - a project or a problem. They need to see the context and don't like far transfer. When teaching an adult, it's hard to focus them on the fundamental (learning HTML code, zum beispiel) when they really just want to make a webpage.

Day 3 - Morning

2007-06-27T09:09:00.000-04:00

Describe your teaching.

My teaching experience is kind of different. I worked as an instructor in a community college and as a primary school teacher teaching EFL. My style is very relaxed and I wish I was more organized. I generally try to follow principles and connect to students. I believe in context and give plenty of examples (hoping to foster transfer of learning to real world problems) - but this sometimes leads to cognitive overload.

I generally follow a plan, but I learned very quickly that plans change and the unexpected happens. I see the value and quality of games as a function of organization of all the elements. Therefore, I think that designing teaching games (and other virtual environments) will help in face to face instruction because viewing a different organization will give insight and new perspective.

-don't bug me. it's early

Day two - Powerdown Shutoff

2007-06-26T15:44:00.000-04:00

Reflections on Day Two:

Today was a much more settled day. I was able to hang out with my some new friends and talk about their games and designs. It's an amazing cross generational experience - between TEachers and students. And even among the students, who vary in age by at least a couple of years, there is a real atmosphere of working together and 'espirt de corps'

As for the instruction, I feel pretty good about handling the program, Virtuoso. My favorite thing to do is wander around while the students are working and get them to explain what they are doing. A couple of times I was able to help them talk through the problem and discover a solution.

Lunch was good - Cookies were perfect. It was good to get a schedule for the week. I came up with a couple of good game ideas

more tomorrow!
nsl

Day 2 - Afternoon

2007-06-26T11:11:00.000-04:00

How does the technology you currently use enhance your students learning and your teaching? How do you know?

From the last post, really the focus of easing the management of learning for teaching and learning. I think the idea is that if you lessen the time needed to, say grade a test which can be done automatically, the teachers will have more time to interact and TEACH students. That's what I assume the theory is.

They really are learning MANAGEMENT systems. Not learning systems. The focus of Moodle and webCT is management. And the consensus among those I've worked with is that they don't enhance learning 'out of the box', but do enhance management 'out of the box'.

I do feel it enhances learning by opening and easing communication - but that is an indirect effect. They say "You can only learn by doing." Games allow the students to do things, experience things... and under their own steam. Exploring at their own pace and with little interaction from Teachers, game learners can learn in a more natural way than being led by the hand at a lowest common denominator pace and with constant presence of the instructor.

Free your _____, and your _____ will follow.

Day 2 - Morning

2007-06-26T10:06:00.000-04:00

How do you currently use technology in your classroom?

As an instructional designer, I don't have a classroom, per se. But I help professors, teachers and instructors use the classroom technology. Currently, I focus on WebCT and Moodle which are termed "Learning Management systems".

Typically, these take the form of a delivery method for course material, a communication tool with discussion boards and intra-class email, and a quizzing tool which includes a gradebook. The professors are happy with this system as it helps them manage the courses. The gradebook allows the students to see exactly what their grades are. The quizzes, once created properly, can be a real benefit in teacher time and student assessment. The discussion boards and email is a good way to facilitate communication between students and the professor. And, even the simple idea to have all the material (schedule, syllabus, policies, announcements) online and available to students is truly powerful when compared to a non-computer, non- network method.

The closest thing to a game is a quiz ... Which makes we think of what is the difference between a quiz and a game? The reason why it's like a game is interaction. Of all the things I mentioned before there isn't much interaction. Do something, change something, do something again.

Day one - shutdown power off

2007-06-25T15:45:00.000-04:00

A reflection on the first day

It went by quick and I think that shows the fun I was having.

I liked being able to chat with folks about some ideas and to commend a few good talks by Dr. Young and Dr. Park. I was glad that we are using blogger to communicate and I was able to access my old blogger accounts (I thought they were gone forever)

I like the size of the workshop. I wonder how many people are here - at least 50. And the age of the students are varied. It's neat to think of my own experience with a 'Computer camp' - learning to draw pictures with a Ti-49 computer with LOGO programing language. I know that some of the kids will take memories ... Every time I meet young people like this they inspire me. For example, I hear one kid say.. "speed of dark" and he explained speed of light is fast and the speed of dark is faster. very cool

So, I'm looking forward to the rest of the week.

cheers,
nsl

Day 1 - Afternoon

2007-06-25T13:02:00.000-04:00

Question:
What brings me here? Why am I here?
That's a good question. I'm here for a number of reasons. I am interested in games in education and I figure that I learn most by talking / communicating with others with similar interests. I'm also here as a part of a class (Dr. A's EMS 594 at NC State). And I hope to figure out how students and teachers are using games ... and how people are teaching teachers to use games in classrooms.

What am I excited about?
I am excited about taking part and having an experience and possibly joining a community. I hope to build a game and learn to use some new tools. Also, I enjoy talking to young people about games and watching them use computers. They go to sites and do things with computer that I don't.

What am I concerned about?
I'm concerned that I won't learn as much as I can or that people won't understand or value my ideas. That my game / ideas will be "sucky" and not "Beastly"

Morning Day One

2007-06-25T11:36:00.000-04:00

What are my feelings about Video Games in general?
I have the feeling, that expect most people here share, that video games are important. From my experience growing up with Videogames, I know they are engaging and fun to play... for a time. I played my first game of Pong sitting on the bed with my Mom. I got a Magnavox Odyssey2 game for Christmas one year and fought very hard with my friends to defend it against the Atari 2600 ( I did NOT have a betamax). In middle school, I played Ultima III on my commodore 64 (and later 128) for entire weekends at a time (taking breaks for Miami Vice and Saturday night live). And then I stopped. I went on to highschool and college - and never bought a game again - until World of Warcraft and began my research into educational games.

From my research, I know that games have a rich history that mirrors our technology and culture. They are violent, for the most part (and when viewed from a distance especially so). They are becoming more complex.

I think of them as a tool for someone to use. How we use them is the real issue.

What are my feelings about Video Games as learning tools?
I think the best way to use videogames (besides entertainment) is to develop learning and to aid teaching. An interesting thought (attributed to John Crawford, a pioneer game designer) is that games is how we learned before the classroom that we see today. And that the classroom is the system that hasn't shown it's worth as a teaching and learning format. The a modern classroom has been around for 100 years. Games since long before that.

I think games have a huge potential to expand what we do with classrooms or the idea of a public education system which is to produce educated civic minded participants in our society and culture. We can relate the skills and knowledge that is needed with games and play.

Thinking of scalability. The beauty of teaching games is the ability to be portable and massive without breaking down, which is exactly what the classroom does as you make it bigger. The opposite happens with a game - it gets better with the number of players - like a network.

Why do I think they are a good learning tool? They are quick, portable, engaging, use all the power of networks, etc. Allow for the best thinkings to engage with every learner. Allow for exploration and individual and group work as desired by the student. Can be assessed in various ways ... it goes on and on.

Are there problems with videogames as teaching tools? I think with any tool there is the opportunity of misuse and misunderstanding. That's unfortunate reality. But that what I hear to find out... How to build a game that meets the needs of Education, school AND learning.