Serious Games in Serious Trouble

[via the Second Life Ed. mailing list, submitted by Nik Peachey]

Justin Peters in Slate thinks that Serious Games just aren’t any fun - and this is a problem. Its a fun read, and makes a few very pertinent points. In the past I’ve reviewed one or two conference papers describing serious games for training that just left me wondering why they bothered… writing dull papers describing dull games to train people in skills that could be easily gained in around 15 minutes by providing the training in the workplace instead of on screen.

And as my colleague John Sutherland points out from time to time, there is a real risk that children will reject games that they see as educational. As he says, ‘they can smell the worthiness’. I’m not convinced adults will necessarily be any more drawn to worthy but dull training games.

This isn’t to say that there aren’t (or can’t be) good serious games - just that there are a lot out there that are dull and fairly pointless. Meanwhile, the variable educational value of lessons learned in pure games is highlighted by what Justin has learned by playing Civilization:

 I have learned … not to trust Mohandas Gandhi if he offers me an armistice.

Ah, indeed.

Tech Savvy?

Via Tim’s Blog de Blog…

Barbara Combes has written an article based on her research outlining how comfort with technology does not imply competency. Her PhD focussed on information seeking behaviours of the ‘Net Generation’, and her findings are well aligned with many of the past discussions and notes on this blog about Digital Natives…

Intercultural Communications

Very brief review of Forterra - a software development kit for creating custom online multi-user virtual environments for training. And a somewhat incongruous screenshot from their demo movie…

Did you know 2.0?

Did you know 2.0 is now available. It’s an improvement over the original in a number of ways. Minor factual corrections being one… the 1900 superpower is now more correctly identified as Great Britain rather than England as one we example. It does seem a lot less global alarmist overall.

Banned!

The decision of the BBFC to deny a rating to controversial game Manhunt 2 has effectively banned it in the UK - making it illegal for shops to sell the game. The game has similarly been on the receiving end of effective bans in the USA and elsewhere.

The BBFC recently issued a report on classification, and generally has a good relationship with the game industry in the UK, which makes the decision interesting. Some links for further reading below…

Blended Learning part 1.5.5…

Still not the next ‘proper’ post… but just to say that I’ve uploaded my slides from last weeks conference onto Slideshare, here.

You can also see my presentation as recorded in Elluminate here… my presentation starts about an hour in. With the mic on the desk rather than being worn, the audio is a bit patchy. I was not bowled over by the quality of Elluminate play back - or its access speed - so interested to hear any second opinions.

Also of interest… the introduction and keynote session.

Schome pilot study

Thanks to Dan for linking to this in a comment he put in this very blog… too good not to get a proper mention. Schome has completed its first pilot study in SL - almost certainly the largest study of learning and engagement in SL with around 150 school children involved. Written in a very accessible manner, this is one report worth reading (16 pages… including a one page comic at the end!). Get it here.

ps Schome is pronounced ’skome’ not ’shh-ome’

Digital Futures

Each year the University of Paisley has a degree show for its computer animation, computer games technology and music technology students. This year it was held for the second time in Glasgow’s CCA - a very neat city center arts venue with no air conditioning (the only drawback!).

The event included a couple of guest speakers… one was Bob Stone, who is doing incredible amounts of work using serious games for training. Primarily military and medical related, but was a very eye-opening presentation. You can read more about his work here.

Other than that, the happy news was that the guys from Blitz Games who came along seemed quite impressed with the work of the games technology students - hopefully a few students will be going down south for trials/interviews now. Result.

Blended Learning Part 1.5

Just a quick one here…

Was reading Bill Thompson’s blog on the BBC here. Discussing social networking sites he mentions:

About a year ago I asked my daughter, who was 15 at the time, if she would “ADD” me as a friend on MySpace so I could comment on her profile and be part of her online social network.

She refused point blank.

Gaming and Addiction

‘Gaming Addiction’ has been raised a few times recently in some Second Life discussions I’ve participated in. When he visited the Teen Grid, James Paul Gee was asked about gaming addiction, and primarily focussed on the potential benefits of gaming in his answer. Then there was a question on the SLED mailing list asking whether getting students to work in Second Life was putting them at risk. This last raised some debate about gaming addiction, my contribution was this (some editing):