So, this week for ETEC 697 (Ed Tech in Informal Learning Environments), we were talking about two topics in particular:
Where the idea for a game comes from (chapter 3 from Rouse)
and
Getting the gameplay working (chapter 15 from Rouse)

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

To start, some quotes from his text that I found particularly interesting:

Regarding the initial ideas for games:
“… computer game ideas can come from three distinct, unrelated areas of the form of gameplay, technology, and story.” (Page 41)

“often a game developer will have enjoyed a game in one of these genre and will want to apply her own spin to it.” (page 42)

“sometimes the designer will have both the stories she wants to tell you the type of gameplay she wants to explore, and will attempt to do both in the same game, even if the two do not go well together.” (page 43)

Regarding starting with a specific technology:
“Going into a project with a large portion of the game’s technology already developed is also fairly common occurrence” (page 43)
Of course, this makes me think of the iPhone as a platform that is already very robust, and well developed. It is no wonder, therefore, that so many developers have moved this platform — sometimes exclusively — to create content.

“When technology is handed to a game designer who is told to make a game out of it, it makes the most sense for the designer to embrace the limitations of the technology and turn them into strengths in her game.” (Page 44)

“For the greater good of the game, the story and the technology must be compatible with each other.” (Page 45)

Regarding starting with the story:
It is surprising to me that it seems that this is the least common of the three paths to get to a game. Perhaps it is the altruistic side of me, but as humans, we have lived primarily through the stories we tell, and it is the stories that are most compelling. This is not to say that games developed with technology or gameplay do not have compelling narratives, it just seems counterintuitive that the story comes after these other two areas frequently.

{{I find it interesting as a sidebar, that Rouse is clearly a fan of the rock band Rush, since phrases like “if you choose not to decide, you still have made a choice”, and “those who wish to be must put aside the alienation, get on with the fascination, the real relation, the underlying theme.”
Just an intriguing way to view some of the ideas and gameplay…}}

In chapter 15, which is “Getting the gameplay working”, some quotes here:

“by concentrating on getting a small piece of the game fully functional and enjoyable, the developer can get a much better sense of whether the final game is going to be any fun or not. If the gameplay does not turn out to be as anticipated, the prototype provides an early enough warning that the game needs to be either redirected in a more promising direction or, in the worst cases, aborted entirely.” (Page 283)

“looking back, if we had focused on making the gameplay fun before making a large number of levels, we could have avoided a lot of extra work and wasted effort.” (Page 285)

Regarding starting small, and prototyping early on:
“Besides, a playable demo will make the game easier to sell to a publisher or a green light committee.” (Page 286)

“It is very easy to lose sight of your gameplay goals when your game languishes in an unplayable state for much of the time. Certainly the game can be broken in many ways, with various components that do not yet work as they are supposed to…” (page 288)

“It is often a good idea to start developing your content from the beginning of the game. Early parts of the game need to be at the highest level of quality possible, so you want them to represent your more seasoned efforts, while levels at the end of the game will often tend to be more atypical and hence will not represent the “regular” gameplay that you want to have working first.” (Page 289)
It is interesting here, to think about the comparisons and differences between game design and lesson development, therefore. With good lesson design, we typically are not changing our knowledge fundamentally as we are developing our content, activities, and instructional plan after setting our end goal. If we know our goal is to have the students understand simple machines through an activity that involves building racecars out of popsicle sticks and rubber bands, we know as we design the lesson that we will not understand Popsicle sticks much differently at the end of our process than when we started. This is very different in game design, where the platform that we develop our content in will become easier to use, better understood to apply, and potentially evolve as we work on our design. There is also the time frame involved. In lessons, we typically design over a few days, although there is iterative design that occurs year by year as we go back and revise and improve lessons we’ve used in the past. For game design, the period of development which may be months or over a year, almost guarantees that changes in our understanding of the platform, or the platform itself will happen. Yet, there is a common idea here — the start (think Gagne’s first event: Gain Attention) and the end (culminating activity) both need to be powerful to best ensure their success.

Regarding prototyping: “observe how easily they manage to pick up the controls and mechanics. It is much simpler to make a game harder than to make it easier.” (Page 290)

“As you work on a project, you’re likely to become overly familiar with some of the content you have created, and familiarity can breed contempt.” (Page 291)

“Always try to remember how you first felt when you play a level or tried to pull off a particular move” (page 291)

Regarding the role of programmer versus designer — assuming that you have a team working on the project: “nevertheless, a designer who cannot program will be beholden to the talents and inclinations of her programmers, which can be eternally frustrating.” (Page 292)

Although not all of these ideas apply directly to instructional design outside of gaming, or certainly a few ideas in here that are significant whether we are looking at games, educational games, or just classroom instructional practice. A few thoughts that came into my mind through the reading:

One of the emerging technologies that still are in their early stages are virtual worlds. Specifically, second life is a platform that has no content at a starting point, but gives developers ample opportunity to construct openly in their environment. Is Second life is a technology looking for a story? There are certainly examples of projects that are creating virtual worlds with a story embedded — World of Warcraft, Runescape (quote of the day from my seven-year-old this morning “dad — someone ‘jacked’ my identity — can I make a new one?” I had to ask him what that meant, and then realized identity hijacking was a fairly common phenomena in that virtual world). These MMORPG (Massive Multi-player Online Role Playing Games) have story built into them, and a social community as a significant element. The numbers involved in these worlds attest to their viability, and as informal learning environments, we can use that as a learning laboratory to best design from.

Regarding multi-touch interfaces, I’m usually most intrigued with iPhone, but I saw this video recently that provided another window in game design: Microsoft surface D&D project

So here is a example of a powerful multi-touch technology, where the game play, the story, and the technology all Weave together. Perhaps that is the best view of where the future lies in game design — a happy mix of all three.

This is a short blog post this week that’s more reflective about the beginning of next area in ETEC 697: Educational Technology in Informal Learning Environments. We are beginning to get into talking about games — specifically computer games and a great multitude and the ways that they support learning. Two particular things strike me as a reflection point to begin this quest:

Gee, J. P. (2009). Pedagogy, Education and Innovation in 3-D Virtual Worlds. Journal of Virtual Worlds Research, 2(1), 3-9.

In this article, Gee, a well known advocate and researcher on games and their possibilities in education reflects on the similarities between construction of knowledge in gaming experience and a similar research thread in science education termed modeling. Much to my surprise, he quotes and uses extensively the thinking of David Hestenes, who spent the last 20 years at Arizona State University developing a pedagogical approach to science education termed modeling. In the “it’s a small world”, I spent two summers at Arizona State University in 1995 and 1996 under the tutelage of Hestenes learning the modeling method for physics teachers. sense that experience, I have been a huge advocate for rethinking the way we teach and learn — initially science, which is what I was trained to do, but more broadly education in general, as the ideas of modeling are applicable across all domains of learning.
So it was with no small amount of pleasure, that Gee took on the notion that good game design creates opportunities for internal models to be constructed by the gamer. Like any instructional approach, there are better examples than others that indicate this, but the notion that a well-designed game requires the learning of, and the application of some framework about the virtual world that must be applied has some real basis at its core.
Chris Dede At Harvard University spent a decade developing a virtual world called River City, in which students were immersed in a virtual medieval world that was facing a health crisis. The students needed to collect data, interview individuals, test samples, build a internal model for what was going on in this community so as to propose possible causes and solutions to the crisis. The underlying goal was for students to develop an understanding of the scientific process, with an emphasis on public-health. There were two aspects of River city that I always found particularly powerful — students were engaged with the rich science problem, that required building knowledge, as well as social exchange in order to accomplish the task. Secondarily, there was a real emphasis on assessment, learning outcomes, to understand better how students learned in this environment. This is a topic for another blog post, but probably the most exciting thing I heard Chris talk about was their efforts to measure learning formatively as the students were playing the game. Programmers found ways to measure where students were going, what objects they touched, the ways that they built resources, so that instead of stopping the students in the midst of learning to see what they knew, it was possible to measure that without interrupting the flow of learning.
There is no doubt that students find games engaging. The thinking of Gee and the potential offered by Dede give two merging pathways to better support these tools and learning.
In the process of thinking about this article, I stumbled across a PBS website that has interviews with Gee and Prensky, amongst others, talking about pros and cons of games in education. The website is:
http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/digitalnation/learning/games-that-teach/

here is an example of Gee talking about whether games might be educational:

The second topic, which is just a brief reflection, was the recent visit I had at High Tech High in San Diego California with a group of 60 Hawaii teachers from independent schools, looking at transformative models of education. High Tech High has built a reputation as a leading project-based school with a strong school culture on learning communities. In the process of talking to Ben Daly, the chief academic officer, the subject came up about expanding their program to a online environment. They are looking at creating a online Academy, for the students who cannot come to their school — either because it is too far away, or they could not accept any more students. They are fine tuning what an online environment might be like, and I found it striking that a school that values group work, authentic problems, and rich, deep thinking might not succeed well with traditional online classes. Games and virtual worlds, however, provide an opportunity to more than not mimic the kinds of problem-based, engaging, social learning that they value so highly. It will be interesting to see how they adapt their model online, and what tools they develop or utilize to support their philosophical core.

So this week, I took a look at some museums and exhibits in Second Life, with a particular focus of analyzing them based on some of the research and writings on museum exhibits and design. Although we’ve used authors like Falk and Dierking, Pine and Gilmore, to name two, I decided to utilize a few new resources to help me frame my thinking about my visits (Urban, Black, Gammon). Full bibliography is at the bottom, with some key ideas from those articles underneath.

As a general point of discussion, none of the sites I visited covered all of the appropriate design ideas. What there was, however, with some insight in each one about strengths and needs for improvement to make the experience more vivid and powerful.

In order:
Exploratorium:
http://slurl.com/secondlife/Exploratorium/192/202/25

When you arrive at the Exploratorium Island, There are a variety of interactive exhibits to explore – test your ability to track objects, be a molecule undergoing brownian motion, or take some visual perception tests. From a Gammon’s work, there is a definite sense of each exhibit attracting and holding attention. Urban emphasizes the importance of setting, media richness, and user agent. These are all true for the many exhibits that populate this space. Black details 23 characteristics for visitor involvement, and these exhibits do engage including features like enjoying the activity, it is enjoyable and planned out, users have the power to select, learning will occur because of participation. Each exhibit by itself clearly shows effort in the design.

Some shortcomings here included a lack of cohesiveness that Urban might attribute to lack of consideration of setting. Gammon states the importance (as do many others) of linking to prior knowledge. Black uses the phrase “clarity of vision”. Although the exhibit is bright, full of interesting exhibits, and covers a range of science topics, there is a lack of a general sense of the plan, and signage is minimal to the point of being confusing. Probably most frustrating for me, was the lack of depth of the science explained. With the opportunity for lots of different media richness (Urban), I felt the designers could spend more time providing better information, learner guidance, and differentiated entry points for learners (Black).

To compare the site to others, I also visited:

Basilica San Francesco Assisi:
http://slurl.com/secondlife/san%20francesco%20assisi/246/109/68/?i&title=San%20Fran cesco%20Assisi

This site has a striking look and feel to it. Unlike the Exploratorium above, the site was rooted in reality. This location addresses the scale and setting issues brought up by Urban in his article. Although I’ve not been to this location in real life, it has the authentic look and feel of the original space in Italy. One of the impressive features was the opportunity to purchase a heads-up display, that gave guidance and information for many way stations along the path. For the most part I found this display helpful, but there were some glitches. The controls did not always work, and once a description started, it kept looping until you are out of the approximate range of that specific exhibit. is probably the most frustrating aspect of this design (for me anyway) was a general lack of direction available to guide a visitor through. Although the heads-up display gave useful information, it was not as intuitively easy to use as it might’ve been, and more importantly, did not really the two specific places within the building.

It was interesting to me that both visits (and the others I looked at) all lacked some major elements that would’ve made the visits more engaging. It certainly cuts to the core of Urban’s comment about developers who are using Second Life as a “Third Space”. Although they are passionate in creating very interesting spaces, they are not fully applying all the principles of good design into the spaces consistently, and thus minimizing the impact that these places might have if they were more fully thought through.

Readings that have specific information that is applicable to virtual world design:

Black, G. (2005). The engaging museum : developing museums for visitor involvement. London ; New York: Routledge.

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

Urban, R. et al., A Second Life for Your Museum: 3D Multi-User Virtual Environments and Museums, in J. Trant and D. Bearman (eds.). Museums and the Web 2007: Proceedings, Toronto: Archives & Museum Informatics, published March 1, 2007 Consulted October 4, 2009. . http://www.archimuse.com/mw2007/papers/urban/urban.html

NOTES:

Urban:

Key ideas: developers in Second Life are often using it as a “third place” to develop their serious leisure pursuit.
Characteristics of Second Life environments:
scale: there’s a lot of flexibility in Second Life to work in the scale of your project based on your intention, and not in the physical limitation.
Setting: how artifacts are displayed is very open to interpretation. Some spaces minimize the setting to make the artifacts standout, others create a rich copy of the original space to set their setting, others invent new ways of representing the works.
persistence and evolution: more so than real-world, Second Life spaces evolve dramatically over time, which can be both powerful and unsettling for return visitors.
Media richness: a Second Life exhibits can incorporate powerful use of media to enhance the experience. Whether it is sound, video, or just interactivity, all of these features create the opportunity for a rich experience.
visitor engagement: There are many opportunities in Second Life to create this gauge, and invite people for second and third visits based on their experience.
Intended purpose: although it is not possible in Second Life to re-create any specific real-life equivalent, there is a need to match the intent of the space, and the design as close as possible
Collection types:it is possible to have a variety of types of artifacts and Second Life — from replicas of original objects like paintings, to interactive models in which participants can take an active role. The spectrum across these wide variety of the exhibit types within the Second Life environment create multiple opportunities for experienced.
Target audiences: because of the anonymous nature of Second Life, collecting specific information about the audiences for exhibit is challenging, if not entirely impossible. That makes targeting exhibits based on user experience a tricky problem indeed.

Gammon:

Specific ideas he mentions about learning in museums:
Cognitive
Affective
Social
Developing skills
[mental and physical]
Personal

Specifically:
Does the exhibit:
Attract and hold attention — absorbed, repeat, attend for requisite time
comprehend content — challenging but achievable, attain detail and depth, makes difficult easy to understand
increase or consolidate knowledge — clarify, consolidate, address open-ended, retention weeks later, pre-post increases
link to prior knowledge — connectedness through mapping, Everyday experience,
process and apply information — new ideas, deep discussion capability, use information to complete task
challenge belief, attitudes, values — change is evident, new perspective
inspire strong emotional reactions — emotive language, described exhibit in personal emotional terms
increase awareness of other people’s beliefs, attitudes and values — spontaneous empathy, tolerance
increase empathy with other people’s beliefs and attitudes and values –

develops skills of cooperation
develop skills of communication
increased sense of self-confidence and self efficacy
increased sense of identity and self-worth
inspire interest and curiosity
motivate to investigate further
associate experience with positive feelings
skill-based — prediction, deduction, experimentation, decision-making…
numeracy and literacy skills
manual dexterity and other skills
artistic appreciation and criticism

Black:
a model for interpretive planning
when you wish to present such a specific site resource issues themes etc.
who you’re targeting the presentation I have to consider the nature of the target audiences there needs to expect patience
why you wish to develop/change the presentation — by defining specific objectives and outcomes. What are the benefits for the visitor, for the site collections, for the organizations, and our these benefits evaluated
how do you intend to present the museum — the interpretive strategy and gallery concepts — to achieve the objectives of the outcomes required

key principles:
interpretation is inclusive
external image is vital
interpretation emphasizes the overall visitor experience
the threshold is all-important
atmosphere matters
through orientation, interpretation gives visitors the power to select
interpretation is enjoyable
interpretation should be based on the latest audience research
interpretation seeks to use visitors personal context to build on pre-existing experience, skills and knowledge
interpretation is planned
interpretation emphasizes clarity of vision
the interpretation itself must be selective and themed
sound interpretation requires sound research
sound interpretation recognizes multiple points of view
interpretation is committed to active viewer participation
Interpreters believe learning occurs as a result of visitor participation
visitor participation means “pacing” displays
visitor participation also needs rest, recuperation and time for reflection
visitor participation means encouraging social interaction
visitor participation requires an impact on the emotions and senses as well as on the intellect
visitor participation requires a palette of approaches and layering of content
interpretation must also relate to the detail
interpretive approach will enable regular change into continuous program of activities and events