Still trucking away gathering data for my dissertation. I’m still looking for people who have used Particle Laboratory to teach themselves how to work with particles in Second Life.
The survey can be found here .
Thanks in advance!
Join the Educause Games and Learning Book Club Twitter Chat
Everquest II videogame
I serve on the Educause Games & Learning Steering Committee. One of our new activities is to host book clubs on this topic via Twitter. You do not need to be an Educause member to participate. See my co-committee members invite below.
Please join us for the January Games & Learning Twitter Book Club. This month, we will be discussing Chapter 5: Remodelling Design of Rethinking Gamification (Fuchs, Fizek, Ruffino, & Schrape, 2014). Per the book’s copyright terms, you may download a free digital edition from the publisher’s website: https://meson.press/books/rethinking-gamification/.
As usual, the book club will be hosted on Twitter at 6:30 EST (5:30 CT |4:30 MT |3:30 PT) on Wednesdays. Use the hashtag #read4games to participate.
- January 16: Why Fun Matters: In Search of Emergent Playful
Experiences by Sonia Fizek - January 23: Exploring the Endgame of Gamification by Scott
Nicholson - January 30: Eudaimonic Design, or: Six Invitations to Rethink
Gamification by Sebastian Deterding
Please join us!
Tiffany Taylor Attaway
On behalf of the EDUCAUSE Games & Learning Book Club Committee
Tiffany Taylor Attaway, Casey Davis, & Kae Novak
Excited over the potentials of Velasense
If you’re like me, you detest most commercials. I primarily watch HuluPlus instead of cable television anymore and the commercials irritate me to no end (usually I lower the volume or simply choose to get up and do something when they’re on) but a few months ago, a series of commercials caught my attention. These were from Verizon and they were promoting an accessibility technology called Velasense that Verizon is integrating into their system.
I have to say, from the videos, I am deeply impressed. Velasense not only uses GPS to help guide visually impaired users to their destination, but even to doors and other structural elements. It has facial recognition built in to not only recognize friends but also tells users what their facial expressions are. It also reads things, like cans, money, newspapers, etc.
I’ve wondered how the visually impaired might be able to use virtual worlds such as Second Life. I realize that screen readers can often pick up text chat, but what about the graphical interface? Seeing technologies like Velasense coming into the marketplace makes me wonder if, someday, these technologies won’t be able to interpret online graphics for their users, painting a picture through descriptions of what is happening on the screen. Such a breakthrough would be amazing, not just for virtual worlds/vr, but online education as we know it.
For more information about Velasense and to see more video of it in action, check out their website and Tumblr.
http://visustechnology.tumblr.com/
Originally posted on the Virtual Educator blog.
HabitRPG–Helping to keep me on track (and it could help students too!)
I kid around a lot about being somewhat dangerous when left with too much time to wander around the interwebs while waiting on things to digitize/download/upload/rez/etc at work. Every now and again, though, I manage to find something that I find useful and entertaining. When I immediately see the promise of something and it’s fun, we get into the realm known as the “squee factor”–and yes, I let out a squee when I learned about HabitRPG from this article on Kinja.
HabitRPG is a free online program that gamifies your to-do list. There is a subscription version (for 5 dollars per month) for more goodies, but so far, I’ve found that for most students, the free version would probably be fine. How does it gamify your to-do list and habits? Once you sign up for HabitRPG, you can outfit your character or avatar. Below is an image of mine…
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Why I Think Non-violent Video Games Are a Valuable Learning Domain
Students in Minecraft Costumes at FIRST Robotics Competition
Gee’s (2007) description of semiotic domains reminds me of what my language peers refer to as multiple literacies; that’s the literacy required to perform a task beyond reading, writing, and arithmetic. Semiotic domain refers to the ability to detect the signs, symbols, merit, value, and language of a particular activity in order to function properly within it. For example, children who play video games are learning the semiotic domain of that particular game environment. If they’re playing Minecraft, then they’ll learn to appreciate their physical surroundings, system alerts, personal alliances, and any help section embedded within the game. In essence, the game’s affordances, and their role within it, become the semiotic domain that must be learned in order for the learner to be successful.
I don’t think that children should play violent video games for these same reasons. Even though the Supreme Court declared no age-limit to graphically violent video games in 2011 (due to the lack of evidence in inciting violence among young players), I believe the semiotic domain of those violent actions become imprinted on the child. Due to the potentially harmful activity, scientists cannot properly study this phenomenon.
Gee stated that video gaming offers important semiotic domains which include active problem-solving, critical thinking, and unique language functions (“design grammar”) in-world as an avatar and in real life as a gamer playing the game. Additionally, the learner discovers how they would react in new situations; they can replay the situation to manipulate outcomes. In this way, the learner is able to make corrective actions on their own or through resets by termination. We seldom get the opportunity to manipulate our outcomes in real life. These are a few of the reasons why I think that nonviolent gaming is a valuable learning domain.
When I taught preschool at the University of California’s laboratory elementary school, I encountered parents who disliked my use of the series called Rotten Ralph by Jack Gantos. It’s a story about an undisciplined cat that always gets into trouble. I thought the book would make a nice counter match with the popular Clifford the Big Red Dog series by Norman Bridwell. Clifford causes trouble not because he’s undisciplined but rather because of his large size. Hence, he was not really ever in trouble for misbehaving. I liked how Rotten Ralph showed that even if you act badly, your family will still love you and want you around. Children need to know that there’s room for error in their development of knowledge about the world around them. In a sense, gaming can provide that error-safe environment—a world of resets.
Children should participate fully in semiotic domains to produce virtual objects, create alliances, and develop new meanings. In Minecraft, they can create Lego-like structures for their alliances (guilds) and learn to survive various physical threats to self and environmental threats to their structure(s). This affords the child the feeling of accomplishment. Children still learn about life and death but not in a graphically violent way. Play is beneficial for humans’ assimilation and accommodation throughout life. Piaget first posited this in his theory of cognitive development in the 1950s, which stated that play and imitation are essential human strategies. Nowadays, there’s little time during the school day for play. There is, however, an emphasis in computer literacy and developing critical thinking. Perhaps gaming could meet that demand and allow for playtime, too.
Gee, J.P. (2007). What Video Games Have to Teach Us About Learning and Literacy (2nd ed.). New York, NY: Palgrave Macmillan.
Trace Effects Video Game for Learning English as a Foreign Language
What is it?
Trace Effects is an educational 3-D multimedia interactive video game that can be played individually off-line from a DVD or online individually or with a group. There’s also a complimentary mobile app called Trace Word Soup, which is a vocabulary game. Trace Effects was designed for English language learners (ELLs) ages 12-16 by the United States Department of State (DOS), Bureau of Educational and Cultural Affairs.
What does it teach?
The game teaches American English and culture in the context of a student entering a university setting for the first time. For example, Trace, the main character, navigates the campus in search of the student information center to obtain his student identification card in order to access certain buildings and ultimately progress to the next level of play. This game (and all of its supporting material) is part of an outreach program of the Office of English Language Programs and the American English resource center, which supports the efforts of the Regional English Language Officers (RELOs) worldwide. RELOs work directly with English language specialists to promote American culture and English language learning activities in public and private schools abroad.
What learning principles and practices is it based on?
I was able to interview key stakeholders about the game’s program theory. Based on their comments and my review of the game and existing documents, I concluded that Trace Effects is based on the following major concepts: cognitivism, constructivism, the communicative approach to language acquisition, the Teachers of English to Speakers of Other Languages (TESOL) Technology Standards Framework, and gaming as an instructional strategy. Moreover, the DOS’s vision (pillars) factor into the game. The following DOS pillars are embedded in the levels/lessons of the game: entrepreneurship, community activism, empowering women, science and innovation, environmental conservation, and conflict resolution.
Who is the target audience?
The game was designed specifically for secondary school students in various nations who are involved in the English Access Micro-scholarship Program. This is one of the State Department’s outreach efforts to provide English language skills to talented 13-20 year-olds from economically disadvantaged sectors of the world through after school classes. The purpose is to provide an opportunity for participants to improve their English skills to increase their chances of better employment and/or entrance into post-secondary schools. For example, Access participants may compete for, and participate in, future exchanges and study in the United States.
How will one know if users improved their English language ability and/or learned about American culture by using the game?
In the Trace Effects’ teacher manual,teachers are encouraged to assess students before and after so many hours of playtime (pretest/posttest). Moreover, there are numerous extension activities in the teacher’s manual to assess learning (alternative assessments). For example, the student worksheets associated with each chapter allow teachers to monitor student learning. Students can monitor their own learning through the passive game feedback of points, redirects, and level achievement (self-regulation). Students monitor their progress on an electronic log to share with the teacher. Additionally, there are competitions held worldwide for the record of highest scorer. Stakeholders reported that educators could conduct action research to compare a control group that does not play the game with that of the treatment group that does. Another shared idea was about using think-alouds for qualitative research—taking notes on what students report on while playing the game (phenomenology).
How can I access this game for my students?
You can download the game from the DOS website. If you teach English abroad, contact your local RELO for access to the teacher’s manual and DVDs if you don’t have access to the Internet.
For more information, see my logic model of Trace Effects.
Getting started on my dissertation: MMORGs for Language Learning
Massive Multiplayer Online Role-playing Games for Second Language Acquisition of Vocabulary
Problem-based learning (PBL) in simulated environments such as massive multiplayer online role-playing games (MMORGs) offers a variety of language-based scenarios with nonplaying characters providing model language support for cultural, vocabulary, and literacy development. Gaming provides situated learning of content in a PBL format (Brown, Collins, & Duguid, 1989). For example, the U.S. Department of State designed a MMORG called Trace Effects for juvenile English language learners (ELLs) in 2012. The levels of the game take you to different American communities for rich situated learning among the varied cultural settings. (See my logic model for Trace Effects.)
I plan to investigate the use of a general MMORG as a language-learning vocabulary tool. I will extend a study by Rankin, Gold, and Gooch (2006) that only had four college-aged intermediate and advanced level ELL participants. They reported that participants improved their English vocabulary by 40% from playing EverQuest II (EQ2) for four hours a week for a month without instructional supports. Nonplaying characters provided support by modeling language; in fact, the more they modeled, the higher the accuracy in vocabulary meaning for the participants. The authors acknowledged their small sample size and called for larger investigations of this type given the positive outcomes. I’d like to verify and extend their findings using mixed methods to produce a more robust understanding of this phenomenon.
Purpose of the Study
The purpose of the proposed study is to determine whether college-aged intermediate and advanced level ELLs can learn vocabulary in a short amount of time from playing MMORGs. EQ2 provides opportunities for the characters (a student’s avatar) to speak. The nonplaying characters (embedded support system) verbalize the rules and alerts to players. All the components in this game are labeled, which serves as an English language support mechanism. In their study, Rankin et al. (2006) found there was sufficient support for ELLs within the game; however, their findings were based on an extremely small sample. My study will include at least 50 participants with random assignment to control and treatment groups (experimental design). If college-aged ELLs could significantly increase their knowledge of English vocabulary by playing a free MMORG like EQ2, then this could be an important extracurricular activity for language teaching programs or informal learning agendas.
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A special thanks to Dr. Burke Johnson for getting me started on my dissertation in his course this semester (Advanced Research Design).
Note: These are my humble beginnings. I’ve already begun the literature review and written about 22 pages.
See my PowerPoint presentation on MMORGs for Language Learning that I presented at SITE 2014 in Jacksonville, FL.
Here’s a live presentation on the topic at the 7th Virtual Round Table: https://lancelot.adobeconnect.com/_a875817169/p9jw1fpobx8/?launcher=false&fcsContent=true&pbMode=normal
Sandra Rogers
Science site tour, Friday, Feb 21 @ 5 pm central (3 pm slt)
This week, we’ll be visiting some sites in SL dedicated to science. First, we’ll visit the inworld session area for NPR’s Science Friday which airs weekly on Fridays. Then we’ll head to Genome Island to tour their training areas for students and finally, we’ll experience Virtual Hallucinations.
We’ll meet up at Jaguarland (http://maps.secondlife.com/secondlife/Jaguarland%20USA%20Education/128/128/30) at 3pm slt (5 pm central) and head out from there!
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Note: Tours venture into Mature as well as PG sims. If you are not able to access Mature rated sims (if you are below 18 years of age), you will not be able to fully participate in these tours.
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First, we’ll drop in on the Science Friday program area which streams the show weekly and sometimes takes questions from the SL audience.
http://maps.secondlife.com/secondlife/Science%20School/26/211/26
Next, we’ll head to Genome Island.
http://maps.secondlife.com/secondlife/Genome/119/145/53
Genome Island is run by Texas Wesleyan University and supports genetics classes for university students studying biology.
From the rez point, we’ll walk up the hill. Look for the hovering block with the question mark on it. Click for a tour chair. Sit and click again for a guided tour of the island.
Once the chair derezzes, look for another box with a question mark. This will give you the guided tower tour chair. This chair will derez at the Gene Pool.
Look for another box with a question mark for the next tour leg. We’ll end with the abbey section tour.
Need more information? There’s a notecard full of information back at the rez point. 
Finally, we’ll visit the Virtual Hallucinations Lab, sponsored by University of California, Davis.
http://maps.secondlife.com/secondlife/Sedig/26/45/22
The Virtual Hallucinations Lab was designed to allow visitors to experience some of what those with schizophrenia live with–visual and audio hallucinations. Info cards can be picked up at the entrance.
We also need to pick up and wear a badge which will produce the audio hallucinations. As we enter, each visitor needs to select their gender for the correct audio. Look for the blue pyramid shapes for info about the experience.
South Alabama Gaming Educators (SAGE) 