I'm Serious.net

Badges for Learning

On March 8th, WCET (WICHE Cooperative for Educational Technologies) hosted a webinar that I co-presented with John Bower (CEO, uBoost) on badges for learning.  Topics included:

• Game-based learning and badging basics
• Applications in higher education and online learning
• Innovative uses of game-based learning and badging in education
• What to consider when implementing a game-based or badging program

If you missed the Badges for Learning Webcast, you can watch it here.

I'd love to hear how you use badges and gaming dynamics to increase engagement, promote and focus learning, and assess competencies.

 

Big Data: The Overlooked Opportunity in Games

Beyond their demonstrated effectiveness as a medium for communications and community-building, serious games have great potential to reveal variables that influence audience retention, engagement and loss as well as the impact of various demographic data on those influences. By examining player data, learning organizations and news organizations can gain new insight into the behaviors, motivations and needs of their target audiences.

Fundamentally, a game is a system built around a series of interactions. Sure, the conceit of the game, the storyline, the characters, the graphical treatment, and social components all have a huge influence on a game’s acceptance and popularity. But at the heart of a game’s attraction are its gameplay and its mechanics (aka, dynamics), i.e., the activities a player engages in while playing the game. Activities, of course, are a predetermined set of interactions between the player, the content of the game, and (in the case of multi-player and social games) other players.

As a player progresses through an online game, the choices she makes at each moment of interaction determine her experience of the game and, ultimately, the game’s outcome for her. The game’s internal infrastructure includes a mechanism for tracking her interactions so that the game responds appropriately to her input. Players who make different choices will get different responses from the system, have different experiences and, likely, different outcomes.

Within a game system, players generate data in two categories: gameplay (the log of player interactions) and demography. Generally, gameplay data enable game designers to tune a game, while demographic data inform marketing decisions.

In the world of serious games, where interactions are designed to yield a particular behavioral or cognitive outcome, player data are important in some key ways. They provide an assessment of a player’s overall performance. They point to areas of difficulty (diagnosis) for a player as she progresses through a game. They can also help to predict how a player will perform in similar activities, whether those activities are embedded in another game or take place in the real world.

When gameplay and demographic data from all players are aggregated, we have the opportunity to look for patterns. They might indicate patterns of interaction – desired or not, intended or not – with especially high occurrence rates. Those patterns may, for example, demonstrate the inclination of a particular demographic subset to make the same wrong choice within an activity.

For publishers of multiple games, data aggregation across all games and all players can be particularly informative. Perhaps players who respond positively to one game type are also frequent players of another game type. Players who are successful with one game mechanic or activity type may be completely unsuccessful with a second type.

Ultimately, the value of trapping, aggregating, and analyzing these kinds of data will be extremely significant. Serious game developers will gain a much better understanding of what “works” with their target audiences. Even better, players will have more successful and fulfilling game experiences.

 

Teach them to search...

Good "search" skills are misundersestimated, to borrow some coinage from our inestimable erstwhile president, George. W. Bush. Indeed, knowing which search engine to use for what purpose and then how to use advanced queries to find useful information can make the difference between an efficient research exercise and a frustrating, potentially unfruitful trial. 

Good search is a matter of entering the right question - or key words - into the search field. Finding the proper key words and the proper syntax for joining those words require complex language and logic skills. Effective search also requires enough knowledge of the subject matter to formulate a query that will yield the desired information. 

For the most part, Internet users gain search skills over time, through trial and error. Unless you're in library school, you are unlikely to be presented with a tutorial on search techniques. We all just kinda wing it, hoping to find the info we want, presuming it's not available if we don't find it right away.

Last Fall, Google released Search Stories Video Creator. It's a nifty little tool that they've released on YouTube that lets you create narrative around search queries to build a short (very short) movie. Enter seven queries in a sequence, indicate whether you want to search the Web, YouTube, maps, etc., then add a soundtrack - et voilå, your very own little 30-sec. movie. Here's mine (my first one, anyway):

I'm reeling from the scads of ways learning designers can embed this tool into all sorts of curricula. Give learners a topic, and have them tell a story to demonstrate content mastery.

• Tell me a story about "metamorphosis."
• Recap the story of "To Kill a Mockingbird."
• Who's got the best story about "quadratic equation?"
• Team A: your group's story is about microlending. Each team member tells a chapter of the story. Each chapter focuses on one key principle. Organize your team. Assign chapters. Tell your story.

There's even a dedicated Search Stories channel on YouTube, with some really fun (and some really not - but they're all PG-rated) examples.

I'm serious,

Anne

Psst! Serious gamers - Can you keep a secret?

  This is a really big day for me, and I hope for serious games in general. Today, I'm going to let you in on a secret, but I have to ask you to keep quiet about it. Pinky promise?

We have partnered with Pragmatic Solutions to launch the first (no disrespect to our friends at SGI and the Serious Games Exposed project) portal and distribution site for serious games! Pragmatic, you will remember, is the brains behind America's Army, providing all the back-end infrastructure, the hugely complex real-time analytics engine, and worldwide distribution.

The portal (we'll take name suggestions) provides access to a catalog of games from developers around the world and handles all the e-commerce components for buyers. The deep analytics are available to all serious game developers who join our network. The social networking component enables users to share learning experiences, join game groups or teams, and recommend helpful titles to other users. The advertising network generates co-op revenues that will be shared with developers who opt-in to this feature. Best of all, this service is FREE to game developers/purveyors.

Right now, we are provisioning the system with two things: a massive competencies engine against which we match games; AND, the game system itself.

What does this mean to you? If you are a developer/purveyor of serious games anywhere in the world and have one or more titles that you offer for commercial distribution - even if you offer them for free - we want to hear from you! We are loading the system with as many games as we can during the next six weeks - in preparation for our less-secret announcement coming early this Summer.

Interested parties should contact secrets@imserious.net. Let us know about you and your game(s) - title, subject matter, learning objectives/outcomes, kind of game, number of players, your contact information. We are vetting many titles right now, so don't miss the opportunity to be part of the big announcement.

I'm really, really serious,
Anne

Entrepreneurial Retirement

   I'm having an increasingly difficult time defining two words that one hears a lot lately, what with the "new economy" and all. More and more of us mid-career (the new euphemism for "middle aged") folks are trying to figure out how to re-invent ourselves to address our "new circumstances," whether due to job or portfolio loss. In the "new economy," we're likely to have to keep doing whatever the "new us" decides on for another 10-25 years longer than we expected to last year, when it was still the "old economy". And let's not forget the unfortunate retirees who were betrayed by the "old economy" and are forced back to the workplace.

So what is retirement (word #1) in the new economy? If the old economy wiped out your savings and your plans for your later years, does that mean retirement is no longer achievable for the middle class?

Many are finding their new circumstances provide the ideal moment to try their hand at starting and operating their own business. Some are hanging out their shingles, seeing greater opportunity in the "gig economy" than in traditional employment.

Are these people entrepreneurs (word #2)? I thought entrepreneurs were folks who are blessed/cursed with a need to be in business for themselves, not people who start businesses because they don't have something else to do. (Interestingly, "entrepreneur" comes from the French "entreprendre," a verb made up of two parts: "entre", meaning between; and "prendre", meaning to take. When looked at this way, entrepreneurial activities might actually be the things we do to fill in the spaces between other things - like employment.)

While I've been fussing over these ever so important issues, retired 79-year old Supreme Court Justice Sandra Day O'Connor has been busy with her new venture, "Our Courts". I'll let her explain:

This summer, Our Courts.org will release two games for middle-schoolers, just in time for the new school year. The games, called "Do I Have A Right?" and "Supreme Decision: Freedom of Speech", will each reside within the Our Courts virtual world. The website already has lesson plans and activities for teachers. More resources and more titles are expected in coming months.

Apparently, Justice O'Connor has this entrepreneurial retirement thing figured out. Plus, anybody who gets into videogames in her late 70's definitely has it going on.

I'm serious,
Anne

GDC: Not a Banner Year for Serious Games Summit

  I've been trying to put into words the flat feeling I was left with after the Serious Games Summit.

Perhaps it's the word "summit" that generates expectations too lofty to be achieved. I had dreams of heated conversation about the challenges within and for the serious games industry. I envisioned impassioned discussions about learning design/game design mashups. I was yearning for all the new game concepts that would fuel and challenge us for another year. Such was not to be.

Rather, it was a bit stale and under-attended. Sure, a few more corporate initiatives have been funded, but not for any novel purposes. There were a couple of new tools on the market that claim to make it easier to author/script/develop learning games. But all in all, it was same old same old.

This leaves me with vague unease about where serious games are going - or, better, where the conference is going. My sense is that the company that puts on GDC keeps going to the same people to help them with their programming for serious games. This inevitably self-referential approach effectively eliminates new ideas or new entrants to the discussion.

I raise this point because I've wondered for some time whether a conference focused on the ways technologies for entertainment are used for learning and productivity should be co-located with a conference for game developers. There are great benefits, to be sure, but so many topics get left off the table. Important topics, like achieving the right balance between learning and game play; or, cross-cultural play styles and their impact on serious game design; or, whether music enhances learning equally well in story-driven games as in strategy games.

If you are a serious games professional, are your professional development needs being met? Your professional networking needs? If so, how and where? Inquiring minds want to know.

I'm serious,
Anne

Women and (Serious) Games

  One of the few general sessions I was able to attend at last week's GDC focused on the lack of women in games, both on the player and the creator sides of the equation. As the panelists were speaking about this wretched state of affairs, a silent slide deck ran behind them. The deck was created by Merrilea Mayo (one of the panelists) and Julie Becker, both of the Ewing Marion Kauffman Foundation, and offers their analysis of the problem along with their tongue-in-cheek prescription for fixing it.

Download Kauffman

My solution is a bit more pragmatic. Focus on the part of the industry where there is a huge gap to fill: serious games.

What is the gap? There are not nearly enough learning designers involved in the creation of serious games (for the umpteenth time).

But there are many, many female learning designers, an unquantifiable subset of whom are interested in games and game technologies. By drawing on their learning design expertise while introducing them to game design and production, we are likely to see many benefits: new job opportunities; higher-quality games; and, a stronger industry all around.

So, go ahead. Start talking amongst yourselves. It's for (y)our own good.

I'm serious,
Anne

Just Announced: IBM's Virtual Service Management Simulator

IBM announced today their new Virtual Service Management Simulator. The game is an immersive 3D learning game which, according to IBM, is "based in a realistic virtual organization where players learn how service management and IT Infrastructure Library (ITIL) processes can be applied to significantly improve business performance and increase operational maturity."

The simulator is set within a virtual organization, and presents the "challenges and issues" that each member of the organization face. Players work through the game, building their knowledge of ITIL and service management, then applying new knowledge to process and tool improvements that 1) resolve business pains and 2) drive business success and profitability. 

IBM sees this product as appropriate for all levels of service managers. 

In a potentially worrying move for small(er), independent serious game developers, IBM is making the title available to all for FREE. It's available as of today. To play online or download, click here.

I'm serious,

Anne

GDC: Game of the Day (Tuesday)

Several months ago, I drew readers' attention to what promised to be a "game-changing" game called Spore. Today, I heard Margaret Robertson offer a critical review of the game. It was a great presentation, and Margaret's insights offer valuable lessons for all game designers, whether entertainment or serious.

Spore, as you will remember is massive - massively multi-player, massive in scope, and massively ambitious. Players start with a single-cell creature that is nursed through many stages of evolution, 

ultimately achieving space exploration technology and abilities. The appearance and attributes of the creature are purely user-generated content; every aspect of the little dude is controlled by the player with the Spore Creature Creator. Along the way, your creature discovers other creatures that may or may not be friendly. Don't worry, though, everyone survives, and along the way, new worlds are colonized and societies flourish.

But even with all those new worlds, Spore is not gaining the traction that game design house, Maxis, and the publisher, Electronic Arts, had anticipated. One of the sub rosa goals of the Spore design team was to provide a platform to explore - and teach - biology. In fact, since the game launched, no one has been identified as using Spore to teach science.

In part, this is due to the windstorm that kicked up shortly after launch. Members of the science community took the game creators to task for their science, for the game's inattention to important details and nuances of biology and evolution, and for the cute-sy approach to graphics. Creationists took umbrage at the entire concept of the game, and intelligent design proponents felt equally digruntled.

Other design issues have posed barriers to adoption. The game has been called "too slow," "too long," "too complicated," and "too soon" (in other words, teachers haven't had enough time to be exposed to the depth and breadth of the game, and so haven't yet figured out how to fit the game into the rest of the curriculum). And of course, there's the little-referenced, although greatly considered, metric : TTP (time-to-penis, or the time it takes students to start creating sexually-explicit content).

There is promising news about Spore's utility in education, however. A number of education applications have been devised by clever educators, among those: creative writing; introduction to 3D modelling and thinking spatially; teamwork, particularly among those with developmental difficulties; and, emotional literacy for autistics.

As a result of her recent evaluation of the game, Margaret offers several "learnings" from which we can all benefit. I have taken her ideas and liberally elaborated on them, and so ask for her forgiveness if I misrepresent her thinking.

1. Marketing and advocacy are key to adoption, particularly within the education community. These activites should focus both on subject matter and on teaching.
2. Games being primed for the education sector should be marketed with lesson plans, model learning modules, and other teacher-assistance materials that make it easy for the educator to get on board.
3. Publishers need to learn how to sell to the education community, which is not at all the same as selling through retail channels or to the corporate world. This includes the ability to do education pricing and institutional licensing rather than seat licensing, just for starters.
4. Free is the best price of all in education. Of course, it's difficult to sustain a non-revenue business, so rather than giving it all away, consider "compartmentalizing" your game so that you can seed the market with the freebies while still charging for other components.
5. Make sure that your technology threshold is as low as possible to account for the aged equipment available at many schools.
6. Ensure that it's easy for players to collaborate.
7. Be as flexible as possible in the format of your outputs. User-generated content assets should be downloadable and exportable.
8. Practice patience. The education market moves much more slowly than business. Adoption and uptake happen on academic year cycles, not on a quarterly basis.

I'm serious,
Anne

GDC: Game of the Day (Monday)

Sometimes, little things make big differences. The garbage collector who called me, not to tell me he'd found my dog, but to tell me he'd spent his whole shift looking. The man who directed me to the "up" escalator when I could only find the "down". The shopkeeper who walked me a whole block to make sure I got to the right place. The highway patrolman who "loaned" me $5 when I was out of gas.

The people at Akoha built their company on the notion that the Internet can and should be used to bring happiness to the real world through the promotion of random acts of kindness. Akoha is an alternate reality game that sends players on missions of kindness by distributing playing-card size mission assignments. 

 

The missions are easy to accomplish (e.g., make someone smile, give someone a book), and have the result of delight and pleasure on the part of the giver and the receiver. When asked how the receiver can give back, the giver responds, "Pay it forward!" In other words, take the mission card and use it with someone else.

If gameplay alone doesn't inspire you, go to the Akoha website. You will find a map that tracks all the missions in action and those that are completed. You can follow your own missions to find out how far they have advanced, where in the world they have traveled, and how many stops they have made along the way. In the brief time since the game entered open beta (where it is now), 3,119 missions have been completed; as I've been sitting here writing, the map screen has been abuzz with activity.

While Akoha is a stand-alone game today, it has the distinct potential of becoming equal part game, equal part game platform. By that, I mean that one of the game's key design elements is the user-generated mission capability. Any player can submit a mission idea or set of ideas. Those missions then become available to all players. This is what has me seriously excited.

Imagine that you are a community organizer trying to engage your target group in the efforts you are undertaking. By setting up a series of missions, you might make the work lighter and the impact more widely-spread. What if you're a school vice-principal dealing with the problem of vandalism at your school. Maybe engaging known taggers in a game where they use their art talents for good acts instead of petty crimes would re-orient their behavior. Or you might be a coach whose team needs a lot of work in coalescing as a team, or a systems administration trainer, or nurse practitioner... well, you get the idea.

I urge you to take a look. Not only will you feel good about yourself and your magnanimity, you'll be inspired to figure out how to introduce this game into your learning activities. 

I'm serious,

Anne