In the process of looking for interactive, educational gaming environments we’ve explored Scratch (see post from previous week) and recently Alice, which is done out of Carnegie Mellon University. It is striking to me that these tools are not so much new, although they certainly take advantage of the advancement in computing that has occurred in the last 20 years. What is striking is how they draw on a long legacy of student centered, constructivist philosophy that reaches back to Dewey and before.

Education is not a preparation for life; education is life itself.”
John Dewey

In so many ways, the efforts to create learning environments that are focused on the learner, and not teaching or content specific issues stem from Dewey’s philosophy 100 years ago. The development of the computer and its implications for education continued this philosophy and supported it. In the 1970s the computer language Logo was one of the central products from this philosophy of how computers could support constructive learning and education. One of the central figures in this movement was Seymour Pappert, who became identified through his work at MIT Media Lab through Logo amongst other writings and projects. History of Logo here: http://el.media.mit.edu/Logo-foundation/logo/index.html

“The role of the teacher is to create the conditions for invention rather than provide ready-made knowledge.”
Seymour Papert

So here we are now with a World Wide Web connected citizenry who easily see themselves in conversation with the world, and creating in a community. The philosophy is not changed, but the tools and what they are capable of doing have become richer, more connected, and understand better the workings of the brain. Here is Mitchell Resnick, one of the founders of Scratch, talking about the ideas behind Scratch:

Think about this again: Pappert over 25 years ago had something to say about the kinds of tools that we could enable through computers for learning:

…they [the children] become producers instead of consumers of educational software. (p. 107)

I am convinced that the best learning takes place when the learner takes charge… ,(p. 25) 

(quotes lifted from from: http://mailer.fsu.edu/~jflake/papert.html)

And so along this evolution comes another tool: Alice – which was designed with a slightly different cause — helping students learn computer programming (unlike one of the founding ideas behind Logo which was mathematical thinking). The numbers of students who are interested in working with object-oriented computer languages has not been very high, and particularly has been gender biased dramatically towards boys. This platform teaches the basics of object-oriented languages, through a interactive 3-D interface that is highly engaging, and has been shown to retain as well as teach boys and girls effectively. It was interesting that in the Alice blog, there was conversation about rationale for using Scratch or Alice in education. A couple of quotes from the design team on Alice on their blog (http://blog.alice.org/?p=102):
“The general observation is that students find Scratch to be very accessible, and can do many cool things very quickly. The downside is that they will hit the limits of Scratch relatively soon. Alice has a richer set of capabilities but that students need a lot more initial support and training to fully utilize its capabilities.”
“The distinction between informal and formal educational settings is interesting and important, and yet we are finding that Scratch is starting to be used in more formal settings (as the ap-cs listserv thread clearly illustrates), and we are also finding Alice being used in more informal settings (such as the Citizen’s School project in New York City last fall.)”
I found it particularly interesting in the second quote that they distinguish that Scratch was a more informal tool and Alice was a formal tool, but they have bleeded over from both ends so that they are used in both settings now. I agree with the general idea that Alice requires a bit more tutorial on the front end, but quickly gets one up to speed in the terminology of object-oriented languages: methods and classes and the structure therein. Here is a short movie that the second tutorial walks one through creating to understand the role of methods in sequencing behaviors in a programmed environment:

So where does this take us? It is 2009 and we have moved from Dewey to Pappert to Resnick and we are still talking about ways to create self-directed, constructive learning environments. If the next 20 years play out anything like the exponential curve we see from the last 20, the opportunities for personalized, rich, powerful learning environments will only become more likely to influence education and learning. With that said, tools like Scratch and Alice offer us a wonderful place to begin now with students.
Papert, S. (1993). The children’s machine: rethinking school in the age of the computer. New York: BasicBooks.

A typical Sunday. Take the dog to the beach for a round of play catch. Come back read some of the paper, make a quad cappuccino, make breakfast, play with the boys, and spend some time with course work. Near the end of the day, I read the comics from the Sunday funnies and absolutely love this one from Retail:

http://www.seattlepi.com/fun/retail.asp

Why? Specifically, about three hours today I spent playing and creating with the free software called Scratch, from MIT media labs to create a prototype for a game we are designing for ETEC 697, Educational Technology in Informal Learning Environments. I’ve played with Scratch before, but never sat down to really tackle a project that had been defined through a game brief. What struck me was how many ways I could attack the problem to bring in graphics, to create animations, to design interactive elements. The end result of three hours of work was either remarkable or work at a seven-year-old could do, depending upon how you look at. My seven-year-old sat at the table while I designed the project, and understood most of the interface and the feedback in the design and even the programming aspects of the game. Let me say that again: a seven-year-old watched me go through the process of designing a game that had backgrounds, sprites, scripts, imported graphics, audio files, and programming errors and found it engaging to work with me and give feedback into the process. That’s why I found the Retail comic strip so funny. We have reached a point in technologic development that surpasses our ability to appreciate the amazing things we are doing (in this case on my kitchen table wirelessly with a computer more powerful than a 1990s supercomputer) and our generation of young students assumes this is the way the world has always been. It reminds me a lot of the Arthur C. Clarke quote:

“Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic”

I believe we have come to an age where either it is magic or the response is “Meh.”. When go back and look at my Sunday I marvel at the layers of technology that I applied without thinking. I had a iPhone by my bed that both act as a alarm clock and a telephone in case an emergency scheme during the night. When I came back from the beach, I grabbed my iPhone to help finish off a crossword puzzle (six letter word for Island in the Bahamas? Bimini). While I was at it, I scanned my personal learning network, checked out the start times for NFL football games, then check the up-to-date news. A few hours later, I was on my laptop using Skype to connect to my cohorts in Colorado and Honolulu, where we planned through Google docs both a written document and the presentation to give in about 10 days. I then downloaded the latest version of Scratch from MIT media labs, and using the web to look for tutorials, taught myself enough to develop interactive elements in a game in less than three hours. While I was doing that, I was also watching the live New England Patriots game which was being broadcast through a streaming website. Meh.

Let’s look at Scratch a little more closely. A free, cross platform, easy to learn programming environment designed for primarily middle and high school students to design interactive games and media. When you are finished, there is a “share” tab that allows any author to create and publish their idea for free. Think about this… anywhere in the world, Macintosh, Linux, Windows, your creation can be shared via their website for free, or others can look for and enjoy it and give feedback. Meh.

Now, I readily agree that having access to a programming environment is no different than having access to a pen. Without assistance and good mentoring (teachers, facilitators, other means of building knowledge), the product will likely be weak and ineffective. With today’s technology, it is possible to easily find many free tutorials to learn how to do just about all aspects of the program. More importantly, there is a whole community of users who write about their experiences with the program. Think about that — resources that I can reach from my kitchen table, experts that I can find, video tutorials (screen casts) that others put up to help ME. Why? Because that is how users in this new frontier see themselves – as contributing community members for a world of users. Meh.

here is the game, btw (simple, yes – the goal for this prototype is to guide the butterfly to the flower – if you touch the flower and hit the space bar, it increases the energy level of the butterfly)

Learn more about this project

So where does this take us? Everything we see today is at the bottom of the exponential curve of technological change as we look into the future. What awaits us is even more connectedness, more access, more personalization, more ways that we can look back and wonder about a time that we didn’t have these resources. For educators with the right focus — who really are in the game to help students learn — the opportunity to help students appreciate both where we are, where we have come from, and where we are going makes this a marvelous time to try and drive away the “Meh” culture that surrounds us. Peter Vail in his book “Learning as a Way of Being” talks about Whitewater Learning as a metaphor for a dynamic approach to changing times. In Hawaii, we talk about getting on the wave as a way of dealing with the dynamic of the ocean as a metaphor. All educators need to recognize that the world is changed, and is continuing to change exponentially, and that the only way to stay relevant is to adapt and adopt to the changing frontiers in front of us, lest our classroom experience be regarded as “Meh.”

We’ve begun to investigate the underlying ideas behind game design. As always, my reflection stems from considerations of learning environments, and how they are emerging, with a lens on schools, and education in general.

We have been reading from:

Rouse, R., & Ogden, S. (2004). Game design theory & practice, second edition (2nd ed.). Plano, Tex.: Wordware Pub.

In particular this week, topics on storytelling (Chapter 11) and multiplayer (Chapter 13).
As it turns out, today, I was visiting the Honolulu Academy of Arts, because it was family Sunday, and the topic was medieval times.
I had in tow my seven-year-old and 12 year old, who enjoyed the swordplay, the Lego castles, the catapult building, etc. While I was there, I was thinking about the relative simplicity of their visitor design. Placards next to artwork, introductory walls to explain areas of exhibit, then the relative minor influence of technology and museums to visit. Short video of one exhibit room:

The readings from

Braverman, B. E. (1988). Toward an Instructional Design for Art Exhibitions. Journal of Aesthetic Education, 22(3), 85-96.

make the case that visits to spaces that have a focus on aesthetics have a very different mission, and displays and design are very different with that kind of focus. In most art museums, the focus is not specifically content, but more appreciation and development of the right brain part of our experience: creativity, context, beauty, passion.

In places like the MET school in Providence, there is a movement away from content as core and the movement towards directed interests, creativity and context as a starting point. In spaces like museums, there is a shift from content as core and more an effort to wrap in context as the main experience. In the midst of this, I am reading

Willingham, D. T. (2009). Why don’t students like school? : a cognitive scientist answers questions about how the mind works and what it means for your classroom. San Francisco: Jossey-Bass.

Early in the book, he talks about the concept of prior knowledge as a significant determinant in meaning making. Essentially, when we learn and experience, we first draw on our prior knowledge to help us make sense of what we are seeing. In a museum, we may see an exhibit with a surrealist painter, and without any prior knowledge, we would just see objects on a canvas, a bizarre mix of shape and form, but if we have some background knowledge of the historical setting that it comes from, when we have other artists from that time that we already know, we have an easier time both appreciating and understanding the work for what it is.
In Rouse’s book, in the chapters on storytelling and multiplayer, he still lays out the significance of drawing in the player, explaining the importance of not overwhelming or killing off a new player as a significant design element. There is an inherent tension in designing games to either get to the content, in the case of educational games, or the story, in the case of more fun/experience focused games, and there is a challenge here for educators. When the environment is designed too closely around the content, the engagement and interest will likely go down, and there will be the inherent problem with matching learners incoming, prior knowledge so as to best set up the learning environment. As a result, many games that try to focus on educational concepts, have either elaborate introduction or simple sequences that are not very interesting or rewarding, to lay a foundation of prior knowledge. One of the strengths in the engaging single and multiplayer games is the ability to start right into the story, and bring in information as it is needed to help the learning experience. This kind of scaffolding experience is more highly engaging, but often does not have nearly the educational depth that most teachers and schools would find a prerequisite for usefulness in a learning setting. As an example, we played Halo this week in class, and although it was highly engaging, I’m not sure I would replace my physics class (yet) with this virtual world.
The challenge then, for the major project that will be due in this class (ETEC 697), is to marry the best of what cognitive research shows works in the brain to build knowledge, and to structure it in such a way so it feels engaging and appropriate for the user. One of the ways to take advantage of that is through the social, multi-user interface that is emerging in game design.

Another experience this weekend gave some insight into this. I was at the Kapiolani Community College farmers market, and was struck by the sense of community that exists at this weekly event. Picture below:

There were hundreds of people, almost none of whom knew each other, but there was a common sense of purpose about being there that brought a true sense of community and shared experience to the event. As a result, people were more likely to interact, share stories, and drop their guard in order to the part of the experience. As I think about Second Life when it is at its best, I am struck by that same possibility: being in a place where a community can form around a good idea, and the nature of common mission and presence would allow conversation and knowledge building to happen as the users interact. We are not there yet, as the places that exist are still either too forced by their nature to specific goals, or experiences are too general to really be powerfully educational, but next-generation interactive design has the potential to go there. One effort towards this road is a emergent virtual world designed for educational experiences, but with a first look and feel as a engaging social community: Blue Mars. Time will tell if spaces like this will rise to the needs of learners AND schools.

A few gratuitous shots of my boys in medieval garb:

This week’s post is framed around some experiences from this week, and some ruminations from weeks past. The title comes from a Winston Churchill quote that I have kept with me over last seven years or so from being involved in a new building design. And in light of the visits we had, some of the readings, and most importantly my own thoughts and experience, I have some thinking going on about design for formal and informal environments.
A week ago, we visited the Bishop Museum, and toured the newly reopened Hawaii Hall, as well as the science Center. Here were two facilities that had different origins — Hawaii Hall was built 100 years ago, and although it was face lifted in minor ways a few times, it was closed, reinvigorated, and reopened with a focus towards applying good visitor design ideas for the first time since it opened. Info here: The Science Center, on the other hand, was designed from the ground up and therefore had a different approach, look and feel, and goal.
On Tuesday, we visited the Waikiki Aquarium, and looked at its designs from the visitor experience, including the audio tour. The aquarium, has gone through a series of redesigns, and applying new exhibits and approaches over the years.

So along with that, I’ve been thinking about classroom design and library design in particular. My wife recently was at the Sinclair Library at the University of Hawaii and commented on the redesign which created a more friendly, open space for students. An area for socializing with food, coffee available for students, different configuration spaces with more openness, location of a Student Success Center to support studying, research, and other areas of student life. Essentially, they became more of a learning center, and less of an archive of paper text. As a result of small budgets, they did a lot of the work themselves: painting, receiving donations for furniture, rethinking spaces and making the most of what’s available. The results, a threefold increase in traffic over the last three months.

This made me think of a talk I heard in December 2008 by the architectural firm Fielding Nair International and their architect Randy Fielding titled “Transformation through Innovative School Design”. In this talk, he both talked about creating spaces for the 21st century, as well as gave design examples from his company and others. It made me think a bit about how a space like a library, or the Bishop Museum, or the Waikiki aquarium, would start if a donor gave them $2 million to redesign their facility. Make old things new? Or go back to square one, and design with a new eye?
To that end, Fielding discussed 20 modalities and four supporting areas that come into design ideas based on the social nature of humans and the way people learn. The modalities are:
independent study
peer tutoring
team collaboration
1 to 1 learning with teacher
lecture with teacher at Center stage
Project-based learning
technology-based with mobile computers
distance learning
research video wireless Internet
student presentations
performance-based learning
seminar style instruction
community service learning
naturalistic learning
social/emotional learning
art-based learning
storytelling (floor seating)
learning by building
team teaching
play-based learning

Not all of these modalities fit our thinking about informal learning spaces, at least in the way we think of them in exhibits in museums, but there are kernels in each one that support the readings that we have had two this semester.
More importantly, Fielding lays out four design areas that he thinks are significant in any new designs of formal (and informal, in my opinion) learning designs. They are (my explanations, not Randy’s):
The Campfire: a place where a group can gather around, share information, tell stories, and create a social context for their learning. This area has a sequence or synchronized mission to it.
The Watering hole: a more informal place to gather, that allows Asynchronous and unstructured sharing.
The Cave space: this area is designed for more quiet, reflective, individualized learning. A study area, a workroom, an out-of-the-way place.
Real life: spaces that are outdoors, or authentic for learning, experiment, grappling, learning with real objects.

At the end of his presentation, Randy shared a matrix that has been developed to aid schools in determining whether their design meets 21st-century goals. The instrument is called the Educational Facilities Effectiveness Instrument. The website where it is located is here:

The instrument includes criteria like entryway, technology readiness, supporting small learning communities, inclusion of learning studios, storage, transparency, casual eating areas, music and performance areas, outdoor learning, etc. In total there are 200 criteria that are assessed with this instrument. It includes images/exemplars of each category to prompt designers to consider ways to include these.

Some images from his slideshow might paint this a little better:

Are all of these criteria relevant for our thinking about informal learning environments? Probably not, but these prompts would lead one to really identify what areas in your informal environment you really wanted to focus on. For instance, maybe the addition of considering how outdoor areas might expand the kinds of experiences you offer is worth considering. The small way, the Sinclair Library transformation, models this. There was an outdoor lanai area that was redone, with furniture, better lighting, etc. and the result was increased usage on the part of students, who found the area inviting and welcoming. The Waikiki aquarium utilizes very well outdoor areas for their reef tank, small presentation areas, and fish and monk seal exhibit. The ability to be outside changes the feel of the environment, and creates context from the indoor and outdoor experiences of the facility.
So we have a wide range of opportunity as designers. Sometimes it’s weekend repainting and asking for donations of furniture like the Sinclair Library. Sometimes we have the opportunity to design from the ground up, as in the Bishop Museum and science Center. And other times, we can redesign with some resources on spaces into new learning areas. Instruments like the EFEI give a context upon which we can draw out our thinking and our understanding of the research on visitor experience and learning to best design old places new.

Readings from this week:

Black, G. (2005). The engaging museum : developing museums for visitor involvement. London ; New York: Routledge.
(Chapter 7: Applying the principles of interpretation to museum display.)

Gammon, B. (2003). Assessing Learning in the Museum Environment [Electronic Version], from http://sciencecentres.org.uk/events/reports/indicators_learning_1103_gammon.pdf

Hein, G. E. (1998). Learning in the museum. London ; New York: Routledge.
(Chapter 8: the construvist Museum)

Standards for Museum Exhibitions and Indicators of Excellence. (2009). Retrieved September 16, 2009, 2009, from http://name-aam.org/about/who-we-are/standards

So the main focus both in the readings in their class discussion centered around ways to both analyze, and engage learners in museum environments. My interest this week stemmed from a some examples that Peter gave during class that triggered some new thinking in my mind about ways to build in learner centered information, and the potential to assess that real-time.
Three of the examples that Peter gave were virtual guides: one of multimedia CD of The Galleria dell’Accademia, which is where the statue of David from Michelangelo is held, amongst many other significant works. This CD started my thinking about a new way to think of informal learning. At one level, it’s just a standard virtual tour: maps of the Museum with the exhibits labeled, visual 3-D imagery that allows a user to move through and approach exhibit objects, and layers of information that can be pulled up on any given object such as historical information, connections to other pieces in the exhibit, embedded images in either movies. Peter mentioned, and I agree, that although this multimedia product was available when you leave the museum in the gift store, it would have best been situated at the entrance to the museum, to guide the visitor, shape their understanding of the scope of the exhibits offered, and build in prior knowledge before they approach the actual objects. All of these things are good instructional design ideas.
He also showed us a virtual tour of Pompeii, in which a view of the current site was slowly reconstructed into the best understanding of what it looked like at its height 2000 years ago. Probably the striking thing with this visit was the fact that we often only see the ground-level of these sites, and have a hard time imagining things like roof lines and second stories. In particular, we visited the theater and seeing how high the edifice was built upon the stage, the fact that the seats were covered under a canopy, really got me thinking about how important that layer of information matters when we view objects and sites.
The third interface that he showed us, was of the Museum in Naples that had viewers interact with the visual display on frescoes before they entered the museum. The wall sized virtual display allow the user to reach out, zoom in, and interact with the frescoes, with supporting text and audio that explains the historical significance of areas of the fresco. This is a huge improvement in engaging the learner, in giving them the hook (from Csikzentmihalyi), because it sets up a higher level of attentiveness, addresses multiple modes of learning and engagement, and allows self-directed ownership of the information.

So with all of that, it triggered in me an appreciation for what is about to come through mobile technology. There were three separate, but importantly connected pieces of information that I drew together through this process. The first was a TED lecture from 2009 by Pattie Maes and Pranav Mistry, in which they show a device they call “the sixth sense” the wearable device that projects onto any object to hold in front of it, and impresses this with text, images, and even movies about the object. Imagine this device in a museum, where as you walk through and face exhibit objects, you get a very personalized layer of information that you can zoom in for more specifics, or zoom out to get a broader sense of what things you might draw from this experience. Maybe you haven’t thought about the historical connections from earlier readings you had made. The device knows that your family history and included connections to this artist four generations ago, and shows your family tree that makes the connection for you. Perhaps in your calendar in two months, you’re planning a visit to a city where other pieces by this artist are available, and it lets you know that. These are all possibilities that exist today, if these devices come to be. Here is the video from Ted that is the first generation of this device — think of what the implications of this will be in just a few years.

Another development that lays on top of this is the recent release of “did you know version 4”. This video, looks at trends in learning and technology. In looking at the version that was just released for September 2009, one of the key trends that it mentions is the likely scenario that pocket computers (like the iPhone or Google android device) will be the primary way that computing happens by 2020. It also mentions that “the computer in your cell phone today is 1 million times cheaper, and 1000 times more powerful and about 100,000 times smaller than the first one developed at MIT in 1965”. We are emerging into a new realm where instead of going to the computer, we will be wearing the computer, the information will be coming to us. From an informal learning perspective, this becomes extremely empowering, because we now have the opportunity to let the world be our Museum.

The last development that layers into this, is the recent release of augmented reality software for the iPhone. This is a paradigm shift in information technology, from my perspective. Much like the device developed at MIT, this kind of software gives a learner the ability to view the world through a lens of tailored information at any point that they choose. There is a video here of the first release of this kind of software, which allows a visitor to Paris to hold up to your iPhone, and get an augmented view, based on their direction you’re facing in their location (utilizing both compass, and GPS data):

Think of the implications of this from a learning perspective. If it is true, and I believe it is, that mobile devices are going to become more ubiquitous, the developers will seize on this to geocode rich data into a great deal of the world’s spaces, then one of the first places that this will become viable and rich are museums and other informal learning spaces, because they already have a dedicated audience, and content worth generating virtual information about. With the development of the semantic Web (Web 3.0), it will become more and more the experience for any user that the information will come to them, tailored to their history, their interests, and their capabilities. We’ve talked a lot in this class about the importance in museum design to take into account the learner experience. Augmented reality, whne it comes of age fully, will come along way to aid in this quest.

It’s significant to note, in my mind, that augmented reality as a technology, has been long awaiting full adoption — its “killer app”. The Gartner Group and their Hype Cycle has long held augmented reality in its early phases as a technology trigger. Whereas some technologies have moved quickly off of this early phase and into adoption, augmented reality has languished at the beginning of the curve for a decade.

Have we reached a turning point? I believe we have. We are currently in the baby steps of a new type of technological overlay in our world. It is already possible in most of the developed world to take out a pocket-sized device, connect to the global information network, and receive information almost instantly. We are only a few short steps away from the device knowing us, where we are, and what we want to know. In thinking about how this will influence informal learning environments, and even formal learning environments, which is where I spent my professional life, I can’t help but be excited at the opportunity to empower learners to fully take advantage of this.
I know some people will think this is the end of institutions of learning because the seat of power will shift from the experts (teachers) to the learners. I rather think it will create a new kind of learning environment where adult mentors (facilitators) will become masters of process and information utilization, and support learners (apprentices), to fully develop their interests and potential. Moreover, it will increae the importance of informal learning environments. Like all technologies, this will not come to all equally or at the same time. But it will be scalable in a way that may make adoption across socioeconomic and cultural differences much broader.
The future is so bright, I gotta wear shades (but they better have an interactive overlay built into them…)