Educational Gaming Commons - Press Start

The Federation of American Scientists (FAS) Learning Technologies
Program has created an Internet Wiki site that is intended to serve as
an online almanac of virtual worlds and related Websites and
information.    As some of you may know, in recent years, we at FAS
have developed a great interest in the potential virtual worlds offer
for educational and learning, via the intelligent application of new
technologies.To date, 75 virtual worlds are listed at the site, which
also includes extensive links to virtual world tools, news, and other
useful online reference materials.  Information on many of them is
partial or out of date, and what we really want is to find people who
have spent a lot of time in one or more virtual worlds, and who are
interested in sharing their knowledge thereof with visitors to our
site.  We also hope to include add more virtual worlds to those
already listed.

The FAS Virtual Worlds Almanac site has a number of features intended
to help visitors learn more about specific virtual worlds, including a
"feature finder" that permits users to browse through the Almanac by
selecting the features each world offers, based upon the interests of
the viewer.

See http://vworld.fas.org/wiki/Main_Page

The popularity and number of browser-based games is growing. Here's a recent article that discusses this:

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/technology/7591982.stm

The article made me pause to think about this. I have joys and concerns about web-based gaming, and some new questions about casual games that just occur as you browse the web.

Joys

1. Quick and easy. No downloads required.
2. Most are casual games. Duck in, play, duck out.

Concerns

1. Really tough to build something complex.
2. Even though we say "web-based," in many cases we mean Flash, Java, JavaScript, PHP, etc. Not for the average person that wants to create a game.

Note I haven't written anything about the pedagogical implications, either as a joy or concern. It seems to me the pedagogical "stuff" sits outside the delivery mechanism. But then one line from the above referenced article made me stop to reconsider that - "It's a natural extension of where he web is going." This line is in reference to the social aspect of the web, and how people are trying to change the isolated browsing expereince into a more social one.

So what does that mean for pedagogy? The cheese doesn't stand alone? If knowledge construction is mediated by social interaction, how do we attach pedagogy? Do we just drop it in, like cheese in water, do we try to make it like ice cubes in water - part of the whole, yet a bit different, or do we mix everything together into a educational social smoothie?

The Virtual Worlds in Education Conference
Real Education in a Virtual World:
Using Online Virtual Environments for Teaching and Learning
Hosted and sponsored by East Carolina University
November 10 and 11, 2008: This event is held entirely in Second Life on the East Carolina University virtual campus (http://slurl.com/secondlife/ECU%20II/112/107/26)
The conference will be over a 48 -hour period.

See http://sl.nmc.org/calendar/2008/08/the-virtual-worlds-in-education-confe... for more info.

The EGC will have a Rock Band and PC setup bythe main book checkout area in Pattee.

See http://www.libraries.psu.edu/psul/openhouse.html for more info.

The EGC will be there to meet with students and gather names for a student adivsory board.

Check out his prototype:

http://www.mobitrends.com/2008/08/27/head-tracking-in-second-life/

This is important stuff, from a social perspective. Educators like SL for the social presence, yet we all have avatars that just shot up a mess of Botox - no facial expressions. Yes, there are ways to do it, but they are artifical and hard to use. Allowing natural real-life facial expressions to transfer into SL automatically is a huge step forward. Enjoy the video.

This is a documentary about gamers and how games affect their lives. See

http://www.acefest.com/program/second-skin.shtml

for more info. It will be premiered atthe ACE Film Festival in NYC September 4-7. Hopefully it will then be released to the general public. If you are in NYC and need something to do, here you go!

Just read "I'm a Wii Fit Believer" and it made me think - at the EGC we've been concentrating on the cognitive value of games. I'm also interested in the affective value of games, and how they can serve as a catlyst to energize the cognitive domain. But what about the psychomotor domain? Certainly many Wii games are physical. Can the Wii and the new generation of input devices be utilized for physical fitness and psychomotor skills training? I believe it's possible. What do you think?

When video games first hit the market, who would have ever thought that the skills of surgeons would be attributed to this form of entertainment? Ever since their inception in the most basic form as early as 1947, video games have been a source of delight and enjoyment to children and equally frustrating and troublesome to parents. We’ve seen games being blamed for everything from a lack of attention to school work to disinterest in every other activity to poor eyesight. But the last laugh is being had by the gamers, what with a report published in the Archives of Surgery detailing how surgeons who played video games on a regular basis tend to be more skilled and dexterous with the use of their hands than their counterparts who didn’t know a vide game from a TV console.

Video games, or rather more specifically games like the Wii from Nintendo that demand dexterity of the hand and excellent spatial skills tend to enhance surgeons’ suturing skills in laparoscopic and arthroscopic surgeries that require small incisions and use thin surgical tools and cameras to see the insides of your body as they operate on you. Surgeon Mark Smith endorsed this report in an interview where he admitted that playing with the Wii was a cheaper and more effective way to improve surgical skills than using a simulator or performing actual surgery.

While this testimony certainly does not mean you can skip med school and spend all your time playing video games, it does provide much more value to what was once derided and denounced as entertainment for the couch potato and nothing else. Another news item that added credibility to this report was the one that said that players of the “World of Warcraft” games were more likely to “sharpen their scientific thinking skills and use systematic and evaluative processes” to solve problems.

To truly tap the potential of these games however, players must use the skills they pick up in the course of playing to situations in real life. Addiction to a game is just like any other vice; you must control it before it controls you. The best game players are those who know how to apply the techniques and strategies they use online to the trials and problems that confront them in reality, not those who are stuck to the games like they’re second skins and live in them to the exclusion of the real world.

By-line:

This post was contributed by Heather Johnson, who writes on the subject of California teaching certificate. She invites your feedback at heatherjohnson2323 at gmail dot com.