I'm Serious.net

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

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: 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 

Why I Changed the Tagline

  Did you notice? I did it several weeks ago, when the colors and some other things changed (more on that later). Don't worry, my feelings are only a little bit hurt. But, seriously, I did it for a reason.

My view of the intersection of new technologies and workplace learning and productivity has expanded. In the first place, the shifting sands of new and emerging technology have blurred the boundaries between games, virtual worlds, social networking, 3D simulations, and other immersive technologies. As a result, I'm socializing an ür-term to embrace it all: immersive environments.

Secondly, organizations that adopt immersive environments do so to facilitate work and enhance productivity. This is equally the focus of learning design professionals, not to mention business managers and decision-makers.

And so, "serious thoughts about immersive environments for learning and productivity".

Some things haven't changed, though.

I'm (still) serious,
Anne

Re-finding gems

  Every so often, while in a fit of agita, I run across a nugget that I appreciate just as much as when I first found it. Richard Van Eck is a frequent author of these treasures, and so it was today.

About a year ago, a question popped up on the serious game listserv run by Ben Sawyer. The discussion actually had to do with guided learning/discovery learning, but detoured at one point to scaffolding as a component of serious game design. Richard offered the following thoughts:

Regarding the idea of scaffolding a game, I would encourage us all to also consider how games provide scaffolding already, and to incorporate those strategies. First, games almost always begin with a tutorial which walks you through the main interface components and skill demonstration. Second, games often provide learner control over challenge (a la Malone and Lepper) in the form of selecting amongst levels of difficulty (usually akin to easy, medium, and hard). Third, games invariably proceed from the simple to the complex, require small, graduated steps in skill level until we "level up", at which point we usually face all the challenges of the first level plus increased challenges that require new learning (e.g., combination of a run and jump comm[a]nd in an action game, or combining two items in inventory to make a third thing). And this does not include the myriad of other features in the game that provide feedback and guidance (direct and indirect) such as journals that are automatically updated with important information, the availability of goal reminders (e.g., Bioshock or Neverwinter Nights), text options for possible actions, etc. So if we are going to scaffold learning in games, we need to [be] cognizant of the ways of scaffolding that are appropriate for games, and to make use of established tools and game strategies to do so.

And all of these ideas are just limited to what is part of the game itself--the game manual, cheats and walkthroughs, and game player social communities are also all arguably part of the game, and certainly allow players to self-regulate access to assistance (a kind of self-imposed scaffolding, I think).

I appreciate not only Richard's discussion of scaffolding, but his wholistic view of the game. If each of the components he refers to are also part of the game, then aren't they also part of the learning? Both learning about and learning from the game? Since these components often provide the player's "intro" to and "outro" from the game, don't these component's also have a good chance of influencing learning transference?

Good reminders, Richard. Thank you.

I'm serious,
Anne

Go Boilermakers!

  Purdue University has announced the opening of its Center for Serious Games and Learning in Virtual Environments. A reception is being held February 12 to mark the official opening.

As readers know, I have many times decried the lack of formal programs for those wishing to study the design and implementation of games and other immersive environments for learning. Kudos to Purdue and Dr. William Watson for bringing this center to life.

I'm serious,
Anne

Show Them Your Stuff!

Do you have a great serious game concept? Looking for a reason to build it? How about world-wide renown and a pile of money - is that reason enough? OK - I'm stretching it a bit, but this is a great chance for students and professionals to try their hands at designing and developing a serious game. Prizes will be awarded!

Whosegame, an alpha version from Orange (a French? developer), intends to be a portal for serious games built in Flash. In this early stage of the portal's life, a serious game design contest is being conducted at the site.

According to the site, "[y]ou can submit as many serious games as you want on the following topics:

• improve your knowledge in the telecommunications field
• be an eco-citizen with the help of telecommunications
• acting against isolation and exclusion thanks to telecommunications"

They even give you some examples to get your imagination going.

C'mon now - you have 3 months. Any professors out there looking for a class project?...

I'm serious,
Anne

Do you know where your critters are?

 There are only 45 days left before Spore is launched! Have you gotten Spore Creature Creator yet? No? Not even sure what I'm talking about?

Spore is the next game phenomenon from Will Wright, creator of The Sims franchise. In Spore, players nurture single-cell animals into sentient beings that create community and build civilizations, eventually exploring and colonizing space. In this video, Will presents Spore - and his game design philosophy, based in large measure on Maria Montessori's philosophy of education. Notably, Will underscores the importance of user-generated content to the player's attachment to the game and the player's overall game experience.

To my mind, there are three key take-aways from Will's presentation:

1. The notion of attachment is vital to learning, too, of course. Attachment creates personal meaning and relevance - important factors to learning, retention, and transference.
2. Learner-generated content is not only useful in demonstrating content mastery; it keeps a learner/player engaged with content - and potentially with other learners/players.
3. Serious game designers have much to learn from the gurus of entertainment game design.

After you look at Will's presentation, create your own critters. Yes, you'll get attached to the little buggers. You'll be very excited to launch them into the Spore universe and grow them into complex societies. Along the way, you'll learn about evolution, biology, geology, climate change, cosmology... Now that's a seriously fun game.

I'm serious,
Anne

Rant: Companions in Learning???

Pat LaFontaine sure seems like a great guy. He's a Hockey Hall of Famer and All-Star who was forced into retirement in 1998 due to head trauma and concussions. During a period of convalescence, Pat drew solace and inspiration from the many critically ill children and teens who were hospitalized at the same time. Through his experience, he redoubled his efforts and devotion to his foundation, Companions in Courage, a non-profit organization dedicated to supporting children and families who are overcoming life-threatening obstacles. CiC has created "Lion's Dens" in a number of children's hospitals around the U.S. - essentially a playroom filled with kiosks and game stations (including an array of adaptive technologies) and conversation areas. CiC says, to quote their website, that "[t]hrough innovative communications tools, these playrooms replace the isolation of a hospital with a connection to family, friends and celebrities during each hospital stay." Yes, emphasis mine.

I guess Robbie Bach must be a great guy, too. He's Microsoft President of Entertainment and Devices Division. He and Pat announced today that their respective organizations are partnering to put "hundreds" of Xbox 360 game kiosks in CiC Lion's Dens. In addition to select games, movies and television content, the Xboxes will be linked to a private network version of Xbox LIVE. The kiosks are preloaded with a variety of E-rated games, Y-rated TV shows, and G-rated movies. Well, Robbie is head of Entertainment and Devices.

I'm an optimist by nature. (What? Fretters can be optimists, too.) I expect all children who go to hospitals come home to live long and healthy lives. But, this of course, does bring up the problem of how much school they are missing when they are working so hard at getting well. And why are these charitably-minded people (aha!) so concerned about entertainment and celebrities and not about school? (You see the fretter-optimist thing now, don't you?)

This seems like such an overlooked opportunity. Particularly when you consider that Robbie's uber-boss is Bill Gates, Chairman of Microsoft and Co-Founder of the Gates Foundation, which considers improving education in America to be one of its principal objectives.

C'mon guys. One of the great ways to help kids - or anyone - not just heal, but have a successful re-entry into the world is by keeping them engaged with the world they can't participate in right now. As every parent knows, kids want to learn, even sick ones. Let's not just think about entertaining them so that time passes more quickly. Let's also think about how we can keep their minds engaged, with the world and with learning!

I'm serious,
Anne