Video Games and Storytelling

Just watch it, all of it … zero punctuation style … just brilliant, and its for an art history class, apparently he makes one of these a week!

8 months and 1 wiki? – what do we do all day

PLEASINGLY, after several months of persistence, I am finding a softening of academic suspicion over the word ‘wiki’. The Scientists, Computer typs and Educators have been dabbling with Wiki’s for ages of course (under the table) and haven’t really looked up. But, after 7 months of development Wikis are now available to some 2000 academics at an enterprise level. So potentially I’m stuffed if they all want one tomorrow! – But already interest is flowing in for using wikis as learning tools. I’m always amazed how Web2.0 moves once you get past the inertia period.

This is a presentation that I’ve used to prime potential groups of users.

I’d like to thank Tim Allen, who is leaving Macquarie for further study. Without his evaluation, research and attention to detail we’d have crashed and burned. It’s been a long campaign, but now winning more than we lose.

5 ways to get some PD traction

FIVE things that you can do in your community to encourage people to take a step forward. These five things use five different approaches – so if you are trying to build a professional learning community, these are approaches that address the behavioral motivators of staff  and reduce the push-back. I’ve found that covert methods are far more effective than head on training, so I try to address behavior not skills when working with a new group of educators.

Context – hit up heads of departments with this one – find out what they are struggling to do; just ONE thing. “Which would be your priority”.

Peer Support – helping friends connect and share as individuals

Personal Aspects – Photobooks are tactile; go make one at SnapFish or BigW; and share something about your family or interests in the staffroom. This is great to draw in the reluctant.

URL Shortners – great staffroom/meeting demo – shows them how a simple tool can train students how to take down an big URL or give you one. This helps improve the perception that computers are rubbish.

Screen Demos – don’t waste your time trying to rally people to lunch-time meetings, take the time to sit and read your Feedly. Provide PD via email; as elevator conversations. It takes 10 minutes to make and spam the office. It also put you at arms length from the critics and sabateurs.

1.    Context – Don’t show a tool, solve a problem in their own backyard – or invent one which they can add value to or improve; don’t ‘train’.
2.    Peer Support – Show technologies that will connect them better to peers that they like working with.
3.    Personal Aspects – Photobooks and online storage! – Make a photobook using Snapfish and show them. They’ll want one too.
4.    URLS shortners– show them how them in unit outlines or write them out faster for students – it demonstrates how to save time, not waste it.
5.    Make screen demos – keep them 2-4 minutes; and don’t edit them! Make them short and conversational and pitch them at absolute novice; newcomer; beginner; intermediate … don’t teach experts (they can teach themselves). Spam your community via email with your Blip.tv channel.

Why Bored of Studies PWNs the BOS

There is no shift of control of information when you bolt technology onto what you already do. This is the strategy of public education, when you look behind the facade and grand statements. This is the approach known as “spray and pray”. Research shows there is little added value from automation, and incremental improvement. (“In the Age of the Smart Machine : The Future of Work and Power” by Shoshana Zuboff). We can’t simply put a class in a Ning and call it a community; or exchange paper for a blog. In fact the current National Curriculum approach is to defer all measures of attainment to other professional bodies, just to make sure it stands a safe distance away from potential criticism (standard mode of political-operation).  Of course these bodies are politically driven and differ regionally, and Western Australia is using self-evaluation – which NSW DET’s Digital Revoltion portal (the have so many) references – via ‘evaluation’.

The good news is that students are 21st Century learners; and 97% are engaged via social gaming and friend based networks, so have access to pretty much all the answers they need to PWN the current assessment system – and they did it with no help at all.

7 million hits can’t be wrong

The illustration at the top of the screen is the Bored of Studies Wiki; go check it out – it tells students how to pass the HSC and beyond; and to me screams why the current methods of teaching are so easily ‘gamed’ by students. The website was created in 2002 by four former HSC students who had completed their HSC in the previous year: Mark Czajkowski, James King, Tim Cheng and Ian Keong. Of course the real Authority – called the Board of Studies has warned teachers against being anywhere near the thing! So is it cheating or just 21st Century Learning.

Yet, with over 250,000 subscribers and 7 million hits a month (claimed) – its safe to say that students have pwned the system. It positively road-maps how to be a strategic learner – and perhaps is our most outstanding educational achievement, along with Rate My Teacher – which now has one click links to Twitter, Facebook and Stumble Upon.

It matters nothing if we agree with these sites being there; only that they are. These are the social networks kids use – that gives them Authority. Its socially constructed knowledge; do we need to replicate it in class or inside what Clay Burrell called schooliness.

Chris Lehmann wrote “Build consensus – If only a few people are on-board with the idea, it won’t work. But consensus doesn’t mean taking something from everyone and sticking it onto the original idea until what you have is the worst of committee-based decisions. It means listening for the truths in what other people are telling you and being willing to make substantive change when it makes sense.”

So there’s the positive – students are doing what Chris suggests, long live Bored of Studies. I wonder if Mark, James, Tim and Ian are consulting?

The 40 hour challenge

THIS term, I’ve been asked to do some professional development at a public primary school near where I live. My role here is to help them explore building a professional learning community (PLC) – though the motivation and learning of their students. I don’t see myself there to ‘teach’. It’s a school of about 400, well run with great kids and very supportive staff and community. Like many similar schools there are two or three that have been experimenting and exploring with read/write media, but the majority are not.

It was kicked off with a hands on workshop which I modded from Mark Wegner’s methods. Mark has a ‘clean’ style that I like when it comes to workshops.

The focus of the project is to allow everyone to contribute something; and not anyone – and therefore suffer the push-back.

I’m also only intending a very small toolset – Penzu and DET’s own blog engine (if available to the school). Teachers can only spend 40 hours over the whole term on it. The rest has to be from the students. Student of course can do anything they like – if they can justify it and explain it.

So 40 hours, 1 hour per teacher and 1 tool to build and maintain a learning community. I do like simple plans.

Penzu?. One, because it looks like paper and two, DET hasn’t blocked it (yet). Students will start a reflective journal, using Penzu’s email feature. Their teacher will use Gmail to receive the posts; and forward them to filtered folder in DET mail. This is to try and keep the ‘process’ of the work flow familiar. I made a video to explain Penzu in a few minutes, but I wanted to cover off all the basics. The aim is for every class to make at least one journal entry a week on class topic. Students can work on it at home too if they want. Individually, the teachers are going to use the journals to assess ONE literacy outcome (to be decided).

There is a very short Resource List I’m using (but with a lot of exploration).

• “50 ways to tell a story” and “Cool Tools for Teachers”, but not giving any more instructions that that.
• I gave them a video of Stephen Heppell talking about Meta-Cognitive Learning; just because I find consistently that it re-assures newcomers.

How the project works – staff spend 40 hours of time on the project. No more or less; and journal their time.

• Teachers put up 4 ideas in the staffroom, of how they can use a ‘blog’ to support the school community and encourage the community to support the school. This is pen and paper stuff in the staffroom.
• Take those 4 ideas to the school community to select/improve or suggest other ideas – via Posters and teacher discussion with their class. Perhaps the students will have their own ideas.
• The students become the researchers and reporters on the 4 topics; and what they want to focus on; the teachers will be the editors; but have to justify their actions to the students. Other topics can be explored; but only if time and resources permit. Students can work at home or in their library time if they want.
• The wider school community can comment or suggest things to be included; and of course they will deal with the student via the ‘feedback desk’ (via the teachers) – moderation though negotiation
• Each teacher is being asked to provide just ONE hour of support to the project over the term. This is ONE hour that they will learn and contribute something to this co-curricula project. This can be actually working online; or perhaps helping someone else take photos or make something that they need help with.
• The project can take no more than 40 hours of staff time in the term – anything else needs to be created and managed by the students.

The aim is for teachers and students to develop skills as they need them; with a very easy WIN in the early days. I am pushing the use of contextual development having higher adoption rates that ‘training’. This is something that we’re finding in my day job.  I’m finding that empowering everyone equally is seems to work better that creating a few elite leaders or users in learning communities. When everyone has a role to play, the project grows, but not all roles need be technical, and benefits from diversity.

To me a 21st Century school can’t be judged on the number of wipeboards or laptops; but whether or not that community is able to find a benefit for 21st Century technology. I guess time will tell. If you’re interested in joining; or undertaking the same project – just let me know, more than happy to talk more.

Games – Dangerously Irrelevant?

SCOTT McLEOD remarked on his blog that he had some questions about ‘educational games’; so in spirit of 21days of being positive, I’d like to try and answer them – and perhaps he might send me a flashing badge.

screenshot from : Dangerously Irrelevant

Does the quality of the graphics matter when it comes to educational games?

Graphics of any description matter, as research suggest that over 60% of people today are visual learners. So whenever you place an image in front of someone it sends a message to the brain. I noticed for example; that in the cluster of game samples Scott posted, there was this one. Quality is not just ‘resolution’ but the modality of the image itself; what reaction, emotion or instruction does it prompt.

Graphics are a component of game-play; although some of the biggest games of 80s were text only; and such as First Age in such a case graphics did not matter at all. Here is a list of online text-games. CD-Rom Games such as the Magic School Bus; had lots of graphics but lacked any real game-play.

We have to differentiate the role of ‘toons’ and graphics from what they are doing; and therefore the importance of the graphics is directly related to objective – in a flight simulator – yes if you are teaching pilots.

Prensky (2002) “The reason computer games are so engaging is because the primary objective of the game designer is to keep the user engaged. They need to keep that player coming back, day after day, for 30, 60 even 100+ hours, so that the person feels like he has gotten value for his money (and, in the case of online games, keeps paying.) That is their measure of success.

In Warcraft; the graphics are not as important and the social-hobby nature of the game; or the game’s ability to train a player though resonance. What is important perhaps is that the social contructs that interplay with the story. They are MORE important that the graphics; AI; gameplay etc; Some games will suffer mouse-lag due to the intensity of the graphics; Arma2 for example – yet the realism and game play will be forgiven. Others – such as the new Harry Potter has amazing graphics; but almost no meaningful game play. Much of the discussion in ‘gaming development’ today is around story telling; not graphics.

So in conclusion -  NO they don’t matter in the context I think the question was asked.

just how bad are most of these so-called ‘educational games?’

Some are terrible; as they are designed from the perspective of being ‘edu-entertaining’ – with instructional design or didactic skills development. Students, according to Pew Internet Research (2009) are more engaged with social gaming that any other form of social media; yet in school ‘games’ are classified distinctly as an add-on to the disciplinary learning. So if you are looking to occupy a mind – get your games from the sales floor at NECC.

To understand what ‘good games’ are; look towards alternate reality games or a project such as WoWinSchool (check out some of the academic research we’ve added to that project). Let me look at ‘bad’ in an example of one augemented reality game – Webkinz.

What kind of bad?

Webkinz – is ‘bad’ in a different way. A Webkins are plush toys with an online alter-ego and virtual lives – online. It is designed for pre-schoolers.  There are some 255 ‘classes’ of webskins, and even have a foundation to ‘help children’. There is in this tremendous potential to engage young learners; but at the same time the focus for the product is commercial sales driven. The site itself has a number of positive ’skills’ development attributes and millions of users. This is bad for education; and the time pre-schoolers are spending in playing with commercial interests; takes away from perhaps doing something else. We must recognise that we need to adapt the popular activities of children in games – to learning; not try to create alternatives. Take a walk into Toys R Us – there are hundreds of products; all with an up-sell online using social gaming as a new revenue channel. More on Webkinz at Wikipedia.

So what is out there that’s comparable in the commercial downloadable/DVD educational games sector? Anything good?

The important concept to me here; is that we should not be looking to the past or for comparisons at all. We have to look to market research, massive game conferences such as E3 and to research such as Pew – all of which suggest that what many call the ’21st Century Skills’ are present in current social gaming. So in many ways; we can argue that classroom blogs; wikis etc or the lack of – will not prevent students from demonstrating the ability to communication; seek information; filter; make choices; solve problems; form communities; collaborate etc.,

Like anything; the teacher has to have that magical ability : conceptualisation – The games industry is not interested in educational games as a genre; it is not profitable; yet there are some online games that do work  – Mathletics being the obvious example. There are numerous ‘games’ being used – though adaptation; and being tempted to look for ‘learning in a box’ is a road to disaster. All learning must be blended.

The ‘games in learning gap’.

What is concerning is that games, despite overwhelming research, are seen as outside the current ‘web2.0′ fenzy of blogs, wikis, podcasts and Nings – yet more kids play them and interact with games than FaceBook, MySpace et al,. With a little creativity and planning, there is no reason at all that Wii – Fit, Nintendogs, Warcraft or even Grand Theft Auto can’t be adapted and used as a motivator. Motivation is the most important power of gaming – yet few Web2.0-fanbois explore it in the classroom with students, so we might say we’re missing 50% of the motivational opportunity to engage students.

A qualified teacher in every class

THANKS to everyone who’s added to the coversation recent posts about Retraining Australia. To move the conversation along; I’d like to raise a point, which I am sure can be explained by PR; but not through pedagogy. Public Education advertising on TV and Radio has promoted the fact that there is a qualified teaching in every classroom; a claim refuted often by Unions.

Here’s an extract from a letter from a 2008 letter, to the NSW Teacher’s Federation from DET. It’s amazing how many PDF’s the DET seem to leave online. In it; the clearly state that there is a qualified teacher in every room. Qualified, as in B.Ed perhaps; but certainly not qualified in running netbooks, wifi and IWBs in the classroom in the spirit of the ‘Ruddy Revolution”.

Chances are the teacher is not ‘qualified’ to use the equipment and the students are more ‘net savvy’ than those teaching them. As parents – we have to demand quality assurance; that after we take on the risk of accepting the netbook; that the teacher will be able to teach with it. Else why bother?

We are not yet seeing any public education (national curriculum or otherwise) definitions / attribute of 21st Century Students are – and therefore cannot ‘teach’ them. There is as many in the thread have said a fundamental failure to deal with retraining and reliance of the professionalism and support of early adopters (which is a misconception – as these teachers are in fact long term supporters).

So what is the definition of a qualified, competent 21st Century teacher – according to the Digital Revolution – is the an ISTE NETs for teachers we are yet to see?

Perhaps; if parents and the public – began seeing crafted messages around the fact that many teachers are ill-equipped, un-prepared and un-qualified to teach in the ‘vein’ of the Digital Revolution – we might begin to see some real focus on investment in people; not just atom powered netbooks.

The changes to staffing in the current transfer system place place even greater pressures equity. There are mixed messages on DET public pages – that give the impression that social media is being embedded into learning; but the reality is vastly different. I find it hard to even do PD in DET school using Web2.0; the list of banned sites almost cripples it. How then can staff in schools do it either?

In the last few comments; there are clearly EPIC levels of change needed in public education to ensure kids don’t have to ‘power down’ at school. If that’s the case – why send kids to school?

In the mean time; I’m still wide open to the idea of starting Virtual PD and High School. Anyone, anyone, anyone?

Epic PD leads to Virtual School

FOLLOWING some great discussions over retraining Australia; there seems to be some points that are standing out for me;

• Most teachers, providing tech PD in schools are not learly adopters – but long term supporters – appreciated but not officially valued enough to rise to leadership positions
• The diverse skill bases of staff are are EPIC proportions; some have never engaged; others have basic ‘Netscape 3′ like understanding – while others are able to move fluidly over virtual worlds, blogs and wikis.
• The teachers who have the conceptual intelligence to begin to address this lack the social capital to sustain and maintain the epic retraining needed
• Politicians choose front of house over investing in people; cherry picking and co-opting; but not empowering the right people
• Education policy is political, not pedagogical
• It’s morally bankrupt to lean on teachers to change; without change being present in the hierarchy demanding it.

I have this view, which may change or be corrected – that the EPIC levels of retraining needed will not be provided in public education; as those who could authorise it have not got the first clue how to access the right people though the current lines of command. And they idea of changing the complex structures of command is unrealistic. So we are lock-stepped.

Here is what we can do (if people participate).

1. Get together on one space and identify what gaps we all see; and each one of us create one resource to address it online
2. Online PD becomes FREE; and the participants in (1) push all requests for training to that online space.
3. We teach people how to (using and online space) and not ‘do for’ in frustration.
4. We start to feel okay about the future; and if people can’t do it – then perhaps leaders need to consider what they can do too
5. A set of simple courses are developed by all of us to maximise the multiplier effect; which are Creative Commons Share Alike
6. Curriculum and online courses are developed as part of this process – by all of us – and then offered to students FREE
7. The Virtual School and Virtual Staffroom are online; open to all.

If Wikipedia can run on a handful of people; then generating contextual PD and online supported course for students is a possibility. We’re going to do it anyway right? so why not do it in one place for everyone. Then education, resources will be owned by everyone – and not a few. If in Australia we see 300 people at a conference; then perhaps at least one workshop should be about creating resources and lessons for teachers and students.

Participation is the key. Moodle’s open right now … all it takes is to push your local efforts to one online space and before you know it; there will be online courses for students; who we simply pull into the space though social media – as they will decide what is adding value and what is not (they do anyway).

If you are teaching HSC Maths; then why not put your stuff online – so maybe a kid who is stuck with chalk and talk can benefit from your lesson? Is it important that you know who they are? – Are they not trolling Bored of Studies already?

Madness? I don’t think so. Time to think more about what we can do, than what we can’t. Who’s up for some edu-shifting? … or shall we hang on bit longer too?

Retraining Australia

Image: 'The Sentinel of the Sacred Path'

School isn’t broken; its just got patina and potential. It can be restored; but taking on a large project on your own is a little daunting.

Not all schools can afford to join a private coaching clinic or hire a consultant to provide them with specialist training. Most are totally reliant on their employer and their peers. Teachers may be aware of some benefits associated with adopting technology but can be reluctant to embrace it fully due to a general distrust of computers. This distrust is sometimes a result of a previous computer failure and can be exacerbated by a user’s inexperience in using a computer and/or application.

BUT, simple toolsets; though effective retraining can produce big differences. The real problem is that we are not focused on this; but reacting to the wider changes in read/write publishing; powered by the rapid advanements in technology. It is widely accepted that around 60% of us are visual learners; but unfortunately 60% of teachers are not visual ICT creators or even users. Not every student we teach is going to embrace each tool you give them, so don’t expect your education leaders to  either. Right now we are still awaiting any real definition of the 21st century attributes that are being illuded to in the draft National Curriculum – what exactly is it we have to do again? Oh yeah get Band 6s.

We can’t continue to work 1 or 2 teachers in public schools trying to support 60 forever. We need 10 or 20 to support 600 in a single community focused on retraining. Those 600 will interact with 6,000 – and the structure for this is horizontal, democratic and online, focused on foundational skills – that have low cost or no cost; that allows everyone to contribute something; but not everything. We can restore it; but we’re are not at the glossy paint stage; some are in their supa-communities, but over 90% need fundamental skills training. Its those teachers who are gonna be teaching my kids.

The start button is bottom left. Leave your name in the box. We can fix it.

Why the WoW movie won’t be like Spiderman

According to WoW.com, the ‘Warcraft Movie’ will soon be upon us. I’m getting flashbacks to the 1994 Street Fighter . I guess the significant point here is that convergence is powerful and Warcraft brings an existing ’socially immersive’ aspect that was not present in successful solo-franchise movies such as Tombraider or Spiderman. Sam Raimi is best known for directing all the recent Spiderman works and cult horror films (Drag me to Hell). It will be very interesting to see how the opportunities for shared reality are explored by Raimi and Blizzard.

Usually,  games spawned from movies to consoles, with the exception of Golden Eye and Wolverine – are terrible. The AI is overdone; the cut-aways highlight the rest of the game’s weaknesses or game-play is simply not enjoyable. Star Wars have been getting it wrong for years. More significantly, these games are aimed at the ‘casual gamer’. WoW  is a social game that operates more like a hobby than anything else for it’s 8.5 million players – and is the incumbent king of MMOs.

Blizzard have been talking about this movie for a few years, and so their choice of director is a very ‘big’ deal. Given the massive revenue WoW generates – Warcraft players will not be impressed by any attempt to simply ‘knock out a spin off movie’. Let’s face it, Blizzard are rumored to be pulling  US$80 million a month from a game that it has been said cost $80million to make.

Go with honour – I’m buying the popcorn special with WoW mega-slurpie.