I'm Serious.net

Hope to see you...

Next week, I will be attending the eLearning Guild's Annual Gathering in Orlando. If you, too, are planning to attend, I hope you will make both the ILS Symposium (I'm one of the presenters) on Monday and my featured session, "Quick and Easy Ways to Get Started with Serious Games," on Wednesday afternoon.

I look forward to seeing you and hearing about your projects. And if you can't join us, I'll say "hi" to Mickey for you.

I'm Serious,
Anne

DevLearn Report #2: The Great ILS Challenge

Brought together by Mark Oehlert, Clark Quinn, Brent Smith and I shared a panel at DevLearn 2007 called "The Great ILS Challenge, " modeled on the Game Design Challenge that Game Developers Conference does every year. Mark challenged each of us to present a serious game design that would reduce recidivism among soon-to-be-released prisoners.After the session, we committed to extending the conversation to our blogs. Each of us (including Clive Shepherd, who was unable to be with us in person) has posted/will post our "solution" on our respective blogs, with cross links. You'll see very interesting overlaps and divergences in the approaches we took.

Everyone is invited - no, encouraged - to participate in this design dialogue. Questions, critiques, better ideas - all are welcome here and on the other blog sites. Seriously.

The following is a(n upgraded) summary of my presentation:

As everyone knows, I come to serious games with a learning/instructional design background and bent. But I try to think about game design as a gamer/player and as a game developer, letting what I know about learning design percolate in the background. In that regard, it's been helpful for me to understand the way game designers massage a game concept, and the kind of documentation that ensues - indicators of the important, top-level considerations in their minds.

Generally, a Concept Document (the first step in the game development process) includes the following elements:

• Assignment (problem statement that the game addresses)


• Communication objectives (audience response to game)


• Target audience (description)


• Communication promise (why game meets communication objective)


• Communication strategy


• Competition


• Tone, Attitude/Look & Feel


• Mandatories (e.g., licenses, distributor requirements, timing)


• Budget


• Deadline

The Concept Document is used by game designers to pitch a game concept to decision-makers, which goes part way to explain the degree of marketing focus. But, when one looks at other documents that are produced during the game design process, one notices a critical theme: the emphasis on the overall experience of being in the game world and how the gamer is going to feel during the game.

What is the game experience? Actually, it's influenced by three things:

1. Audience


2. Content


3. Environment

My training tells me that I must go through a set of activities and research (aka, analysis) prior to noodling on a cool design motif. To that end, I use what I cleverly call ACE Analysis (see above enumeration). For the most part, anyone who does "traditional" eLearning/instructional design has some form of this approach in their toolkit. I deviate from the typical approach in a few ways:

• When I analyze the game's target audience, I look not just at how to describe a composite "learner" but also at whether the learner will be applying new skills and knowledge as an individual or as part of a cohort. What does the cohort look like, and what does the cohort need to know and do?


• My view of content is expansive. It includes everything that appears in the game world, every activity the learner engages in, every skill the learner must acquire, etc. It also embraces content-creation and -contribution on the part of learners themselves. How important is personalization? How will mastery best be demonstrated by the learner? What learner activities will be most appropriate for assessment?


• As I think about the environment that is the virtual game world, I need to determine whether the best motif for learning will be a mirror of the real-world or a metaphor thereof. Will persistence be an issue?

For good measure, I also throw in some consideration of learning transference:

• What will prompt someone to come to the game? Another learning event? What will the learner and the cohort do after completing the game? What guidance and support will learners need as they transfer new learnings from the game into Real World skills and knowledge?

The musings that substituted for a true ACE Analysis for a prisoner-release game (and since we're dealing with a really gloppy goal with no supporting information, that will have to suffice for a goal statement) led me to the following semi-sequential conclusions:

1. [Note: huge, possibly naive, assumption to follow.] The "ex-con" population is largely comprised of men of low-economic status and minimal education. African Americans and Hispanics comprise the majority. Literacy and math literacy rates are low. They are between 25-35, although the actual age-range probably extends into the 50s; some may have no personal experience of technologies we take for granted today (cell phones, computers, Internet). Gang-affiliation is the norm; these gangs are typically factions of gangs outside of prison.


2. Ex-cons need to re-program their fundamental decision-making systems.


3. They need to learn to think past the moment of decision-making to the consequences of their decisions and actions.


4. They need to learn self-respect, and then respect of others. They need to re-frame their value systems to align with this respect. This value system must be at the core of and the deep-motivation for every decision the ex-con makes.


5. They need a support network that understands and actively supports these changes, and how hard these changes are for the ex-con to make.


6. They need a new bag of life skills: finding, getting and keeping legitimate work; finding, getting and keeping shelter; finding and getting food and clothing; having fun without getting in trouble; fulfilling social/intimacy needs in a positive way...


7. Far from being part of the ex-con's support network, parole officers are viewed as the tether back to prison life.


8. Temptation is everywhere for an ex-con. No one can be trusted. No one understands. Unless s/he is or has been in the same situation. Hanging with the gang is even more alluring now - these guys get it, they got your back, they're familiar. The ex-con's affiliation needs must be addressed in more positive ways.


9. Because of the criticality of the goal, and because of the limited literacy rate of ex-cons, using a metaphor for the Real World inside a game would likely cloud the "message" of the game. In fact, verisimilitude will get the learner close to a Real Life practice opportunity, a factor that has been emphasized by designers of military serious games. In that vein, personalization of one's game environment and one's game avatar will give the learners a way to bring the game world as close to home as technology allows.

Can a serious game really tackle these issues? Yes - if the game is part of a more comprehensive program. And this awareness led me to think about the things that need to surround the game to optimize its effect for learners.

So my curriculum meta-design would have four stages:

1. Bring together a group of six prisoners who will be released at (about) the same time. This group will become the Lifeline Platoon for each member from this moment forward. The formation of the Lifeline Platoon will be a several-week process during which gang-like camaraderie will be promoted among members, but with the single goal of keeping everybody on the right side of the law. Members of the Lifeline Platoon are likely to come from different, even rival, prison gangs, giving learners their first experience in "making the right decision" about who's good to affiliate with and who isn't.


2. Each learner has an individual "set-up" interview prior to game play devoted to personalizing the game experience. Learner provides extensive information about the area/neighborhood s/he will be released to, personal information pertinent to game play, and some discussion about what the learner sees as the greatest challenges ahead. These personal data sets are loaded onto the game server so that each learner's experience is grounded in the personal realities of life.


3. The Lifeline Platoon plays the game as a group. Each learner has their personalized learning experience at the same time as the others. Where personal storylines intersect, each learner's experience of that intersection will occur within their unique personalized game world. One element of the game interface is an open cell phone showing the phone's directory: every member of Lifeline Platoon is listed.


4. After completing the game, the group is reassembled for debrief. This activity, too, may take place over several weeks, with occasional revisits to the game for reinforcement and continued learning. During the debrief period, each member of Lifeline Platoon is issued a cell phone that looks and acts exactly as the one in the game; the directory is pre-loaded with all Lifeline Platoon members. These are given to the prisoners as part of their release program.

And the game itself?

A series of seemingly random encounters with people and situations that test the ex-con's ability to stay on the right side of the law. Each learner, within the context of his/her personalized game environment must complete the tasks of daily life, the assignments for which come from the parole officer. The tasks and the obstacles to their completion follow a randomly-generated storyline, and, as in real life, may vary in difficulty, complexity, urgency and time for completion. This creates the possibility for multiple challenges to be in effect simultaneously. When all members of the Lifeline Platoon survive out of prison for a year, the game is won.

This is a PvE game (plaver vs. environment), all from the learner's point of view. The purpose of the cell phone is to give learners a way to contact other members of their platoon. As learners encounter situations where the temptations are overwhelming or the right choices unclear, they can send a lifeline to another platoon member for help or support. It is also a mechanism for learner's to store contacts for resources s/he discovers through game play.

Feedback comes to each learner from a set of status bars reflecting facets of life that are important to an individual's life success and happiness, e.g., social needs, health, housing, employment. Under some unimagined calculus, these scores are further reflected in an overall score: how close to returning to prison are you? The treatment for the game is a hybrid 3D animation/cinema verité style. The general tone should be somewhere between neutral and ominous, to reflect the tension with which the ex-con must live. Obstacles should come at the learner like a pop-out book, giving the effect of challenges leaping out and surprising the learner.

That's it for now. Now it's your turn.

I'm serious,

Anne

Cohort Learning Experience

As designers of all kinds know, "experience" is the new black: user experience, buyer experience, patient experience, player experience... So why not cohort learning experience?

Not so surprisingly, I'm serious. The particular value of cohort learning, of course, is the experience that derives from working and learning as a team. Within a game environment, that experience cannot develop completely organically, since game mechanics constrain player capabilities. Experience is as much a function of design as learning is. In fact, learning design and cohort experience design must go hand-in-hand for successful cohort learning to occur.

Serious games designed for learning cohorts favor social constructivism as their educational theoretical foundation. In Constructivism: Theory, Perspectives, and Practice, C.T. Fosnot describes this viewpoint of learning as "an interpretive, recursive, building process by active learners interacting with the physical and social world," fully implying that learning is a social process. In other words, a design that focuses the learners' attention and activities on PRACTICE-PRACTICE-PRACTICE, or even PRACTICE-REFLECT-PRACTICE, ignores the benefits of communications for information-sharing, relationship-building - and learning. One might reasonably argue, even, that a cohort-learning design without communications tools is instead a parallel-play design.

For a cohort learning experience to be satisfying and successful for learners, serious game designers - in ways casual game designers needn't - must be mindful of the larger learning experience that surrounds the game in question. What brings learners to the game? Is the cohort already intact, or does it come together for the purposes of the game? What happens to learners after the game? What happens to the cohort?

When designing a serious game for cohort learning, consider the following design components for your overall design:

- Bring the cohort together (physically or virtually) prior to starting the game. This will enable learners to meet cohort members they don't know, and to establish a baseline understanding of the game's purpose and the reason for the cohort. Cohort should review rules of interaction, if necessary.
- During gameplay, cohort members should have communications tools that enable group organization and collaboration. Depending upon your design, those tools might also extend beyond the cohort, even beyond the game.
- Convene the cohort (physically or virtually) after the game is completed in order to discuss and cement key learnings, and plan for learning transference. Strategies for maintaining the learning cohort beyond the game may be appropriate.

By focusing on the critical experience components of the learning cohort, you will promote your learners' engagement with the game and the other cohort members. You will also enhance the effectiveness of your overall serious game design.

I'm serious,
Anne

Is Anonymity Good for Learning?

My avatar's appearance in World of Warcraft is really chapping my hide. She's a level 40 (out of 70) human warrior. In other words, a pretty experienced fighter who has slain her share of gnarly foes and gathered her share of loot and coin. And yet, I still cannot get her completely clothed. U.S. soldiers in Iraq notwithstanding, what self-respecting professional warrior would subject herself to the slings and arrows of battle with decolletage armor??? Cripes, I just recently managed to get her belly covered!

This annoyance has led me to explore the kinds of avatars available on social networking sites for children and teens. They run the same gamut as adult-oriented (I don't mean porn, I mean intended for grown-ups) sites, from tame to mildly saucy (Club Penguin's penguin-only avatars cleverly avoid controversy), and underscore a pervasive, albeit vague, sub-text of women as sex objects. Still in all, every player has a degree of choice about how s/he will be seen online, and one can select the more or the less "sexy" of the options, allowing for a degree of personal expression.

Naming one's avatar is another form of personal expression, whatever age group is being targeted. Most sites filter out crude and otherwise offensive names, but after that, one's imagination is the only limitation, like personalized license plates.

So now, everyone goes online anonymously. We use our avatars as our online faces and voices. We are identified by our screen names. We have hidden our true selves from the online universe. We can be anyone we want. We can do so with impunity, because no one knows who we really are.

I will refrain from comment on the tremendous psycho-social implications of this phenomenon. But as serious game designers, we have an obligation to be aware of our power to influence learners. We must think through how learners will represent themselves in our game world, all the while asking ourselves how our decision will affect learning outcomes.

Which leads us to the question in the title: is anonymity good for learning?

I don't have a final answer to this question, and research is needed in this area. My hunch is that the answer is: it depends. Here are some of the factors:
- is your virtual world based on fantasy or is it a mirror of the real world? Fantasy environments lend themselves to fantasy (read, anonymous) characters. Mirror worlds feel more like real life, although fictitious identities are quite possible. Simulations of real-world events and activities are not intended to reflect fiction, but reality.
- single-learner or multi-learner environment? If there is only one learner, who cares. If there are multiple learners...
- are they playing in parallel or are they a cohort? With the right rules and filters, parallel play is not impeded by anonymity. BUT...

When you are designing for a learning cohort, anonymity can be problematic. When learning together to perform together is the goal, team members need to know who in the real world they will be relying on to do what. Everyone needs to be accountable to the rest of the group. By definition, anonymity makes accountability impossible. Therefore, anonymity can inhibit performance -- and learning.

I'm serious,
Anne

Message to LMS Companies

I am an entrepreneur; I admire entrepreneurism and its spirit in others. I encourage forward-thinking and thought-through initiative. I enjoy creative energy and where it can take someone or some group. When these attributes are applied in the right balance to developing a business, great things can occur. And so, from that perspective, I understand the motivations of the LMS companies to begin eyeing serious game engine developers and serious game design companies as the next golden market opportunities.

That said, allow me to point out a few reasons that you are going after the serious game market far too soon.

1. This is a very immature market. Rapidly growing, yes. But still a toddler. We are still defining ourselves. We are not ready for you yet.

2. LMS companies are in the learning business. Most serious game companies have come to this work because they were first entertainment game companies. Teaching and learning are well appreciated on a lay-person level, but there are very few learning professionals who understand game design, and so brilliant game designers are shouldering the learning design role at the same time. Assessment and measurement, their desirability, their suitability, are all relatively new concepts.

3. Learning management systems are built around recognized industry standards and highly structured content and learning formats. Serious games are, in part and by nature, loosely structured. We're still trying to determine in what ways entertainment game engines must be modified in order to become serious game engines. We don't yet understand the problem you are rushing to solve.

Moreover, I contend that LMS technology is not appropriate for serious games at all. What differentiates serious games from just about any other form of learning (I know there are those who will argue this) is that they emphasize "the group": group dynamics, team-building, group communications and interactions, community-building, cooperation. Sure, an individual player can do many things alone, but if the group weren't important, why is there a group? Why isn't it just solitaire?

How do you indicate group learning in an individually-oriented assessment? Sure, I can explicate every group learning goal into discrete individual behaviors - but why? That's not the point. The point is getting the whole group - as a group - where they need to be.

So, my LMS friends, we have a lot of shaking out to do in our industry before we can be solid business partners to you. Along the way, we must decide whether your technology is suitable for our (and our customers'!) purposes. Don't be surprised if we take a pass.

I'm serious,
Anne

Anonymity and Serious Games

I have chosen to use my real name and an avatar to represent myself in this blog. I'm comfortable with this, and I hope you are, too. In this setting, I don't believe using an avatar takes away from the seriousness or presumptive utility of my message.

But what if we were in a learning setting? Is it sufficient to know my name but not my face? What if I presented myself as Narece? What if I changed my gender? My race? My species? Is learning in any way, positively or negatively, affected by these choices?

Two considerations come immediately to mind. We'll leave the most obvious one, record-keeping, aside for now. More interesting are the social ramifications of anonymity in a multi-player learning environment.

Multi-player entertainment games have repeatedly demonstrated the importance of social networking to their players. Games like Everquest and EVE Online are fueled by these in-game social networks, networks predicated on in-game indentities. Beyond the social function, players also help each other and learn from each other. Indeed, social learning theory is very much "at play." (couldn't resist)

This doesn't mean, however, that serious game designers should jump on the anonymity bandwagon. Make your design decisions based on the learning goals for the game.

What are the desired outcomes for your game? Do they include things like:
- manufacturing line team-building for a new manufacturing process
- emergency evacuation procedures for managers
- kitchen operations for the new hospital kitchen

What each of these has in common is preparing players to work as team members. Not just any ol' team members - their actual real-life team members. In these situations, anonymity would be a hindrance.

Conversely, where the post-game linkage between specific players is less direct and important - for example, learning to play the derivatives market - real-life identifications have less meaning within the game.

I'm serious,
Anne

Players’ Expectations

As we know, evaluation of any SG comes both from the buyer/client/underwriter and from the players. Learning designers (should!) spend time up front understanding the purpose and desired outcomes for the game, as well as the pertinent characteristics of the players. This process enables us to, among other things, anticipate what each of these constituency's evaluation criteria will be - and plan accordingly.

One of the branches in the players' evaluation tree is how well the game matched the experience they expected to have. What are some of the basic components of Player Expectation?

Putting myself in the role of the player, my basic expectations fall into three categories. Unless I've been told otherwise:

LEARNING

- I know what I can expect to learn
- I know what my investment of time will be
- I'm safe, and therefore free to make mistakes and learn from them
- I'm pretty much equal with everyone else

GAME

- It's competitive
- It's fun
- There are rules of play

GROUP EXPERIENCE

- Other players may be people I really know, so I have to be careful what I do
- We learn with each other
- We learn from each other, both directly and indirectly
- Player interaction is encouraged, facilitated, and rewarded
- There are rules of interaction

How do your players' experience match their expectations?

I'm serious,
Anne