Commercial health and education games

French games publisher UbiSoft has announced a line up of casual games which include a game to help you quit smoking, and a game for children to play teacher. Its clear that they are following the lead of Nintendo’s huge success with Brain Training, Nintendogs and the like – but also indicative of the recent leaps made (with the help of these games) towards games becoming socially acceptable. Or at least, certain types of games…

Digital Futures 2008

Local self-promotion…

The annual Digitial Futures degree show for animation, media and game technology students from the University of the West of Scotland will be happening on the 9th of June at the Glasgow Royal Concert Hall. More details here.

This is a good opportunity to see the show-reels, demos, animations, movies, sound-reels, and to chat to the students who created them. I know that at least three of the small number of Games Technology students have job offers already, and hopefully this will provide an good opportunity for the remaining students to meet up with potential employers… last year there were two recruiters from Blitz games. Now, three of that years class are working at Blitz having been offered second round interviews directly after the show.

BBC’s Virtual World praised by the BBC…

Children’s BBC (CBBC) have been beta-testing a virtual world for children – ‘Adventure Rock‘. A major launch is probably imminent given the appearance at the weekend of the article “Web worlds ‘useful’ for children” on the BBC news site. (I think that the world is actually now open to all, but haven’t seen the launch yet… maybe I don’t see enough CBBC)

A little comment below, and a minor ethical dilemma…

Angling for educational attainment

I wrote previously  that some solutions to lack of concentration in class might be found in ways other than introducing computer games – most notably simply by changing what children eat – by providing a proper breakfast or from healthier options during the day.

Now today a story from the BBC in Wales reports on a school that has seen great benefits in concentration and attainment by introducing angling – fishing with rod and line:

A school for disadvantaged children in Powys claims fishing is helping its pupils overcome their problems.

Teachers at Brynllywarch Hall School said the pastime had improved pupils’ temperaments, computer skills and mathematics, and boosted confidence.

The report did not say whether any attempt had been made to compare the results against those achieved with Sega Bass Fishing on Ninetendo.

Eduserve Snapshot Report: UK Higher and Further Education activities in Second Life

John Kirriemuir has completed the lastest update to the series of Eduserv snapshot reports on UK educational activity in Second Life. It is now figured that 3/4 of the UK’s Universities are active (to some degree) in Second Life. You can get the whole report here, and read John’s summary below.

Desktop conferencing for Moodle with DimDim

Today I gave a presentation ‘at’ Discover-e 08, an online conference organised by the JISC West-Midland Regional Support Center. The presentation was given via DimDim, one of a host of available desktop conferencing software options – but what makes DimDim of particular interest is that an OpenSource version is available. With this you can host your own DimDim server, and even integrate it into Moodle.

Alternatively, you can subscribe to use DimDim on their servers with support for larger numbers of users and some additional features. Voice and video worked well – albeit only a small number of users can have their voice active at a time. Nice clean ‘gmail’-like interface as well.

This was my first proper experience of presenting via desktop conferencing – and it went fairly well, though I was left wishing I’d put in less information and more opportunities for interaction…

Pay to Play

Short article here from the Charlotte Observer looking at the phenomena of virtual worlds for children – and their methods of getting children (or their parents) to part with money (via BJ Berquist at TappedIn).

I think it is very easy to criticize companies from trying to get children to part with money – and there are many examples of unethical marketing practices that do target children. On the other hand, games are a form of entertainment – and it is not unreasonable for companies to try to make money for providing entertainment. Acceptable for DVD or music sales, certainly.

I think I remain more concerned about, and interested in, the content of games, and the behaviors and values that they can promote and what is being learned by the children playing the games. But the marketing value of virtual worlds has not escaped companies with products to sell to children – and the online world remains unaffected by many of the legislative controls on marketing and advertising. Also of interest are the ways in which games use the allure of premium content to turn trial users/free players into subscribers – can these methods cross some invisible line into exploitation?

I want to pick one example from the article… from BarbieGirls which has till now been free to play. A two-tier system which allows free play as before – but provides special content to subscribers – is now on the way:

But a collection of some games and fashion items will be off limits unless they become a V.I.P. player, which requires cash. VIPs are distinguished from the other Barbies by their sparkling tiaras.

So in a virtual world where looking fabulous is a major part of the experience, only those who pay can possibly looks truly fabulous. And this in a virtual world which itself is part marketing exercise for a range of plastic toys.

Handheld Learning

Handheld Learning takes place in London from October 13th to 15th. Nintendo have sponsored the event – and early registrations will receive free Nintendo DS’!

Aside from that, the speaker list is pretty impressive too… including the likes of Stephen Heppell and John Seely Brown. Looking at the programme I see that Derek Robertson will be speaking too. Although my own work hasn’t really had much involvement with mobile technologies, I have to say that I’m tempted.

Dr. Kawashima, Schools and Media

Having chatted with Derek Robertson recently, thought I would update on some Consolarium news.

Byron Report, Media coverage of games issues, and classroom use of Dr. Kawashima’s Brain Training and Nintendogs all below…

CFP: Novel Approaches to Promoting Student Engagement

Novel Approaches to Promoting Student Engagement

A one-day workshop hosted at the University of Ulster’s Coleraine campus, on 30 October 2008, by the School of Computing and Information Engineering and the Higher Education Academy.