Global learning collectives

This is part 7 in a series of posts on the future of learning and technology. I spent the last two years of my school life at AFCENT* International School, in Brunssum, Holland. There was one word to describe AFCENT School - diversity. I remember how culturally rich the experience was, because children from all of the NATO** countries attended, and I often sat alongside American, German, Canadian, French, Norwegian and Swedish classmates.

I discovered that this school's education was far more than just the three 'R's. We learnt phrases from each other's languages (slang and swear words were particularly good fun to practice), heard about unfamiliar customs and practices, and sampled strange and wonderful food and drink from other countries. I should point out that in the 1970s Britain was far less multi-cultural than it is today. This was the age of the cold-war and our parents were serving in the military. We took part in multi-national games that went on all day, where we played the roles of politicians and generals, as we tried to avert a nuclear war. We produced and performed in musicals such as Godspell, Jesus Christ Superstar and Fiddler on the Roof in the school assembly hall. We learnt to play the games of other countries. It turned out that Baseball and American Football were less of a mystery for us Brits than Cricket was for our American counterparts. Who knew?

We learnt traditional songs and stories we would never otherwise have encountered, because each child could not avoid bringing their own personal stories, history and culture into the classroom. German Christmas, Canadian Bring 'n' Buy sales, and American cheerleaders were not something I had encountered in any English school. Believe me, if we'd had American cheer leaders at school in England, I would never have missed a lesson. At AFCENT School we literally had the best of both worlds by attending an international school. Not many school students are as privileged.

Some years ago, I saw several schools try to replicate this cultural richness through the use of video links to connect two (or more) classrooms together across distance. It was a great step beyond the pen pal letters we used to write when I was in secondary school in the 1960s. Then we had to wait for days or weeks for a reply. Now whole groups can meet and converse with each other in real time without travel. Language learning, cultural exchanges, personal stories, preparation for overseas school exchange visits and a whole host of other benefits can be realised when children collaborate and share their learning across language and cultural divides. The excitement of connecting with children in schools in other countries was tangible. Some schools who connected using videoconferencing manage to project the live video images onto big screens so that large groups could participate, and the kids loved it.

Video conferencing was just the start. We now have several alternative technologies that will allow schools to connect cheaply and easily with school children in other countries. One of the futures of education will be greater connectivity between schools around the world. Through the use of social media meeting tools such as Google Hangouts, video sharing tools such as Skype, and even massive online open games, students around the world already enjoy better chances to learn from each other and with each other, regardless of their geographical location. How will this develop? I foresee the emergence of global learning collectives where children will learn together across schools and time zones, collaborating on projects and other joint activities, and where technology will help us to once and for all bridge the great divides of geography, culture, creed and ethnicity.

*AFCENT = Allied Forces Central Europe. NATO = North Atlantic Treaty Organisation

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Global learning collectives by Steve Wheeler is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 3.0 Unported License.

Digital classrooms

This is Part 5 in my series of posts on the future of learning and technology. A few years ago Peter John and I wrote a book entitled 'The Digital Classroom'. It was published by Routledge in 2008 and is now also available as a Kindle reader version. It wasn't the first published under that title, and it probably won't be the last. The idea of a 'classroom' (regardless of how anachronistic that may sound) is appealing when it is 'digitised'. It's the old, comfortably familiar territory embellished with the new. Everyone in the world of education it seems, has an interest in how technology is going to influence what we do in the classroom. The book was received well, and we received some positive comments and feedback. Although the book is probably a little dated now, with technology advancing at rapid pace, it still set a benchmark for some of the things we could expect to see in the coming years. We talked for instance about how technology would streamline assessment, and how the curriculum might be impacted by new technologies. There were sections on digital literacies and mobile learning, both of which we considered to be important for the success of education and learning in the future. Blogs and wikis and other social media made an appearance, even though at the time they were still fairly nascent in compulsory education. We even mentioned the Semantic Web (or Web 3.0) as a potential horizon technology for learning. We spent a lot of time talking about digital cameras and interactive whiteboards, both of which have had dubious success in the school classroom.

Ultimately though, we could not have predicted the new tools and technologies that will become very much a part of normal school life in the recent and coming years. We did not foresee the touch tablets and their rapid success in schools, nor did we predict the rapid rise of smart phones and apps, or the potential of augmented reality. The non-touch motion sensing gestural interfaces now emerging (for example the Xbox 360 Kinect) and the voice activation applications were still just a gleam in the eye for many of us. Perhaps we should not have titled the book The Digital Classroom, but simply Digital Classrooms, because now we know that there are many possibilities, and that classrooms that have digital capabilities are many and varied. If I was to take a risk and suggest possibilities for the next 5 years of development, I might be right on some of my predictions, and hopelessly wrong on others, but here we go...

The signs are there that in the coming years, more gestural interface technology will be available for learners, and that advances in manufacture and design will enable the installation of screens on walls, desktop, in fact on any flat surface. The screens will be resilient and high resolution, but as thin as a sheet of card. The mouse, and keyboards such as the one in the image above, may disappear completely in favour of voice and gesture activated tools. For students with mobility issues in particular, this may turn out to be an important leveler. Smart touch devices will continue to develop too, so that every student will have the means to access all their learning resources right there in their hand, wherever they are, and whenever they need them.

Much more learning will be done outside of the classroom. Digital classrooms will become the place where learning is performed, celebrated and assessed - on large wall screens for all to enjoy. For many teachers, learner analytics will become an indispensable tool for tracking student progress and intervening when necessary. Many governments will probably insist on it and legislate accordingly when they realise just how much data can be mined from personal activities across the web. Eye tracking and attention tracking will also emerge as useful behaviour management tools for teachers in the next few years. Gamification and games based learning will establish a stronger foothold in classrooms as teachers realise just how powerful self-paced, self-assessed task oriented and problem based learning can be.

Probably the most important development I foresee though, is the emergence of student developed applications. As technology increasingly takes its hold on the school classroom, so students will become increasingly adept at coding. There is more scope than ever for children to experiment with computers. The Raspberry Pi is just the first of many tools to support this. The result will be the creation of a vast array of student games, mobile apps and eventually new forms of hardware (See this TED talk by 12-year old app developer Thomas Suarez). Many of the new apps and games will be made commercially available. Schools working in partnership with commercial companies will ensure it happens. We may even see some children achieve millionaire status before they leave school, and it will become commonplace for young people to be entrepreneurs before they reach higher education age. Now there's incentive.

A lot of learning comes from doing, making and problem solving. One of the most important contributions technology has made to education over the last decade can be found in its provisionality - that with digital, nothing is necessarily graven in stone, anything can be changed, upgraded, edited, revised, deleted. Learning in digital classrooms will be much more exciting, because learning through failure and experimentation will engage learners thoroughly in the right conditions.

Finally, a word of warning. We don't know how long these developments will take, nor do we know for sure  if they will materialise, because it is very hard to predict the future accurately, and schools are conservative places where change can be very difficult to achieve. What we do know is that the future will be very different from anything we can imagine right now. As ever, your comments and views on this article are very welcome.

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Digital classrooms by Steve Wheeler is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 3.0 Unported License.

The future of gaming

Games based learning is one of the most important strategies for 21st Century education. We have enjoyed playing games since time immemorial, and video arcade games such as Asteroids and Space Invaders of the 1970's were just the start of the emergence of digital games. Recently, with the development of handheld controls (such as the Nintendo Wii), 3D screens (Nintendo 3DS) and non touch gestural and voice controls (Microsoft's XBox 360 Kinect) games have become increasingly captivating, and have an immersive quality. Games, whether digital or analogue, have the capability to motivate learners, challenge them to improve their dexterity, problem solving and reasoning skills, encourage teamwork and collaboration (Nemerow, 1996) - especially social games such as World of Warcraft or Call of Duty - and performance is under constant peer review. These match some of the key skills required to succeed in the world of work where digital technology is prevalent. Thiagarajan (1998) believes that games have five major characteristics that are important for learning, These are conflict, control, closure, contrivance, and competency. Clearly, digital games have a great deal to offer the future of learning. So what can we expect of games based learning in the future?

Recent interviews in the magazine Short List by Ellison (2012) feature the opinions of several acknowledged video games experts. Ben Wilson, editor of Official Playstation Magazine UK believes that games will continue to improve in quality, with characters exhibiting more realistic human behaviour. Drivers in racing games for example, 'could be pressurised into making errors, footballers might make more realistic runs, or be angered into reacting to a late lunge or a dig in the ribs.' David Darling, who is one of the co-founders of Codemasters, sees games consoles becoming even smaller, and agrees with Wilson that the resolution of graphics will continue to improve. His main contention though is that games will become more augmented, and tied into the human emotions via retinal projection. Darling sees us playing games in the near future by proxy, controlling our avatars from a distance, with our senses stimulated so that we feel we are 'virtually there.'

Brain control is also something predicted by David Cage. The visionary designer who is behind PS3 games such as Heavy Rain and Beyond: Two Souls, believes that in the future, games playing will be radically different, requiring no controls. We will simply think our way around the game using our mind power, using directly implanted sensors. Jon Hicks, editor of Official Xbox 360 Magazine also takes a futuristic view. He feels that we have just about reached the limits of what we can achieve with screens and controllers. The next stage, he says, is to place the gamer even deeper into the virtual world. He believes that motion sensors will use information about our body postures, facial expressions and biofeedback to tap into our emotions, and then do 'amazing or even terrifying things with that information'. Combine this emotion tracking with augmented reality and we are approaching the ultimate experience. 'Imagine a Silent Hill game that can work out how scared you are, and change accordingly' he says, ominously.  

Whatever the future holds for gamers, we can be sure it will be different, more enhanced and more realistic than it is right now. So remember, the next time you venture into Azeroth, or don the hood of Connor Kenway, you may be taking your first steps toward a brave (and very scary) new world where reality blurs with fantasy, and where your learning will never be the same again.

References

Nemerow, L. G. (1996) Do classroom games improve motivation and learning? Teaching and Change, 3 (4), 356-361.
Ellison, J. (2012) You're going to need a bigger living room. ShortList, 8 November, 250, 49-52.
Thiagarajan, S. (1998) Ask Thiagi. Thiagi Game Letter, 1 (4), 6.

Photo by Steve Wheeler



The future of gaming by Steve Wheeler is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 3.0 Unported License.

Uncertainty principles

It's extremely difficult to predict the future accurately, because as futurologist Ray Kurzweil once said, change isn't linear, it's exponential. I often consult The Horizon Report, which is published every year and attempts to predict what will be the widespread adoptions of technologies in education and training. The annual report is published after extensive consultation with an international panel of technology and pedagogy experts. Yet even this is problematic, because the farther you move away from the present, the more opportunity there will be for unforeseen and unpredictable events to occur. And experts are not infallible. You really have to turn to science fiction and read something like Isaac Asimov's Foundation Trilogy to appreciate some of the complexity associated with this kind of uncertainty. What does the future hold? We can't be certain, because right now it's imaginary. The Horizon Report is usually quite accurate in the 1 year cycle. When we examine the predictions in the 2-3 year cycle, it becomes a little hit and miss, and by the time we attempt to predict what will be widely available on the 5 year horizon, it becomes even more tricky to maintain accuracy. The farther out we move in projected time from the familiarity of 'here and now' the less accurate we are in our predictions.

I was invited to speak at the Learning and Performance Institute's annual conference - Learning Live - at St Paul's in London recently, on the subject of Learning Futures, and afterwards talked to Martin Couzins, who recorded the brief video interview below (yes, I know it says 'learning tends'... but perhaps that's a fortuitous error):



Uncertainty principles by Steve Wheeler is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 Unported License. Based on a work at steve-wheeler.blogspot.com.

The games we play

What is it about games that make them so popular, and such a powerful learning method? For a start, there are an impressive array of transferrable skills to be acquired, especially if the games played are designed effectively. Secondly, most people now have the capability to play games on the move, using smart phones, touch screen tablets and handheld consoles. Thirdly, many online games have very rich social dimensions, which lead gamers to extend their learning further through discussion, collaboration and competition. Many scholars have researched the effects of games on learning, but perhaps one of the most prolific and profound games theorists is James Paul Gee. Gee provides several principles that together constitute a games based learning theory. The first is the psychological moratorium principle, which could also be referred to a 'suspension of reality'. Gamers are free to take risks in spaces where 'real world' consequences are negated. In a first person shooter game for example, you can kill as many enemies as you wish, and you won't be prosecuted for murder. You can fall from the top of a building or endure a high speed car crash, but you won't suffer a scratch or a bruise.

There is also the committed learning principle, which describes how gamers have sustained engagement as extensions of their real world identities in relation to their virtual identity (or avatar). This often enables gamers to develop an emotional attachment for which they feel some sense of commitment, and this also makes the virtual world they inhabit more compelling. Lots of effort and practice invested in World of Warcraft or the Sims results from the gamer being committed (some might even say 'hooked') to the game.

Another principle is the identity principle, which relates closely to the committed learning principle above. Learning through games often involves manipulation of identity in such a way that the gamer has real choice over how they wish to represent themselves, particularly in social games. This can result in forms of role playing where the gamer can choose to be a hero, a villain, or something entirely different.

The self knowledge principle relates to virtual worlds (or games terrains) being constructed in such a way that gamers learn not only about that environment, but also about themselves and their current skills, knowledge and capabilities. Gamers can make mistakes and learn from them. Next time, they improve their performance and avoid the same errors. As Graham Brown-Martin remarked, gaming is powerful because there is constant assessment of performance (usually self assessment, but also from the community who are playing the game if it is a social game).

Perhaps one of the most powerful principles is the achievement principle, which is instrumental in bringing many gamers back time and time again to improve their scores, hone their skills and relive previous experiences within the game. There are intrinsic rewards within most games, which if designed cleverly, will provide a gradient of difficulty (levels and goals) including problems to solve and knowledge to gather, which gamers can achieve with incremental effort and commitment. It is clear that problem solving and critical thinking skills are essential skills for successful learning and working.

There are several other principles identified by Gee, but I believe the ones listed above provide a reasonably clear model that explains why games are so powerful, and why they should be considered as tools to support learning for the 21st Century. More on Gee's learning principles can be found at this website.

Photo by Steve Wheeler


The games we play by Steve Wheeler is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 Unported License. Based on a work at steve-wheeler.blogspot.com.

Digital learning futures

Digital Learning Futures

View more presentations from Steve Wheeler

As I write this blog post, the above slideshow has received almost 18,000 views in just 48 hours since it was posted up onto Slideshare. These slides accompanied my presentation during the Learning Technologies conference and exhibition held at London's Olympia on 25-26 January. I was pleasantly surprised by the huge turnout to hear me speak, and grateful to Don Taylor and his team for inviting me to speak at this excellent event.

During my talk, I discussed a number of possible scenarios that might result when wholesale adoption of digital technologies occurs in education and training. I touched on personal learning networks, mobile technologies, games and gamification, the use of social media in learning, the role of user generated content, the phenomenon of ubiquitous connection, and technological convergence. The latter in particular is a trend that is allowing us to use web-enabled television, dual view screens, and in the near future will enable a merging between e-mail and social media. I also discussed pedagogical issues such as deep and surface learning, creative thinking and the transformation of knowledge consumption. As a nod to the possible futures we might see, I discussed the development of semantic web technologies (Web 3.0 and Web x.0), touch screen tablets, non-touch technologies and smart objects, as well as the potential of Open Educational Resources, open learning and open scholarship to support a global democratisation of learning.

I'm immensely gratified to think that so many more people outside the auditorium at Learning Technologies are now downloading and viewing these ideas. My audience has been extended beyond the walls of the event to a global classroom through the amazing power of social media. Here's to all the possible futures of learning!


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10Q: Helen Keegan

We are fortunate to have many innovators in education. In the primary (elementary) and secondary (high) school sectors some can be conspicuous, because through various Teachmeets around the world, and also online during Twitter #edchats, they make their work known to the wider community. In the post-compulsory sectors of education too, there is a lot of innovation and creativity, but sometimes this can go relatively unnoticed.

One academic who personally springs to mind when we talk about creative innovation is Salford University's Helen Keegan. I first met her at a conference in Italy several years ago, and we have been friends ever since. Every time I meet up with her I'm impressed by her energy and drive, and her ability to come up with new and exciting ideas on how to engage learners. In today's 10Q interview, Helen answers questions about her philosophy on learning, social media and her current projects in higher education, including alternate reality games:

Who are you?

I’m Helen Keegan a.k.a. heloukee (online), Senior Lecturer in Interactive Media and Social Technologies at the University of Salford. I’m based in Computing, Science and Engineering, so it’s a great place to be as I get to work with techie students, but nowadays I focus on the social and cultural aspects of technology. I’ve always worked across the University, and am now based at MediaCityUK, which is ideal as it’s a multidisciplinary campus. I like to work across disciplines as I think it’s important for learners to understand different paradigms/disciplinary perspectives/assumptions. My approach to learning and teaching starts from digital identity development – I encourage learners to position themselves in their chosen field while still in education, in preparation for their professional careers.

What inspires you most about learning?

Transformation, empowerment and the unexpected: although learning what we’re ‘supposed’ to learn (I’m talking formal education here) can be empowering, the things that really excite me are often unexpected or accidental – I’m inspired by learners developing new ideas and understandings through making connections between seemingly disparate concepts and fields, and moving beyond their (disciplinary) comfort zone. While this is challenging it often leads to genuinely transformative experiences. Because I work with learners across a myriad of social platforms, I’m able to see them develop their ideas and their identities – both individual and collective - through time. This then drives the curriculum, which is ultimately inspiring: learners being able to confidently negotiate their own curriculum in collaboration with others. In terms of my own practice, students are my primary source of inspiration as reflecting on our learning journey and experiences pushes me to keep innovating. I’m also inspired on a daily basis by people I work with (especially Frances Bell, Ben Shirley and Cristina Costa) and of course my PLN (thanks to social media!).

What/who has been your biggest influence when it comes to learning?

I studied at the Royal Northern College of Music before going on to a degree in Linguistics, specialising in phonetics, speech synthesis and spectrographic analysis. During my time at the RNCM (1993-1995) I was involved in a Manchester-based multimedia collective. With a loan from the Princes Trust, we set up a studio with a 2-tonne acoustic dry room. We had a band (inc. 2 drummers – hence the dry room ;) and an orchestra. My visionary friend Carl Russell led the whole thing, although there were about 15 of us involved on a day-to-day basis. We did all sorts of live multimedia gigs with dancers, animation, video, poetry, classical music, dance music… it’s also how I got into building websites and programming (which led me through the study of Lingustics into Acoustics). It was completely informal, un-assessed, and gave me the opportunity to explore a range of disciplines (music, computing, writing, performing) and learn with a group of friends. It was a major influence on my beliefs with regards to interdisciplinarity, grassroots education and informal learning.

What does social media mean to you?

Connections and networks, serendipity and opportunity, creativity and a rapid flow/spread of ideas – energising and occasionally exhausting! In terms of my practice as an educator, I love the fact that learners can simultaneously be developing their knowledge and understanding alongside their personal portfolio and ‘professional’ online identities. They are able to make meaningful connections with others through expressing themselves as individuals and letting their personalities shine through; their opinions, interests, and activities outside of formal education. I get a real thrill seeing learners develop their digital identities and personal networks over time – I love the fact that the boundaries blur between education/industry, tutors/students, as they build their own networks and gain confidence in connecting with others online.

What is an Alternate Reality Game (ARG)?

An Alternate Reality Game uses the real world as a platform for a transmedia, interactive narrative, which unfolds according to player’s actions. Unlike video games, players don’t play as characters but generally play as themselves, interacting with the ARG designers as opposed to artificial intelligence. ARGs blur the lines between fantasy and reality, requiring collaboration and group problem solving in order to play the game. The overriding mantra for an ARG is This Is Not A Game, so it necessarily involves an element of deception.

 
How have ARGs featured in your work recently?

I recently ran a module as an ARG, as I wanted see if I could pique learners’ curiosity through introducing mystery and intrigue into their course. I worked with Hugh Garry (BBC) who had been involved with a few ARGs in the past, so his experience was invaluable. The students were fed clues in the physical world (within their scheduled classes) and also online, through blogs, Twitter, YouTube and Tumblr. It was quite intense, as we couldn’t control how students would react during the game, so there were a few tricky moments! The culmination of the ARG was the surprise public broadcast of their mobile phone films on the BBC Big Screen in the centre of Manchester – they were led to the Big Screen by a series of clues and puzzles that unfolded during the semester. It was an amazing experience! However, the jury is still out on ARGs – involvement and immersion bring the biggest rewards so there’s a risk of losing or excluding those who choose not to engage, and this was one of the biggest difficulties that we faced.

What other innovative technology supported projects have you been involved in?

The first project I worked on as a researcher/developer still sticks in my mind. My brief was to develop a multimedia CAL package (yes, back in the olden days ;) to ‘teach’ principles of acoustics. I spent a lot of time talking to undergraduate students who were struggling with certain concepts/formulas, and decided to develop a series of simulations that allowed learners to play around with waveforms using sliders, getting instant audio-visual feedback – leaving out the maths (gasp!) until they developed a more kinaesthetic sense of what was actually going on. Learners were able to get a strong feel for things like additive and subtractive synthesis, before moving on to the actual formulas. Once they had a feel for waveforms – both visually and aurally – then the formulas made a lot more sense. Very simple really, but certainly helped learners overcome the mental blocks they had developed as a result of not getting to grips with the maths in the book and on the board.
Another ‘innovative’ project would have been ESMOS – a European project that I directed/coordinated from 2004-2007. The original bid focused on the use of VLEs to support international mobility students (work placements and study exchanges) and I was brought it to run the project once the bid had been successful. I changed the focus from VLEs to open blogs, wikis etc. – might not sound like much now, but it was pretty innovative at the time (2004), and also risky in terms of it being a European funded project as it meant a significant shift away from the original proposal. However, we pulled it off and made a real contribution to international student mobility support (social, pedagogical and cultural), which was recognised by the European commission and had considerable influence on many other projects.

More recent ‘innovative’ projects have included introducing reflective practice and digital identity development through social media into science/engineering in 2006, and getting video technology students in a science faculty to make short films using their mobile phones in order to open their minds to new aesthetics and challenge their rule-governed disciplinary assumptions.

What is your recipe for good learning?

From the content perspective: relevance, personal interest and meaning (also important to understanding learner motivations). I do think emotion is important. A relaxed, happy atmosphere helps people to feel at ease, although that’s not so say that we have to be happy in order to learn - but it does help if learners are enjoying the experience. Open and honest dialogue - admitting that we all mess up sometimes, we all have valuable experiences and thoughts to share, and can all learn from one another. An environment where people aren’t afraid to make mistakes - no fear of saying the wrong thing or ‘sounding stupid’. And last but perhaps the most important ingredients – curiosity, and asking questions!

If you could change anything in higher education, what would it be?

Two things: large class sizes and assessment regimes. This is a personal perspective and not always practical in a mass HE system, but the relationships I have with my students are incredibly important in terms of our learning (I’m including myself as a learner here, because I do expect to be challenged by, and learn from, my students). Sadly, the larger the group, the less likely we are to be able to get to know one another and for me this is one of the most valuable and rewarding aspects of learning and teaching.
My second bugbear is the modularised assessment-driven culture, as this does tend to stifle curiosity. So many learners are focused on what needs to be done to pass a module with a certain mark. It’s a strategic approach to getting a degree, but I’m not a fan of the industrial model of education and sometimes it does feel more like a production plant than a place for imagination and intellectual growth. I don’t believe we should abolish Universities. Universities and academic networks play a vital role in development through research, and linking research to teaching. However, I’m not a fan of corporatisation and get frustrated with the shift towards a consumer culture.

What is your vision for the future of learning?

Greater flexibility in terms of what, where and how we learn; access to information for all; a move away from assessment culture – greater emphasis on curiosity and enjoying learning for its own sake. Alternative forms of assessment and accreditation that allow learners to define their own pathways and form communities of interest/inquiry away from modules and levels. Finally, I’d like to see greater emphasis on critical media literacy, interdisciplinarity and epistemological awareness alongside disciplinary-specific knowledge and skills. Having an open and flexible mindset is becoming increasingly important when we’re living in a rapidly changing world.

Helen Keegan is an invited Spotlight Speaker at this year's Plymouth Enhanced Learning Conference.

10Q Helen Keegan by Steve Wheeler is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 3.0 Unported License.

Permission to fail

Playing Angry Birds earlier today made me realise afresh that one of the key strengths of games based learning is the freedom to fail. Games offer a psychologically safe environment within which to learn new things. There are no sanctions for failing - but there is the chance to try again and try again. As with real life, you don't always get it right, but you then have the option to learn from your mistakes, and improve your skills, or fail to learn, and make the same mistakes all over. Ultimately, in trying again, you hone your skills or thinking, and assess your performance against previous ones. Social gaming takes this a step farther, in that you can also learn from other people's mistakes. Games like Farmville may be addictive and seen by some as a waste of valuable time, but at the same time, they enable players to learn new skills. So if you don't tend your crops, they wither and die. If you take care of your neighbours, they are likely to reciprocate. It's an analogue of real life. 

Playing games enables us to learn new skills, practice new thought processes, and create and apply strategies in new and unfamiliar contexts. The fantasy and suspension of reality enable hypothesis testing and problem solving on the fly, both extremely important transferable skills. But it is the ability to fail repeatedly, and still remain in the game that is the greatest affordance of games based learning. What could teachers achieve if more school systems afforded this? Imagine what children heights children would be able to attain if instead of being frowned upon for dreaming the impossible and asking the 'what if' questions, they were rewarded for their enterprise, risk taking and creative thinking?

One of the new features at next year's Plymouth Enhanced Learning Conference - PELeCON 2012 - will be a 'failure confessional'. The session, which I will host (but not necessarily wearing the vestments of a priest) will be an invitation for any delegate to talk about their failures, and crucially, what they learnt from their mistakes. Too often at conferences, success is lauded as the only criterion to be judged by. The thinking behind the failure confessional, is that researchers and teachers can tell their stories 'warts and all', in the hope that everyone can learn from the experience. We hope to see you at PELeCON next year, 18-20 April, so we can learn from each other. And you have permission to fail.

Image by Dan Pupius


Permission to fail by Steve Wheeler is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 3.0 Unported License.

Business games

I gave a keynote speech at the Zukunft Personal - a massive HRM Expo and conference - today, in Cologne, Germany. One of my presentation themes in the main arena was 'openness'. My keynote went well and afterwards I was asked during the discussion whether companies would be wise to give their ideas away for free. I had previously explained that increasingly, many teachers and lecturers are sharing their content freely, because we are aware of the need to improve learning while reducing cost. Its not completely altruistic. Many of us are handsomely rewarded for this free giving. If the content is open for re-use and repurposing, it is almost always more widely and more quickly disseminated than it would be if it were closed. Some academics share their content through social media to get it 'out there' to the public more quickly, and in a more visible way, so that dialogue is encouraged and amplification can occur. Giving away content therefore makes sense to a lot of teachers and lecturers, because they want to gain a larger audience for their ideas.

But does it make good sense, my conference host asked, if commercial organisations were also to give away their products with no charge? Would this not result in lost revenue for those companies? The predominantly corporate sector audience waited expectantly for my answer. There were more suits on view than at Moss Bros. In my response, I echoed what I had earlier said in my Zukunft Personal keynote - Open Educational Resources are the start of a movement that is already transferring itself to the business sector. It is already happening not just in companies such as Google and Facebook, whose business model is to advertise on the back of free products in a pay-per-click strategy. I pointed out that some major players in the gaming industry are participating. One of the leaders in the game engine world is Unity, who sell their Unity Pro developer software package for $1500 but give away a lower level version of the same package for free. How can they afford to do this? The reason is quite clear. Unity wants games developers everywhere to use their software, and wants to encourage a community of interest to form around its products. It gives them a competitive edge over their rivals. Unity does so by not only offering free software but also an evaluation service on games that have been developed using their software. Last year the company announced its Union partnership scheme. If your game is deemed to be commercially viable, Unity will market it across a variety of platforms, and takes 20 per cent commission on all subsequent sales. Other gaming companies are following similar business models. How long will it be before companies in other sectors of business and industry begin to give their products away for free to become even more competitive in their niche sector?


Business games by Steve Wheeler is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 3.0 Unported License.

It's only natural

Speech to text. Natural gesture interfaces. MIT's Sixth Sense wearable computer. Touch surfaces and non-touch interfaces. All of them have one thing in common. They do away with the need to use a standard keyboard or mouse. Computing is changing, and the place to hear about where we are heading with it all, is at Learning Without Frontiers.

Natural user interfaces (NUIs) just happened to be the theme of an invited presentation by Microsoft's Head of Research, Professor Andrew Blake (pictured) this morning at LWF. Although, as some of the audience tweeted, non-touch interfaces are already here, it was interesting to see how Microsoft and other large corporations plan to incorporate this technology into their products in the near future. We are clearly headed for a world of intuitive computer use according to Professor Blake. He started by demonstrating how technology is capturing and recognising the shape and movement of the human body and he discussed the challenges involved in achieving this. Different body shapes, sizes and people standing in groups can all confuse cameras, because they 'see' us as flat images rather than in 3D, he said. How does the camera select human limbs from their background surroundings for example? he asked. The use of the depth camera achieves this. Using the example of the special effects in the Hollywood movie Titanic and its extensive use of matte technology (what we used to call colour separation overlay in television studio work) Professor Blake deftly applied a similar approach to visual manipulation for practical applications. This technology builds on previous research into object recognition and is used for example in games playing technologies such as the XBox 360 Kinect.

Computers can even recognise emotions now, said Blake, and this was an unexpected spin-off from autism research, where facial feature recognition software was first developed. Blake admits that all this important research is leading somewhere significant, but he admits he doesn't really know what shape it will take yet. The final summing up remark was that with new non-touch interfaces, it is likely that computers will learn from us, just as we learn from computers.

It's only natural by Steve Wheeler is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 3.0 Unported License.

Games based learning

Games based learning as expected, had a highly visible profile at this year's Learning without Frontiers festival, in London. Take David Samuelson for example. As Head of Augmented Reality development for Pearson Education, he must have one of the coolest jobs in the world. He gets to explore all the latest possibilities technology can offer to education, and to ask the "what if?" questions each day.
In his invited presentation at today's Learning Without Frontiers festival, David emphasised what his audience already believed - for children, video games are an ideal, natural medium for learning. Kids love playing games, he said, and they learn from them without effort or inhibition. They are often 'in the flow' and don't have any hang ups about expressing themselves. He is interested in mashups - where augmented reality can be embedded within games. It's a new generation of games that is emerging, but with the advancement of games console design, the new 3DS Nintendo screens, and the natural gesture controls of devices such as XBox 360, the time is right. The universal appeal of games must be a natural extension to learning in formal situations. What excites him most is the story telling that is seen in the latest games, for example Heavy Rain.

Another invited speaker at #lwf is Dawn Hallybone, the ICT co-ordinator and senior teacher at Oakdale Junior School in Essex, whom I had the pleasure of meeting at the LWF teachmeet on Sunday night. She had entered into the spirit of the fancy dress teachmeet and was wearing a luminous pink wig. In a very engaging presentation today (without her wig), she talked about playful learning and highlighted how handheld devices such as the Nintendo DS (used in her school as a brain training tool) and games such as Professor Layton puzzle adventure stories can be used to inspire kids to learn a range of key skills such as literacy, numeracy, problem solving, team working and interpersonal communication.

Dawn uses an innovative combination of tools including the Nintendo Wii, to engage kids in scenarios that take on a 3D immersion effect. They become so engaged in their characters and activities, they forget where they are, she explained. Dawn also eulogised over how Twitter has enabled her and her colleagues worldwide to connect and share their ideas on how they are using these tools in new and exciting ways to enhance learning in formal settings. They have set up a games network, pooled their meagre resources, and have purchased a library of games that can then be shared across all the schools that are members of the collective. Long may it continue.

Games based learning by Steve Wheeler is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 3.0 Unported License.

Just a game?

I met with some very impressive young people yesterday during my visit to a local secondary school. I was visiting Saltash.Net Community School with one of my Austrian research colleagues to see how the school is using e-learning approaches and harnessing Web 2.0 tools. In my opinion, Saltash is one of the most innovative schools in the country, which is underlined by the amount of national awards it has been given recently. Around the table at lunch, in the Headteacher's office, we sat eating pizza and drinking fruit juice with five year 10 students. The talk inevitably turned to internet games (I actually initiated this part of the conversation) and suddenly the students because very animated. They enthused over Farmville, the Sims and other long games and talked about how much they enjoyed playing them.

I asked them what they actually learned from playing games such as Farmville. They didn't miss a beat. One bright young lad said that he learned how to organise his time and make better schedules to plough ground, sow seeds and reap crops. 'If you don't time it perfectly, your crops die' he said. Another student said that to organise her time and calculate how much she was earning and spending on Farmville, she used a spreadsheet alongside the game. This taught her how to plan for expenditure and calculate how much she could expand her farm next time. I think she is also learning how to integrate tools together to amplify her learning. Time management, organisation, planning - these are clearly very important skills that can be applied to formal learning activities.

The teachers in the room were clearly interested in these views and I could see them trying to work out how to capitalise on the affordances of these popular games in the classroom. In other words, they were interested in taking the power and attraction of informal learning tools and harnessing or leveraging them within formal learning contexts. It's the Holy Grail of education - and it's not easy.

I read a very interesting blog post entitled 10 things I learned from Farmville about real life farming which included such gems as 'looking after your neighbours' - that is, collaborative working. I'm sure there are a huge number of transferrable life skills children can acquire tacitly from games like Farmville and The Sims, including planning, time management, problem solving and coping with disappointment. Such games are often maligned by some teachers and parents as a 'waste of time' and children do, if allowed, play for long periods of time on such games. But doesn't that tell us something about the power of these tools to engage, enthrall and educate? How can we harness this power in the classroom - that is the question...

Related posts:

The Professor, the Pizza and Farmville (Dan Roberts)

Saltash School (Bernhard Standl)

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Serious games

I watched my 14 year-old son this morning as he created avatars on our Nintendo Wii, but got a little concerned when he created a Hitler Mii and a Stalin Mii. Still, it was impressive, because from memory he also created a Bill Clinton, Richard Nixon, Harry Truman and Abraham Lincoln, all with very recognisable features, which leads me to believe that he must have paid a lot more attention during his History lessons than I ever did. He set them all running in a dubious U.S. 'presidential race', and I'm not sure who eventually won, but you can probably guess. The Barack Obama Mii picture here gives you some idea about how accurate these avatars can be, although I'm not sure POTUS would be too wild about the 'B.O.' label...

This led me to some thinking about games based learning, and how we can conjecture by simulating events that will never happen. My son was having great fun, but there was a serious underpinning to the games he was playing with images of world leaders. Watching him was a relevant little distraction, because I'm currently ploughing through a number of new books that have landed on my desk from IGI Global under the banner of their Information Science Reference series. The one I'm concentrating on at the moment is GBL focused and has the grand title: Games-Based Learning Advancements for Multi-Sensory Human Computer Interfaces: (Techniques and Effective Practices). It's a 372 page volume edited by Thomas Connolly, Mark Stansfield and Liz Boyle (all at the University of the West of Scotland). Despite it's very expensive tag ($195.00, or about £120) this hardback book has some readable chapters, and it tackles some relevant and emerging issues in this fast-moving field of learning technology.

The book seeks to: 'disseminate knowledge on the theory and practice of games-based learning, promoting the development and adoption of best practices'. And there are some best practices shared in the book, with stand out chapters by Nicola Whitton (Manchester Metropolitan University) who covers the use of computer games in HE, Dan Livingstone and his colleagues who discuss MUVEs and the use of Sloodle, and Colin Price (University of Worcester) who talks about the path between pedagogy and technology. He examines the metaphor of space and notions of embodiment in the context of discourse and collaborative learning. Good to see that there is also an entire section dedicated to disabilities and gender issues in games-based learning.

But there are two chapters that made the book worth reading, for me at least. The first is by Matt Sweeny and Helen Routlege - Drawing Circles in the Sand - in which they share how to integrate content into serious games. They hold that synergistic alignment of game and content is a gradual process that must be built into the game design. Too much initial instruction they argue, 'sucks the fun out of the game', but too much fun 'can make the learning harder to contextualise'. The second chapter, by the editors Connolly and Stansfield, showcases a model for Games-Based evaluation. Their model seems overtly psychological, involving the complex interplay between a number of components, including the perceptions of learners and instructors, their attitudes, motivations, and performamces. Although it appears to be hard to operationalise and there is a long way to go, this framework may point the way for games designers and tutors in the future.

My only criticism of this book (apart from the now traditional whinge that the high cost of IGI Global books puts them out of the reach of most educators), is that I could find nothing about digitial identity and the importance it plays in making games-based learning successful. Still worth a read though, if you can get your hands on a copy.

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