These sites came to me by way of PMOG and the PMOG player Jaden. Want to relive some old console games? Check out these links:

• http://www.nintendo8.com
• http://www.virtualnes.com
• http://www.playnes.net
• http://www.virtualapple.org
• http://c64s.com
• http://www.vgmuseum.com/end/snes

What a great resource! Thanks, Jaden!

Margaret Robinson, a games consultant, has a great post about the physical benefits of serious gaming. Games are being used for burn victims, people with post-traumatic stress, and more. I know at Penn State some research has been conducted using 3D virtual environments to speed the recovery of concussion victims. All this, IMO, is a form of learning via gaming.

It seems everywhere I turn, the evidence is mounting. Educational games aren't a fad or a waste. We have a long way to go before we can know exactly where they fit in the educational landscape, but they do have a seat at the table. Enjoy the article!

I've blogged before about Clark Aldrich and his blog.

His recent post titled Serious Games: The Vision, The Hype forced me to think about the diffusion of educational games in higher ed. Most faculty are mot aware of the radical changes games have seem in the past decade. Games = Pong.

So, if you want to encourage faculty to use games for education, one approch is baby steps. Clark writes about this in his post, suggesting a series of design revisions, moving from the tried and true towards gamelike structures.

The problem I see with this approach is our current setup for the design and delivery of content. In higher ed, we have a product mentality. I think as long as most folks have a "product" mentality, where you conceptualize, design develop, and implement X - then off to the next project! - the idea of multiple design rounds is a hard sell.

If we can convince ourselves and others to think of continuous prototyping as a valid way to produce a "product" that is never finished, only stable for this version, then we might be able to use multiple design rounds.

I know where I work this will take a long time to sell to administrators and faculty.

What are the alternatives? Besides the "dive in head first" option - another hard sell, you might be able to take a small portion of a course and build a game around just it. Dive in head first, but just for this tiny portion. Give the faculty time to adjust to the idea and see some success. Then go for the bigger, more immersive games.

This sounds like the continuous prototyping model above, but it does have some differences. First, the threat of a new teaching method is minimized. Second, you can identify and work with the low-hanging fruit in the course, moving the probability of success up. Third, you help the course instructor chunk their content, assisting them to see a path from where they are to a possible future that includes games as an integral part of their course.

I guess what I'm think here is still baby steps, but abstracted out one level. Go for the game tiny content piece by tiny piece, using rapid prototyping as a way to transform the course over time, not a portion of a course into a game.

Here's a neat idea - create an object you can wear (in this case Carbon Goggles) that when worn, show you the real world carbon emission data of the object you are looking at (if it has emmissions). For example, if you are wearing the goggles while car shopiing in SL, you will see the emissions data of the car!

This is very much under development. See this YouTube video for a taste.

Also, http://carbongoggles.org/ for the main site.

What a great idea! I'd love to see a real-world counterpart!

Because all work and no play make Jack a dull boy, games were invented – they were fun, they were relaxing and they were competitive. Played indoors or outdoors, games involved strategies and schemes to win. The physical aspect was always there, but then it was hardly a case of the fittest and the strongest winning all the time – more often than not, the person who planned the game and plotted to move to the next level emerged victorious.

This mental aspect involved in gaming has urged unconventional educators to look at video games through different eyes. Games, which were once thought of as a waste of time and non-contributors to brain development, are now being considered as learning tools and as methods to gain and hone problem-solving skills.

The practical aspect that allows players to explore possibilities without fearing the consequences of failure, the side that lets players try again with alternative methods and schemes, the features that provide incentives to reach the next level – these are all definite advantages that games lend to the development of the human mind and its reasoning, adaptation and survival skills. Games today are being developed for specific purposes – to encourage reading, to teach subjects like science, geography and history, to enhance real-world management skills, to teach players to react in emergency situations, and to be creative. Some games even allow players to create their own characters and storylines and even insert their own versions of the game into the main software. This is creative expression at its best.

Yes, there are conflicting viewpoints and strong opinions that argue against the benefits of video and computer games, the biggest grouse being that they encourage violent tendencies in young children. Shooter games that glorify war and violence, where you must kill and capture (albeit animated images) in order to move up in the order of the world, where the ultimate glory lies in being the sole victor at the cost of everyone else around you, are some of the most popular video games in the business. But research has proved that there is no conclusive evidence linking increased violent behavior to more hours spent in front of the console playing shooter games. In fact, besides improving hand-eye coordination, these games often provide an outlet for the aggressiveness building up inside children when they face stress and tension.

Gaming has become an integral part of education today, as proved by the decision of the MacArthur Foundation to grant $1.1 million towards the funding for a middle and high school in New York that will revolve around teaching kids to develop and create video games and dynamic systems that are expected to hold the key to managing information in the future. Teaching from books and texts has become passé, what’s in is learning through new experiences, gaining knowledge by practicing life skills, and improving oneself by striving to reach the next level of personal development. 
 

By-line:

This article is contributed by Heather Johnson, who regularly writes on the topic of grants for graduate school. She invites your questions and writing job opportunities at her personal email address: heatherjohnson2323 at gmail dot com.

While many universities deploying Second Life have constructed learning spaces that replicate their real world campus counterparts, USC’s Institute for Multimedia Literacy (http://iml.usc.edu/) has worked to imagine a completely innovative learning environment .

This session described the IML’s design process, the interrogation of the relationship between virtual and physical spaces, creating new forms of spatiality and social interaction within a pedagogical context, and designing learning objects such as an immersive syllabus and spatialized audio texts, with an emphasis on understanding the structuring mechanism of spatial infrastructure .

Holly Willis, University of Southern California

My Thoughts

I liked this one. Holly has the right mindset here. Define your needs first, then decide on the technology and methods needed.

This session made me think about with media/info literacy is and will be. We really need to get a handle on this at PSU. It's not just using Word, It's not just REALLY using Word - in fact, it's beyond the use of ANY particular tool. There are just too many tools out there and more on the way every day.

Instead, we need to prep students to be able to hit the ground running in info literacy. We have to stop teaching a particular tool and start teaching them how to approach any situation that requires the use of IT so they can succeed at their tasks. This is way beyond skills training. It dives down into self-awareness of learning styles, use of metacognitive strategies, and knowing how to access Just-In-Time learning resources. We have to reach our students on the affective level - they have to buy into this concept, believe it's critical, and embrace it.

We've made some steps here. The iStudy modules is one. We have a long way to go. What's the plan at PSU?

Notes

Prior August 2007 - Time to think about Virtual Spaces

Remediation (Jay David Bolter, Richard Grusin)

What can the design of virtual spaces do for enhance the re-thinking of teaching practices?

Inst. for Multimedia Literacy
Annenberg Ctr. for Communication
USC

Honors in Multimedia Scholarship Program - Students learn mm/info literacy. Backchannels in class encouraged!
Building a sense of community beyond the classroom.
Second Life things - resisting the traditional "Let's rebuild our campus in SL" mentality.
We need to look at virtual spaces as the social interactions that occur, a setting within which we act, institutional relations and power structures.

Infrastructures
 

• frame our perceptions of the world.
• operate invisibly until they break down
• are relational
• are embedded in social structures, but are also part of the structuring mechanism

Trialectics

Space is
 

• perceived
• conceived
• imagined

also
 

• sociality
• historicality
• spatiality

Brad Kligerman's Ars Virtua Project, 2006
http://transition.turbulence.org/AVAIR

http://metaverseterritories.com

Interactive art space in SL.

Carvable Architecture
Jon Brouchard

Michael Ditullio
Emergent Architecture
interactivearchitectures.blogspot.com
 

What's Happening Now at IML

Creating Open Source Learning Projects
Creating Tutorials

Sudent Projects in SL
Rivenscyr - Matt Lee
 

W3-D: Maximizing the Metaverse

Virtual worlds allow geographically remote teams to work together . However, specialized software is necessary, such as Metaverse, an internal 3D collaborative environment built and running behind the IBM firewall . Its purpose is to bring together IBMers from geographically separate locations and enable them to interact, learn, and share experiences in a virtual face-to-face setting . Based on existing 3D technology, and making use of existing (and new) web services within the intranet, Metaverse provides numerous benefits .

Michael Ackerbauer, IBM
Macker@us.ibm.com

My Thoughts

This is an internal project with little chance it will be moved out for general use. This really limits the immediate application of this. I found it interesting that they are investigating multiple VWs and using Torque for their main development platform.

Also, the use of the word “Metaverse” in this context should not be confused with the OpenSource Metaverse Project (http://metaverse.sourceforge.net/) or the Metaverse Roadmep (http://www.metaverseroadmap.org/index.html).

Notes

IQ Team
Small tech org working for CIO of IBM for internal development.

All happens behind the firewall.
Enterprise data must be available.
Must exploit the fidelity and affordances of each environment used.

Power-up: The Game - Example of work

IQ Specializes in:

• Social Networking
• Breakthrough thinking
• Collaboration tools
• Virtual Worlds

15-30K IBMers in SL.

Can we (IQ):

• Improve Distance Education
• Simplify the experience
• Make the environment transparent to the learner?

This must be tangible and valuable to IBM - internally focussed.

10-20 innovators
50K early adopters in the company

Web 2 & VW Benefits

• Social
• relationship building
• exploration and experimentation
• transparent to user
• contribute to speed and agility
• break down traditional barriers
• enable serendipity

Gaming is also critical. New hires coming in with that mindset.

Internal Metaverse started as a side project - 8 hr/wk for people.

Currently Developing Using

• Torque
• SL
• OLIVE
• Kaneva
• Active Worlds

SL is not being used by other groups for internal dev. Torque is main one. China uses Torque.

No one platform is endorsed here. Use the best tool for the job.

Trying to move assets between one VW to another. A 3D IMB intranet.

Metaverse Demo

Like SL in many ways. Nice presentation tool - can pull in 2D slides easily.

NMC KeyNote Address

Technology and the Global Commons

Diana Oblinger

The days of walled-off learning, where students are separated into grades, disciplines and physical locations, are giving way to programs in which students are encouraged to look beyond lecture halls, labs, and textbooks . Technology offers opportunities to bring together people, tools, and data in a global commons .

Creating a global commons requires more than removing barriers posed by subject matter, geography, economics, or age . It requires a new set of models that may challenge many of our historic assumptions about authority  and education.

Diana Oblinger is the President and CEO of EDUCAUSE, a nonprofit association whose mission is to advance higher education through the use of information technology. The current membership comprises over 2,200 colleges, universities, and education organizations, including 200 corporations.

My Thoughts

This was a high-level conceptual overview of the state of ed. tech. Diana talked about challenges and opportunities we face now and in the near future. One thing that stood out for me is the concept of contextual constructivism. Construstivists belive knowledge is self-generated; we should provide the opportunities for learning and ensure students are mentally prepped to learn. The contextual part (IMO) comes from a lack of success over the past 20 years in developing education that ensures both near and far transfer. Rand Spiro defined this a cognitive flexibility in the early 90's - it was the grail of instructional designers - design a learning situation so that the learner can walk into both closely-related situations AND (conceptually) distantly-related situation and apply what they've learned?

Well, good idea, but research and many efforts just haven't shown a good way or ways to do this. So the cynical side of me says that is an academic sidestep to avoid the "failure" of far transfer. But the optimist in me says that we thought it was a good idea, but research is quite mixed. So let's move on.

Related to this is the idea on involving students in complex, real-world situations. This is the context Diana was talking about. These are ill-structured problems, with no single solution, they're too big for one person to handle, and you need to justify your solution against other solutions.

Web 2, virtual worlds, and games all facilitate the development and deployment of ill-structured problems into the higher ed. curriculum.

My takeaway from this is the PSU is poised to move into this arena. We have or are establishing the infrastructures we need to provide the toolsets our students will need here. We have the instructional design expertise to assist faculty in using this technology well. What we haven't done is educate faculty in this area so they are mentally ready and accepting, and willing, to try curriculum changes that lead to the introduction of contextual constructivism. That's our big next step.

Notes:

Contextual Constructivism

We learn in context. Incoming students are experiential. Don't spend a great deal of time in class. 7.7% of time in formal learning. Rest of learning is social.

• Students growing up in a game-like culture
• Media creators.
• Contributors to knowledge.
• Collective intelligence.
• Most of our learning structures do not allow for these elements.

"Knowledge is created, not possessed."

Technology Environments Today

• Broadband a must. US is behind other nations.
•  
• We should create a universal broadband fund:

        - 1/3 federal

        - 1/3 state

        - 1/3 public and.or private entities

•  
• Working with systems, system-based problems is on the rise. These are complex, ill-structured problems. Context-based.
•  

LEARNING DIFFERENTLY

• Ag Society - know how
• Industrial Soc - know what
• Knowledge Soc - know who, where. Why - justify your position.

We haven't changed our learning structures to match a knowledge society.
We need to continue changing our physical spaces for learning.

Context is more important than we've thought. Traditionally, content is mostly separated from context. This may be a big issue.

Education 3.0

• Prof is orchestrator of knowledge creation
• Learning activities are flexible
• Institutional affiliations are loose
• Distributed research centers and organizations - web ties locations, instruments, grids, people together.
  •   - Repositories that are open to all.
  •   - Need to find a way so that cross-discipline opportunities are easy.
• Sensory-rich environments.
• Digital Storytelling
• Virtual Worlds
• Self-publishing
•  

Meta-Learning - Metacognition applied to learning.
We need to help students discover how they learn best.
We can wrap metacognitive activities around instruction.

This is an interesting spinoff from Wonderland.

http://chimera69.essex.ac.uk/User:Gardnemr/Mixed_Reality_Teaching_and_Le...

This will be a benchmark on how the Darkstar/Wonderland technology can be used/transformed into higher ed environments. Very early in the process, but seems like a logical next step.

Open Virtual Worlds: Understanding the Wonderland Project

Blogged from the NMC 2008 Summer Conference

Project Wonderland is an open source toolkit for creating 3D virtual worlds . It features immersive audio, live application sharing, and a high degree of extensibility that allows virtual world developers to create unique, interactive experiences. This technology, still in the early stages of development, is freely available for experimentation and proof-of-concept projects and is the centerpiece of the Open Virtual Worlds Project initiative with the New Media Consortium .
 
Presenters

• Kevin Roebuck, Sun Microsystems, Inc.
• Jonathan Kaplan, Sun Microsystems, Inc.
• Jordan Slott, Sun Microsystems, Inc.
• Stuart Sim, Sun Microsystems, Inc.

My Thoughts

This VW has great potential. The underlying thought is solid. However, the product is far from complete. Many of the underlying "guts" are being rebuilt this summer and fall to make them better. Some of the core technologies - Java to build it, X-Windows to bring in apps may prove a hindrance to higher-ed environments that don't use these technologies to a great extent.

This is not a turn-key product. It's open source, so you will need to have a number of people with technical savvy in open source environments to get this up and running. Customization will require at least a small group of people dedicated to custom coding, installation, etc. The flip size of this is because it's open source, as the community builds and code samples are added to the community, you'll be able to find code close to or exactly what you need.

This is a product worth watching. I think it needs another year or two of development before I'd be comfortable using it.

Notes:

Problem

34K people in all countries. People work at home, on the road, etc. 50% out of office on any given day. Telephone, etc., not engaging.

F2F conversations were always better between managers/employees - they found out more about the person, not just the employee.

Solution

A virtual world as a collaboration env. within a business. High emotional bandwidth in these environments.

Started as an internal project, is now open source. Built on Project Darkstar & JAVA.

Why 3d?

 - True informal conversations with high emotional bandwidth
 - Space provides context - The real world mapped to the virtual world helps us contextualize what we're doing.
   - 3D is natural
 - Potential for back-channel conversations.

Wonderland Design Goals

1. Focus on strong social interaction.
2. Design for Collaboration
  - Seamless document sharing - no need to switch contexts. The world should be the only thing you need.
3. Extreme Extensibility
  - Make it easy to build new tools into the environment.

What is Wonderland?

 - A 100% free JAVA open-source toolkit for building 3D immersive virtual worlds.

Core Features

 - 3D environment with avatars
 - Live app sharing
 - Integration w/ business data
 - Darkstar Scalability - large to small
   - Develop locally, share globally
 - Open and extensible
 - Audio as core feature
 - Extensive telephony integration

Demo Observations

• Similar to Second Life. Graphics not as refined.
• Cone of silence. Yes, like in Get Smart, but it actually works.
• You can record a conversation and play it back in 3D!
• Can bring any X-Windows app into the world in it's own window and interact with it.
• Nice audio controls for speakers - you stand on a magic square and your voice is projected, just like you are miked.
• Comes with a PDF viewer. Save your presentation as PDF and show it easily. Audience can synchronize/unsynchronize from the speaker/current slide as needed.
• Telephony is neat - you call in and show up as an orb. Avatars can then pick up the orb and carry it wherever needed.
• Sound integration is robust and well-thought out.
• No avatar inventory.

Technical Specs for Design, Development, Implementation

Server - Build on Project Darkstar
  - Back-end gaming platform.
    - For games
    - scalable
    - handles persistence
    - set of core services

Client - Project Wonderland
  - Open source Java 3D-based graphics engine
  - Manages world, animation, avatars
  - Supports app sharing (Java and X-apps for now)
  - Extensible and customizable

World - MPK20 - Sun's Virtual Workplace
  - World customized to support Sun's distributed workforce
  - Includes apps for sharing and collaboration.

Tech Requirements to Use the CLient

 - Modern Gaming Hardware

High-Level Conceptualization of Structure

  - World Cells to
    - Room Cells
      - Object Cells

Done for rendering and processor use. If you don't need a room cell, then you don't need any object cells inside of it.

If you create a new extension, you are creating a new cell type.

Making 3D Stuff

Use commercial apps.
Wonderland File System (WFS)
  - Reference to 3D files Stored as directories and XML files

Timeline

Fall 08 - release 0.5
2009 - 1.0

For More Info

Project Wonderland Site - http://wonderland.dev.java.net

Project Blog - http://blogs.sun.com/wonderland

MPK20 - Suns Virtual Workplace - http://research.sun.com/projects/mc/mpk20.html