Found an interesting article about Second Life and other MMORPGs and their use for learning today. It was published in 2006 in the journal Educational Technology and Society by Aaron Delwiche and is entitled: 'Massively multiplayer online games (MMOs) in the new media classroom'.
Here's the abstract: Recent research demonstrates that videogames enhance literacy, attention, reaction time, and higher-level thinking. Several scholars have suggested that massively multiplayer online games (MMOs) such as Everquest and Second Life have educational potential, but we have little data about what happens when such tools are introduced in the classroom. This paper reports findings from two MMO-based courses in the context of situated learning theory. The first course, focused on the ethnography of on-line games, used the game Everquest as a vehicle for teaching research methods to 36 students in an undergraduate communication course. The second course used the game Second Life to teach the fundamentals of video-game design and criticism. Synthesizing comments from student web logs with data collected from followup surveys, the paper highlights key findings and offers concrete suggestions for instructors contemplating the use of multiplayer games in their own courses.
The author concludes...
Recommending that potential virtual environments be selected on the basis of genre, accessibility, and extensibility, it is suggested that game-based assignments are most effective when they build bridges between the domain of the game world and an overlapping domain of professional practice.
Monday 26 March 2007
Monday 19 March 2007
Chinese water torture!
On the bus back from London Heathrow last night, I had the pleasure to sit next to a young Chinese woman, who seemed just a little reluctant to share her seat with anyone. As it was the last seat on a fully subscribed bus, I had no option and neither did she. She was all elbows and knees. I have some bruises to prove it.
During the 4 and a half hour ride back to Plymouth, she incessantly talked on her mobile phone, gabbling away loudly in something-ese to invisible friends and family. No sooner would she end a call with one, than the phone would ring, or she would call another friend, and the chatter would start again. Intermittently, on the rare occasions that the phone was being 'rested', she would plug her i-pod into her ears and sing in a high pitched and slightly off tune voice to herself. She picked her way painfully through several songs by Queen during the trip (I recognised the music as it emitted tinnily through her ear phones). As such classics as 'Re Rill Lock You', 'Bohemian Lapsody' (Be-elzubum has a devil in the sideboard), and 'Ladio Ga Ga' assailed my ears, I felt inclined to leap screaming from the speeding bus, or at the very least, to draw an angry face on the bald head of the man sat in front of me. But my amazing fit of petulance subsided and like a true Brit I resigned myself to the Chinese water torture....
In the end, I managed to get home with my sanity intact, secure in the knowledge that this poor Chinese woman will have to live in our wet, cold and tax-ridden country for a while - let's see if she is still sane at the end of her experience... Let's hope she maintains a strong signal - she's going to need it.
During the 4 and a half hour ride back to Plymouth, she incessantly talked on her mobile phone, gabbling away loudly in something-ese to invisible friends and family. No sooner would she end a call with one, than the phone would ring, or she would call another friend, and the chatter would start again. Intermittently, on the rare occasions that the phone was being 'rested', she would plug her i-pod into her ears and sing in a high pitched and slightly off tune voice to herself. She picked her way painfully through several songs by Queen during the trip (I recognised the music as it emitted tinnily through her ear phones). As such classics as 'Re Rill Lock You', 'Bohemian Lapsody' (Be-elzubum has a devil in the sideboard), and 'Ladio Ga Ga' assailed my ears, I felt inclined to leap screaming from the speeding bus, or at the very least, to draw an angry face on the bald head of the man sat in front of me. But my amazing fit of petulance subsided and like a true Brit I resigned myself to the Chinese water torture....
In the end, I managed to get home with my sanity intact, secure in the knowledge that this poor Chinese woman will have to live in our wet, cold and tax-ridden country for a while - let's see if she is still sane at the end of her experience... Let's hope she maintains a strong signal - she's going to need it.
Sunday 18 March 2007
Current TV - the raisin d'etre...?
I'm sitting in my hotel room in Stockholm (the Hotel Central - you should try it if you're ever over for a visit - it's very high tech), and on my plasma TV screen is an interview with former US Vice President Al Gore, who is talking about his brainchild - Current TV which he established back in August 2005. Now this is interesting, because Current TV is a departure for terrestrial or cable/satellite television.
Current TV is a channel dedicated (well, 30 percent of it anyway) to viewer created content. The debate about whether this will catch on is just starting. One argument is that user created content such as that found on YouTube is fine to watch for a few minutes, because the clips are quirky and edgy, and are therefore ideally suited to be aired on the 'web'. They are also generally played out in low resolution, and the camera work and editing can be amateurish. No-one, goes the argument, as seen in the mail on Sunday today, will tolerate a whole hour of this quality... Well, enter Current TV. So who is right? We shall see - as we watch.
Current TV is a channel dedicated (well, 30 percent of it anyway) to viewer created content. The debate about whether this will catch on is just starting. One argument is that user created content such as that found on YouTube is fine to watch for a few minutes, because the clips are quirky and edgy, and are therefore ideally suited to be aired on the 'web'. They are also generally played out in low resolution, and the camera work and editing can be amateurish. No-one, goes the argument, as seen in the mail on Sunday today, will tolerate a whole hour of this quality... Well, enter Current TV. So who is right? We shall see - as we watch.
Wednesday 14 March 2007
Over the Horizon...
By this time tomorrow I shall be airborne, over the horizon and headed north to the frozen wastes... I'm back working in Sweden for a few days. In some ways it will be nice to get away for a short while, because my house is currently in uproar, downroar and sideroar (as Spike Milligan once said...!) Let me explain - for the past 3 weeks, we have foolishly let the builders into our home to demolish a wall, convert our garage into a study, and generally spread a thin layer of fine dust over everything, including the children. While my poor wife remains at home to cope with all this, I'm swanning off suavely to Sweden (she will appreciate the alliteration if not the sentiments...)
But the building work got me thinking - it takes a while for tradesmen to make good something as lacklustre as an old concrete walled garage. By the time I get home on Sunday night, they will have plastered the walls (the builders, not the children), and then it's over to us to paint and carpet the room, and make it homely. It also takes a long time to establish new technologies in the classroom or learning setting. The recent Horizon Report attempts to set the scene for the wide adoption of new technologies into teaching. One of their predictions is that time-to-adoption of virtual worlds will be 2-3 years. I'm not so sure now...
Recently several new innovations have humanised Second Life further. Sloodle, a mashup between Second life and Moodle, and most recently, 'Voice in SL' have been launched to the consternation of some and the delight of many others. Time will tell whether such new bolt-ons will attract serious educators in greater numbers to set up operation in SL, but I have a suspicion that 2-3 years is now a conservative estimate for widespread adoption of virtual worlds in education.
But the building work got me thinking - it takes a while for tradesmen to make good something as lacklustre as an old concrete walled garage. By the time I get home on Sunday night, they will have plastered the walls (the builders, not the children), and then it's over to us to paint and carpet the room, and make it homely. It also takes a long time to establish new technologies in the classroom or learning setting. The recent Horizon Report attempts to set the scene for the wide adoption of new technologies into teaching. One of their predictions is that time-to-adoption of virtual worlds will be 2-3 years. I'm not so sure now...
Recently several new innovations have humanised Second Life further. Sloodle, a mashup between Second life and Moodle, and most recently, 'Voice in SL' have been launched to the consternation of some and the delight of many others. Time will tell whether such new bolt-ons will attract serious educators in greater numbers to set up operation in SL, but I have a suspicion that 2-3 years is now a conservative estimate for widespread adoption of virtual worlds in education.
Monday 12 March 2007
Technocrappi
Technorati have let themselves down I reckon. They are supposed to be one of the best blog tracking services around. Yet a couple months ago I discovered that my posts were not being logged, (as of today, according to them, it has been 80 days since I last posted to this blog - which was a surprise, believe me) and they don't recognise any of the other blogs that have linked to mine. I have sent four pleas for help over the last 6 weeks, and other than the obligatory "If you don't hear back from anyone within a week, please accept our apologies for the delay as we may be experiencing a backlog in Support. Please feel free to send us a reminder of your ticket...etc, etc", message. Other than that, not a sausage ... not a glimmer of help... I despair.
It has upset me so much that I have decided to leave the country. On Thursday I'm off to Sweden again, via London Heathrow, where I can be mistreated by people I can actually see - i.e. airport security guards and taxi drivers rather than some faceless technocrats who seem to be a law unto themselves....
Seriously though, I have been invited back by those good folks at the University of Umea (pronounced OOH! ME! OH!), to do some staff development workshops with their ... er... staff. I'm talking about social presence in online learning again, but this time I will be taking my wiki with me. I have been told I should also take my skis, but I've already fallen out with Technorati. I don't want to make it a double whammy with my insurance company.
It has upset me so much that I have decided to leave the country. On Thursday I'm off to Sweden again, via London Heathrow, where I can be mistreated by people I can actually see - i.e. airport security guards and taxi drivers rather than some faceless technocrats who seem to be a law unto themselves....
Seriously though, I have been invited back by those good folks at the University of Umea (pronounced OOH! ME! OH!), to do some staff development workshops with their ... er... staff. I'm talking about social presence in online learning again, but this time I will be taking my wiki with me. I have been told I should also take my skis, but I've already fallen out with Technorati. I don't want to make it a double whammy with my insurance company.
Thursday 1 March 2007
Protect the children ..... and the teachers
The magazine Wired News carried a sad and rather disconcerting tale last week. I have just been too busy until now to post it, but I have discussed it with my students and they are more disturbed by it than they were on the day I gave them their asignment task. It appears that a teacher in an American high school - substitute teacher Julie Amero of Norwich, Connecticut - has this week been sentenced to 40 years in a state penitentiary. Her crime? She is accused of showing Internet pornography to the 12-13 year old children in her class.
Shock horrors! I hear you cry - lock her up and throw away the key!!
But hold on - let's not be so hasty. Before you make your mind up, here's a further account of her 'crime'. She claims -- and all the evidence proves -- that the school computer got hit with a pop-up frenzy she didn't know how to stop. The report goes on to detail the following information: 'The IT department failed to keep content filters and anti-malware software up-to-date. The school failed to enforce a security policy, allowing substitute teachers to use regular teachers' network credentials to access the internet. The administration failed to ensure that all teachers, including substitutes, had the necessary skills and training to handle internet surprises -- and the savvy to respond quickly in a crisis'. (Wired, February 23, 2007)
Whilst you and I both know that protecting the growing minds of the children in our care is paramount, and whether or not the teacher is guilty, this case raises some key questions: I feel particularly uneasy about the vulnerability of teachers who venture onto the web during lessons. Certainly all teachers should pre-visit the sites they want to show children before the children are present, and 'filter' out the bad stuff. But this doesn't protect them from 'pop-up' frenzies, particularly if the school isn't interested in investing in software and training to ensure this kind of event doesn't happen. What is the responsibility of the employer (the school) in all this? Will the school also be prosecuted? I think we should be told....
Shock horrors! I hear you cry - lock her up and throw away the key!!
But hold on - let's not be so hasty. Before you make your mind up, here's a further account of her 'crime'. She claims -- and all the evidence proves -- that the school computer got hit with a pop-up frenzy she didn't know how to stop. The report goes on to detail the following information: 'The IT department failed to keep content filters and anti-malware software up-to-date. The school failed to enforce a security policy, allowing substitute teachers to use regular teachers' network credentials to access the internet. The administration failed to ensure that all teachers, including substitutes, had the necessary skills and training to handle internet surprises -- and the savvy to respond quickly in a crisis'. (Wired, February 23, 2007)
Whilst you and I both know that protecting the growing minds of the children in our care is paramount, and whether or not the teacher is guilty, this case raises some key questions: I feel particularly uneasy about the vulnerability of teachers who venture onto the web during lessons. Certainly all teachers should pre-visit the sites they want to show children before the children are present, and 'filter' out the bad stuff. But this doesn't protect them from 'pop-up' frenzies, particularly if the school isn't interested in investing in software and training to ensure this kind of event doesn't happen. What is the responsibility of the employer (the school) in all this? Will the school also be prosecuted? I think we should be told....
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