Bayne holds that “the discussion about the striated nature of the network is of limited relevance” I believe that this issue is of great importance, especially so in the corporate space (although the nature of such a discourse couldn't be further from that space).

It is useful to begin with definitions – when looking at the subject of the striated net I found the way in which Bayne applied the Deleuze & Gattari concept to be too polar. I believe that it is possible to define levels of striation. One simple way of defining levels can rely on continuity: the smoothest websites can be accessed using a web browser, in these the navigation toolbar is in the same place and visual appearance is more or less similar. They are followed by striations created by visual appearance (where the user needs a few seconds or minutes to reorient himself) an example of this could be the system is available to a student at the Edinburgh University:

The two levels which follow are websites which have walls between them (the need to log in) and then Internet environments which require users to use external applications to access them (for example second life). Even with the simple differences - every new environment (and with it the different visual layout) gives the user the feeling that he is in a new place which needs to be explored.

According to the the Nielsen Norman Group, a firm specializing in human-computer interaction, “intuitive equals familiar”. In other words, a space (or website) which we are familiar with is intuitive. The move between spaces on the web (and specifically between striated and smooth spaces) manifests itself as a 'difference' between the two spaces. Bayne refers to this difference: “such a difference is as likely to make the task of online learners and teachers more problematic, or problematic in unfamiliar ways”. As mentioned before, despite identifying this difference, Bayne finds the discussion behind it to be “of limited relevance”.

My personal experience, mostly in the corporate world, has taught me otherwise – This is far from being a purely academical discussion – IT managers go to great lengths to create smoothness in the striated corporate 'INTRANET': unifying the look and feel of the different components of the system and using such devices as 'single sign-on' to streamline the user experience. This is done in the corporate quest to achieve “enhanced efficiency and productivity” and to make sure that while the user is in the 'protected corporate garden' they are faced with the familiar. This ensures that new systems can be added relatively painlessly into the garden and as such, also affects learning. As such, these are the “virtual shanty-towns” that Bayne finds hard to see. It is the regulation of function and form but not of content which leads to users who operate in a smooth net where they are not bogged down by the differences and therefore do not waste time on getting to know the new place they have travelled to.

Internet users actually strive for the smoother – the number of services targeting striation is constantly growing: services such as iGoogle and Symbaloo are just two examples. These are personal portals which are dedicated to 'smoothing out' of the differences between a number of independent information sources and websites. Further examples can be found in the multitude of tools unifying instant messaging, e-mails and in boxes etc

However, even when outside the corporate space, striated spaces can have their benefits when used in an educational setting - specifically for younger children. Closed environments make sure that children are not exposed to inappropriate materials creating a “protective garden” where experiences can be had but without the inherent risk that results from the openness of the web. In fact, looking at the pedagogies that Bayne mentioned (Ulmer and LeCourt) a similar exercise to Ulmer's mystory could be very effective for younger children within the context of the striated space – preparing them to operate within the smooth one outside. In this context striated space can be a positive: enabling and empowering. These children will grow up used to using closed e-learning systems, they will not see themselves as “unfortunate... to be working within an institution in which the use of the virtual learning environment is compulsory”.

 

Drawn: The Painted Tower
I thought that this was an utterly beautiful looking game. Although some of the narrative segments involved pauses, cryptic message and faintly naff voice over it was still surprisingly engaging. As I explored the game I did have to be quite strategic about what I picked up, what I used, how I chose to progress... There was a lot of looking through an area of a room in the Tower and then having to find the tools/items located elsewhere in or near other parts of the room. On the negative side all those beautiful graphics came with several pauses as areas loaded (and as the areas involve only small-ish amounts of game play this could get tedious). It also felt like quite a lot of clicking around at times - just guessing at answers where I didn't know what to do. Gameplay felt a lot more fluid as I got more used to the cryptic format and I was quite disappointed when my hour long trial ended. Not quite enough to pay $6.99 but almost. I am not entirely sure what the educational value of the game is exactly but there was certainly an aspect of analysis, pattern matching and problem solving that was engaging and got my brain working in an interesting way. But it did feel much more like a highly sophisticated puzzle game more so than an Adventure to me.

Tradewinds Legends
This strategy game was quite fantastically addictive. The concept is extremely simple: you have a ship, a certain amount of cash, and a certain amount of debt. You can increase your cash (and your savings which start out at zero) by buying and selling goods around the series of coastal cities. You can also take on missions and you have to, on occasions, take on pirates. At it's heart the game is a simple trade game but there are also extremely subtle and engaging layers of strategy and analysis: you have to monitor goods prices; you can borrow or save money at different interest rates; you can choose how to arm or protect your fleet and you can expand and repair it as you need. There are lots of choices to make and almost complete control (the random factors being the quasi-optional tasks and the pirate attacks though you come to expect the latter).

Training elements are well integrated into the game - there are a lot of help screens at first and there is always help available either through help text or funny comments that indicate you are looking in the wrong place for something. Pleasingly there is no block on selling goods below their worth - if you want to play a very differnt strategy around the game then you are free to do so. Visually Trade Winds is ludicrously old fashioned but it feels bright and lively, the game play is pretty quick if you want it to be and there are some fun comedy comments, silly catch phrases and virtual banter that gives the game an enjoyable personality. And although the game is clearly very educational - there are a good number of small business owners that could do worth than use it for training themselves in some basic principles of buying, selling and doing well - it is also clearly aimed at adults with the cynical comments and roles of religious figures etc. in the game.

At set up I deliberately picked the one female character available - there were very few female characters in the game and those that were there were mystics/assistants in religious buildings whilst all the bankers, traders, etc. were men. That fits the Arabian Nights theme but is a bit irritating as a female game player. In my one hour of game play I got my character out of debt, into profit and purchased her two new ships. I was delighted and was getting enormously excited about making good trades, getting a good interest rate on my savings, expanding my fleet... I think there is a fairly good likelihood that come the end of this module I may shell out the £17 for the full version. Although the format of the game also reminded me of more sophisticated looking games, particularly things like The Legend of Zelda: Wind Waker, the actual strategies were more grounded in reality and more rewarding to play. I could see huge educational potential here for conveying basic ideas around business strategies and investment. I also thought it was a more realistic way to get a first person "Around the World in 80 Trades" type experience. Overall I found it a very engaging enjoyable game.

SimCity Classic
Sadly SimCity was yet another game which was not compatible with my Mac. Which is disappointing. Having registered for the website the only game I could access with my home computer was a water skiing game which is more of a random element than a true example of game play.

However my partner's computer (also a mac) has a copy of Sims 2 installed so I had a wee look at this instead of the online game. Although my partner has become extremely engrossed in the Sims several times (playing several different families though only usually one at a time) it is not a game I've ever been able to feel as involved in. Although I respond well to the level of control you have over decisions and the personalities of your Sim I have never been wildly impressed with the level of basic knowledge your Sim arrives with. For instance not burning down the house, not using the bathroom when needed, not cooking when hungry... if you are playing an adult Sim these are all skills that are intensely boring to train into your character.

Interestingly I have also always failed to make my own Sims embody my own sexuality because I have confused the game with my choices. I have always found it intriguing that my Sims end up baffled and juggling unsuccessful chaste relationships whilst my partner has successfully created extremely functional same sex partnerships (with an appropriate level of "woo-hoo!") in the game and her characters have been able to also adopt children in the game. I think there is something about how well the game detects your style of play that actually makes it work better for some players than others since it is hard to feel invested and embodied by a character that is not behaving as you would like. I don't think my personal goals in life map conventionally enough for the games algorithms and I suspect this may be part of the problem with my Sims achieving those goals.

There is much talk in both Gee and Whitton books about whether simulation qualifies as a game in any sense. I think the Sims offers an interesting space to consider this as the Sims is very loose and free in form but there are goals and achievements that are imposed on Sims and there are uncontrollable elements that encourage game-like play. Still I don't think it is a game exactly, particularly if games must include an element of competition. Educationally it is an interesting game as whilst it involves various lessons about life and there are some aspects that have quite interesting possibilities. For instance players with mild Aspergers could find the game's rather unintuitive/mechanical analysis of emotions and the ways in which Sims maintain relationships quite a useful aspect of the game for understanding the real world. Teens facing their first experience of independent living might find the games messages about the balue of work and planning useful. And the game has an ongoing message that education and the reading of books and acquiring of skills is always useful which is clearly positive. Having said all of which I don't think there are profound educational lessons innately included in the game. It is the subversive or agenda driven plays of the game that can lead to really interesting learning outcomes - for instance the innovative and touching homeless Alice and Kev experiment in Sims 3.


Google Earth Games

Finally I wanted to pull together my experiences of the team games we built in Google Earth this weeks. Most of my comments here are adapted from my posting on the discussion boards/on the wiki but I felt these were worth recognizing in the blog here.

Team Lara
This was my team's game so I will not discuss my thoughts of it (see my blog post for weeks 5&6 for that), only link to it: http://goteamlara.wordpress.com/



Team Zelda
Team Zelda created a game using a PowerPoint introduction (which caused a few Mac hiccoughs but looked fantastic when I got it working) that explained a mission to identify camps for victims of the recent Haiti earthquake.

The tough part for me was trying to find any sort of site that might be suitable for a camp. I didn't get organised enough to contact my Team Lara colleagues and take part as a team mission - this was something encouraged in the game's introduction and I can see that this would be better was to play - but did lots of exploring on my own. I found the many Haiti layers (provided in a special package created for Google Earth after the earthquake) a little confusing but, more than that, I also found the material quite upsetting to view. It's one thing to see footage on the television but the sheer density of housing and the level of destruction of those buildings made the task at hand quite daunting.

I explored around for several hours as there was absolutely no issue of my not feeling engaged or involved in the game I just felt involved enough that I wanted to do a good job. The aftershock layer really concerned me - I felt I should be looking up further information on earthquake areas and long term damage as I really don't know much about this topic and the idea that my role in the game was taking responsibility for setting up a camp like this (even just within the realm of a game) made me feel under-qualified and nervous about cementing my choices.

In the end I went for sites that looked safe, clear, and relatively accessible:

• 18°32'57.18"N, 72°20'50.86"W
• 18°32'23.27"N, 72°20'59.49"W
• 18°32'54.10"N, 72°20'53.82"W
• 18°33'4.06"N, 72°20'49.63"W

I suppose it would have been good to have a better idea of the pluses and minuses of different sites (particularly those further outside town) in terms of long term issues but I think the bounds of the challenge were well set out in the mission document.

I really liked the game but it was tricky to find the time to do it justice. I could see it working really well in a classroom context as there was a huge number of really interesting and educational discussion points that would be raised by browsing the images and maps and trying to find a good site. I particularly found that the images allowed me to find out so much more about the poverty and organization of Haiti that made sense of subsequent news covefrage around international assistance and practical matters of delivering aid. I found this game a really interesting way to gain insight of a current event and part of the world I soon realized I only knew a tiny bit about. I thought it was also a clever way to leverage all the specially collated resources that wouldn't otherwise have been available for this part of the world.


Team Mario

The Team Mario Game revolved around Food Miles. It was a short simple game in which you watched a video about food miles and the origins of super market food and then had to select items for a stir fry with each decision a trade off between food miles and ethical points.

From the decisions I made I travelled 4609 foodmiles and scored 22 ethics points. A pretty good score based on the guidelines for the game.

I really liked the simplicity of the idea and the execution was beautiful. I did think there should be a more ambiguity in the choices though, perhaps allowing me to make choices before telling me the various good and bad points of each ingrediant. That way I would be more likely to be surprised and find the information memorable. The game's protein choices were prawns and beef but as I was playing my partner also suggested that a vegetarian option like Tofu would have raised a number of useful food miles, ethical and environmental issues that are interesting and useful to discuss. One observation of this game was that it didn't quite feel like a game but I did like that the game allowed the player to make their own choices and the difference in the miles/points clocked up by my coursemates showed how differently it was possible to play.

It would have been great to have a follow up and/or reflection activity to go with this game, particularly if it made you take a look at your own supper or fridge contents or shopping habits (how you get to the shops/waste etc) with a similar critical eye as this would help with the further discussion of grey areas in ethical shopping. In the game as it stood I did really like the contrast of food miles and ethics that was painted. The idea that there are positive ethical and economic benefits to consuming produce from developing countries is a nice touch since awareness of food miles and waste is more acute than awareness of complex agricultural issues at present.


Team Sonic

Team Sonic built their game on a Climate Change layer created by the Met Office. Game play involved undertaking a number of small tasks around the issues of climate change and requiring the reading of first person accounts from the developing work, completion of quizzes, etc. in order to find letters for an anagram that would complete the game.

I found this a really interesting game and the tools and accounts certainly help highlight risks and issues surrounding Climate Change. I think the anagram was a nice idea to bond the game together but I'm not sure if the path from the [final resolved meaning of the] anagram to the specific issues raised in the game is really that clear cut which is an issue in an educational game. Cause and effect are extremely complex in this context and although personal accounts and predictions illustrate the possible consequences of climate change I felt that there was scope here to highlight the problems inherent in such a grey area - say by bringing in issues of natural and man made carbon release, politics around renewables etc. In a classroom context and/or as part of a sound curriculum on the intensely complicated interplay of factors in climate change and the cost/benefit implications of various courses of actions I felt this could be a really useful game though.


Overall I found this a fantastically stimulating few weeks of game design and game play leaving me with huge food for thought.

This is a very brief post to list the games I have been thinking about as possible subjects of my game review for the first assignment:

• Foldit http://fold.it/portal/ - a biological puzzle game with actual scientific discoery as the ultimate goal. 
• Plants v zombies http://www.popcap.com/games/pvz - a game where zombies can be killed off with a variety of toxic plants planted strategically!.
• The Cost of Life http://thecostoflife.org/- sort of an ecological variant on Civilisation I think. 
• Super Energy Apocalypse http://www.fadupinator.com/about_sea.html -pollution game (where you have to play polluter).

In an article by Donald H. Taylor in the December 2008 issue of inside learning technologies the author describes the process by which the early LMS systems were designed: “How did the vendors or the market researchers they employed, guess what functionality to include in their LMS1.0? They asked potential clients.” This process, carried out in the late 90s was applied to most other types of software (apart from those following a worse process – ask the developers to build them wherever they can). According to Taylor the result of this process was a “functionality wish-list based on solving today's issues piecemeal, not building something better for the future.” To me, this is the embodiment of: “you don't know what you don't know” – we invent things, solve problems and imagine based on what we know and experience: as a result we miss out on “the trick of doing things better or differently.”

Taylor provides the following table as an example:

PAPER-BASED APPROACH	TECHNOLOGY 'REPLICATION'	TECHNOLOGY EXTENSION
Provide manuals for instruction in the classroom.	Provide the same manuals in PDF online with no tutor support.	Divide resources into: A. Reference manuals, cross-referenced and with great searching B. Easily searchable instruction manuals C. EPSS/help systems D. Provide people for help were they can have the most effect.
Collect paper evaluation forms after every class and analyse obsessively.	Collect electronic evaluation forms after every class and analyse obsessively.	Forget evaluation forms and instead identify skill gaps prior to learning.
Collect paper-based performance / competency information once a year during an annual review and do little with it.	Do the same, but electronically.	Do the same, but use Internet technologies to make the information always in view and always linked to performance.

 

I believe that VLEs have suffered from a similar fate to that of the corporate LMS. However, we are now starting to see systems that use technology to extend, not fix, our paper-based everyday life. This 'extension' is critical to enabling learning in the information age where access to and contextualisation of information transforms it into knowledge.

These new 'systems' are not actually systems at all – the concept of content aggregation allows the user to 'pull' specific pieces of information and connect them together into a context relevant to him / her. Content aggregation systems have also gone from replication to extension; As explained in the mash-up wiki the two types of content aggregation systems – portals and mash-ups are different in that portals allow you to display information from different sources in the same way that this was exposed. In essence this is technology replication: by 'cutting out' the pieces of information that interests us (in the form of RSS feeds and similar) and glue them together on the same sheet we create the portal. On the other hand, the mash-up is actually technology extending an everyday task: it allows a user to take the raw data behind webpages (and other sources) and to re-contextualise it.

An excellent example of the more advanced content aggregation is the recent mash-up of tweets and Google maps: tweets that scored local snow out of 10, gave their postcode and used the tag uksnow were mapped on to a Google map of the UK essentially transforming raw data (tweets) into information by means of contextualisation. This can be found at: #uksnow Map 2.0 (see screenshot).

Moving forward, there is no doubt in my mind that the solution is, as mentioned by Wilson et al, standardisation. However, it is very important that we do not choose a rigid, limiting set of standards which are based on APIs and ensure that only students who have programming abilities can create a personalised environment. The answer to this could easily be products like Yahoo! Pipes or Apatar which rely on a visual model to facilitate the mashing-up. The one point on which I disagree with Wilson at al is that this is not the future: mashing up is happening every day by users who are not programming savvy. In fact, the ability to contextualise without external intervention opens up an additional option which current systems do not deal with – informal learning.

Tying the student's ability to contextualise raw data using today's e-portfolios will eventually lead to the more students centric approach that Ayala is pushing for. Personal development plans will define the path and competencies and skills rather than exam results will be the outcomes. This will of course mean that the targets system today in place will need to be abolished – that will happen eventually if not through intelligent governing than as a result of pressure from the corporate sector that needs capable employees.

At the end of the day, and probably in the same manner as they did in every century, schools and universities will have to equip students with the tools to learn and continue learning. From the introductory: enabling students to read through the basic – understanding how to access websites and how to evaluate their content and on to the intermediate: creating basic mash ups to the advanced: manipulating data in its raw form. Being the information technology the digital natives of tomorrow will move within the scope of consuming digital information and creating raw data (coming from researchers in universities and corporate). Anyone lacking the tools to process the never ending sea of data will be consigned to an underclass equivalent to today's illiterates.

I woke up the morning after I posted Team Sonic’s game and suddenly wondered – but is it a game?  We were so focused on getting it done within the time constraints and our own limited time that not only did we not work out our learning objectives in advance but we did not think through what elements of a game we were using. We just assumed it was a game.

It is only now, having tried to construct a game, that the reading we did early on as to what constitutes play and what constitutes a game is starting to come together for me.  Initially, before this course, I never thought what constituted a game was problematic.  After I did the initial reading, I started to realise the multi-faceted nature of games and the different cultural, historical, and theoretical perspectives on play.  But my understanding was in the abstract.  Having now tried to construct a game, I realise how slippery the whole idea of a game as – especially when trying to use it in education.  What is the difference between a learning activity and a game? Was it a game we constructed or a learning activity?

During my chat session with Anna and Fiona, I started to rattle through Whitton’s characteristics of games, listing the characteristics that I felt was lacking in our climate change game.

·         It is not competitive (but I added that I thought competition was not necessary in a game)

·         There is no winner – linked to their being no competition above

·         There is no indicator of progress during the game (no scoring etc.)

On the positive side I said:

·         The fantasy element made it game-like

·         And collaboration was done outside of Google Earth in the reflection piece which was to consolidate the learning that was achieved during exploring climate change on Earth – the fantasy element was carried over into the reflection piece to keep the continuity with Google Earth; in fact, while the reflection piece was outside of Google Earth and in a wiki, it was part of the game – as the reflection is the goal – the ‘report’ to be given to the Mission Chief

Anna asked if there was an element of challenge – and yes, there is a challenge in working out the clues which start easy but get progressively harder (to be honest we did not deliberately design it that way – it just worked out that way) but I think the reflection at the end is the most challenging piece.

There was a goal, as mentioned above, the report to the Mission Chief on evidence of climate change on Earth.

The game allowed exploration – players could explore and read the other Met Office reports which we did not specifically direct them to – they could play with the timeline – to see how climate change will impact some parts of the Earth before other parts, etc.

There is no interaction with other players during the Google Earth part of the game. However, the reflection piece was designed so there would be interaction in that a) players could see each other’s reports and b) each team, in the end, would have to compile a final report collaboratively.

The reactions to playing the game have been very positive. Everyone said they enjoyed it. And some people have been writing reflective reports on their experience.

So it does have characteristics of a game – despite my initial doubts.  I think the cohesiveness of the fantasy is what holds it together as a game. Nicola, in her report, said the anagram, while cute, should have been more meaningfully tied to the narrative we constructed in Google Earth.  I agree but given the time we had, we had to make a quick decision on the anagram.

  

I feel we have gone into constructing our learning activity rather back to front.  We were given Google Earth as a platform to design a game and my initial response was - ??? – what kind of a game can we construct using Google Earth? This was a bit exasperated by the fact that I had already a long weekend away booked so I knew I would have less time to think about this. Luckily the deadline was extended – thank you Fiona and Anna.

I already had Google Earth on my computer and I have played with it before – mainly exploring different parts of the world – tracking my daughter when she went to Chile, last year – that sort of thing. But I have never created anything in Google Earth – although I have read placeholders and information that other people had put on it.

Before going away I was quite focussed on the reading for the week (see previous blogs) and doing some preliminary research to find out a) what games have been developed using Google Earth, b) educational resources using Google Earth and c) technical information, online tutorials etc on creating placemarks etc.

I was surprised by the number of educational resources (as well as other types of resources) that has been created with Google Earth.  One of them was a resource created by the UK Met Office on the effect of climate change on the Earth – with a timeline from 1999-2099.  Helen had mentioned climate change as a possible theme for our game and this Met Office climate change ‘skin’ seemed a good platform to build a game.  My Sonic Group team members liked the idea.  I immediately focussed on learning the technical aspects of creating placemarks etc and so did my team members.  I wasn’t focussed on what the learning objectives of the game were. I had a hazy idea that the players would learn about climate change from traversing the information the Met Office had already put in the climate change Google Earth ‘skin’.  I started to think about how game players could interact by taking on different roles in different parts of the world – with the idea that problems in one part of the world would also have impacts on other parts of the world – but quickly realised that was too ambitious.  Wesley showed us how we could create a quiz in Google Earth and that seemed a more realistic approach. So we have divided up the work in constructing the quiz but haven’t set out our learning objectives yet – although I can see we can do that retrospectively.  Given the time constraints and the skills we had to learn, we had to do this backwards.

However, I think we needed to first understand the affordances of Google Earth and what was possible before we could think of what kind of learning outcome would be best achieved within Google Earth. And I think the process I described above was doing that. So maybe it was not really so backwards.  This game is a first exploratory attempt to see what is possible using Google Earth. And our climate change topic is something that does uses the affordances that Google Earth offers.

This weeks games felt more educational than last week's <Casual Games> although I think in part this may be leisure snobbery. Scrabble is a game I'm very familiar with as a boardgame but also online in it's unlicensed form (on Facebook) of “Scrabulous”. I like a word game and see it as a more worthwhile waste of time than Tetris or Solitaire because it is about words and patterns and, for right or wrong, I feel that words are somehow more worthwhile than visual patterns (which is an odd sort of bias now that I think about it). What I was not prepared for was the social aspect of Scrabble in the Hasbro version of the Facebook app. What was immediately disconcerting was the fact that I was presented with a huge wall of possible players who I don't know at all. It looked most like one of those late night “There are girls in your area!” type ads which I found immediately off-putting – I've never thought of boardgames as the online equivalent of a dubious Wednesday night in a particularly low rent pub but that was about the vibe listings like “Theresa – 2 player – casual – 2 mins” gives. The effect was compounded by the chat from my automatically (and with no opt out) found opponent Craig D. (Games: 187; Won 38%; Top Score 429):

Thus, as I played the game my concentration was largely consumed with avoiding either offending or leading on my opponent (rather easier said than done) rather than on the gameplay itself. Actually social interaction is part of the game I suppose, I was just more interested in the word part of play than the social play here. I found myself pining for my dusty old cardboard and plastic set to avoid Craig D. However when his chat up lines failed he, despite having double my score (see image below), forfeited the game to me. Which explains the stats in his profile actually – a score of over 400 is a good score (or so my scrabble obsessed friends always inform me) so his 38% win rate, especially given he was playing casual games, seemed odd. However if he is seeing the game as a game of flirtation around Scrabble rather than the Srabble itself as the game I can see why his win rate is less you might expect – perhaps it is more a representation of his flirting success than a reflection of his Scrabble skills.

After that experience I was loath to return to Scrabble with strangers (if ever in the past I've longed for someone to play a game with I'm not sure I will again now). However in the course of playing online I note that a lot of the thrilling uncertainties are removed – the interface includes a dictionary (including the mystical Scrabble 2 letter word list) rather than a simple possibility of a rejected work; a timer is included in the casual game to discourage slow long term games and encourage quick mechanical games (something my super fan friends with love, something I don't play the game for); and friends are de-prioritised as competitors even though, even with anonymous opponents, there are chat and social features. Most upsettingly of all the Tiles tab lists every available tile – a view into the virtual bag and a breach of one of the nice Scrabble features – you can guess at probabilities of letters appearing but unless you have a photographic memory these are guesses (and always, in any case, assume no one has lost/eaten/changed/replaced any times. Addig all those practical functions takes away from some of the core gameplay aspects. Evidently the Scrabulous creators knew more about what it is to play scrabble and be engaged by it than the brand owners themselves. Really interesting.

Mahjong is a complex strategic game I've been shown several times and like but struggle with. Mahjong (solitaire) on the other hand had me baffled at first. I'm not a big reader of instructions – particularly for online games (and yes, in Week 4's education games that is proving interesting) – so I was confused to see the tiles all face up and laid out in strange shapes. Whilst I couldn't remember the proper way to play Mahjong I knew this wasn't it. And then my partner looked over and said “It's a Mac thing. I used to play that years ago. It's just to do with matching pairs”. To that I looked disappointed but then proceeded to get very absorbed in spotting patterns and looking out for moveable/flipable tiles. There are some very minor nods to Mahjong (proper) but otherwise this is a memory and pattern recognition game with very enticingly attractive graphics. The game made lots of sense once I knew the basic goal but the guidance and introduction to the game – and especially the rather misleading optional login screen - wasn't really very helpful to establishing what those goals were but, after playing, I read the help text and it was actually pretty good – just why it wasn't labelled “How to Play” or “Rules” or something similar rather than “Help” was a bit of a mystery though. I'm not sure I learned anything at all but I enjoyed playing the game, I did progressively better and I was encouraged to go back and find my Mahjong tiles and play with them a bit. I'll probably also go back again as it was a very graphically sophisticated game, the music and sound cues were useful and fun, and the rules regarding nearby tiles, scoring, timing, tile layout etc. all added to the gameplay and strategies that were useful for completing a level. It was difficult but not too difficult and I liked that.

 

Finally I was trying out Bookworm this week. Of all the games it felt most educational and most frustrating. Firstly it required download which, in an era of browser based games, seemed quite old fashioned to me. The graphics were also a little out of date but squarely aimed at educational connotations.

Gameplay seemed like it was going to be great – there is an element of random chance, a need to match patterns and find words, and a good range of possible directions to create words in. What I found problematic in practice was the fact that the possible routes round tiles weren't entirely intuitive (some looked close enough but were not). I got very into the game though and headed at a score of over 40,000 moving from “Encyclopedia Salesman” up to “BookBinder”- they seem like odd sorts of level names though – the game is about books not literature. That is reflected in gameplay as well – you get points for flashing letters, strategies, avoiding burning letters (you have only one life in Bookworm!) etc. but the emphasis is on time and points rather than elegant word finding. This is not unlike Scrabble but in bookworm you cannot elect to play long words as easily as the choice and mixture of vowels and consonants tends to make shorter words more viable. Worrying I also got one of my highest scores with “Barf” - not the masters student level of verbal dexterity I fear.

The music and graphics were fun for play although the music quickly grew repetitive and, though it gave musical cues to the game action, only served to panic rather than focus me. Overall though this was an interesting counterpart to the other two games this week. It is an engaging game and the Bookworm character is quite charming – he even spouts explanations when a word looks especially interesting (“cud” was one of the words that triggered a definition in my game). And the high score feature at the end is quite a nice way of allowing you to compare your performance – in theory at least – and by setting the default comparison names to low scores it's quite encouraging too.

I think the puzzle game genre is a hard one to place. Though educational in the sense of improving your skills in both the game and, perhaps, your knowledge of words these games provide odd motivational opportunities as often the area of learning is not necessarily compatible with the highest scores – in Scrabble two letter words that can be used in many directions are often far higher scoring than a complex word and anything over 7 letters is rare and usually a compound of two words rather than, say, a technical or scientific term; in bookworm you are discouraged from looking for longer words by the time/burning challenges; in Mahjong the more numeric and strategic skills are exchanged for simple pairs play (only the season tiles challenge the simplicity of the game). Progress is rewarded in these games with speed or score challenges rather than building up activity to feed into some sort of reward or conclusion. All three games look attractive and have big usable buttons but in all three there is no compelling reason to start playing. Once you get going you are engaged but the motivation to engage in the first place seems to be expected to come from a place of boredom rather than interest (e.g. Scrabble's auto-selecting opponents) and that does not bode as well for serious educational goals. Additionally the downside of attractive games like these is that they look like games and that often neither feels nor looks like work/education to others since they are so associated with time-wasting patterns of use. The fantasy element in these games is also quite weak, particularly with regard to intrinsic fantasy since puzzles are, by their nature, artificially reliant on rules, restrictions and arbitrary goals.

I just spent a couple of hours yesterday in Quest Atlantis (in the plague village - which is teaching about persuasive writing). I was totally immersed in this world and didn't notice the time go by. Barab et al talk about their learning engagement theory which they developed in QA - integrating learning, playing and helping in the context of social issues in an aesthetically-rich dramatic play. The plague story does this with students taking on the role of an investigative journalist trying to find evidence to persuade the community to either support or not Dr Frank(instein)'s experiment to find a cure for the plague. The story line is engaging (satisfying Malone's idea of fantasy and curiosity and uncertain outcome). QA seems to emphasize social responsibility as well - so there are moral issues interwoven in the story. I haven't finished all the activities but I think the storyline will let you argue both sides of the argument although there are nudges to re-consider your argument as you gather more evidence - but you only are suppose to use evidence that supports your argument (but I haven't finished it yet - so I don't know if there is scope to address counter-evidence in a way that supports your argument.)

Play

I enjoyed the Rousseau references in Kane’s work, which led to the idea of removing boundaries that would, as later indicated by Maria Montessori, allow children’s “natural urge to explore and hypothesize, compare and dramatized.”

In secondary schools, the connotations carried by the term ‘play’ are very much the domain of primary and pupils are expected to have left that behind.

This paper explored the ideas whereby ‘play’ allowed the player (children) to articulate and simulate ideas and imaginative constructs in the ‘real’ world; it facilitates the inevitability of ‘change’ that shapes our futures and destinies.

I now view ‘play’ as a powerful activity, which should underpin – wherever possible – educational activities and processes.  ‘Teaching to the test’ suits the passive, simply regurgitate content model of education – one born from the Dickens era and the Industrial Revolution.  If we are to produce critical minds, we must allow these minds to ‘forage’.

This week we are looking at the theme of natives versus immigrants on the web, the technology being explored is twitter. I will leave the discussion about natives to my next blog but wanted to say a few words about twitter service/product which I have never felt comfortable with until now.

 

I will start with an admission – until this week I have never really used twitter. I explored it several times, run a few searches, looked at the discussions, but never contributed (or for that matter even set up a profile). My perception of it is is stronger than that of the BBC: “Twitter tweets are 40% 'babble'” (I believe that they were using a very lenient definition of 'babble'). In fact, a random screenshot taken from the twitter homepage shows the topics discussed:

 

 

So, while war rages in Afghanistan and Iraq, cars in the US are losing their breaks (Toyota) and MPs in the UK are asked to pay back their expenses the main topics being discussed on twitter are – entertainment and boy bands (4/7 topics) and technology (2/7 topics), I tried reading the last thread “OhJustLikeMe” but still have no idea what it was about.

 

On the very first page of “the University of Google” by Tara Barbazon, I found the following quote: “Students, in these ruthless times, desperately wants to feel something – anything – beyond the repetitive and pointless patterns of the casualised workplace and the selection of mobile phone ring tones.” I have to admit that after following a few of the threads appearing as the most trendy in twitter (and I am really not a fan of boy bands) I found little evidence of this on Twitter. If anything this reminded me much more of the nihilism that Dreyfus mentions in “on the Internet”; Twitter encourages you to get lost in the crowd, commit to nothing but have an opinion about everything as long as, it is in less than 140 characters. Whereas some of my fellow students found Dreyfus' book to be disparaging and depressing I was actually encouraged when I ran into this headline: “60% Of Twitter Users Quit After A Month”. Some of the metrics behind that report may be flawed but the comments to the article (and others presenting the same data) all circle around “what is twitter for?”

 

I have to admit that I found twitter to be almost disabling - it seems to encourage the culture of “looking for”, no new idea was actually developed during our chat, things written by other people were simply recycled. So, is twitter the human-based search engine that Dreyfus believes is needed? Not in my mind, simply because - if you do not know to follow then you cannot find the “good stuff”.

 

On a final note, while I do find twitter to be of very limited use in the classroom (and more so in the corporate training environment) I did find the conversation that we had as a group to be very engaging. Saying that, this had more to do with the content of the conversation rather than the medium it was done through. This, along with the Skype conversation we had the week before is pushing me in the direction of synchronous communication – what if we could replace the corporate training 'flip books' with an hour-long chat were people from different locations guided by more experienced employees gets to develop and understand, truly understand, ideas and information. This will never be a tool to cover compliance requirements but in the information economy could be a very powerful, differentiating, tool.