Gavin's Blog

What's special about my research? OR how I learned to love Stimulated Recall.

2008-06-09T14:08:00.022+12:00

What is Stimulated Recall?

A few years ago I was lucky enough to do some professional development with Dr John Edwards of Edwards Exploration. John Edwards is an Australian from Brisbane and has worked with Edward DeBono, particularly in the area of thinking and learning. During his sessions he disccussed how he used a method called "stimulated recall" when studying in-class thinking.

How it worked was that students were video taped during a science lesson about the jaw of a prehistoric horse. There were two video cameras, one pointing at the student, and another pointed at the teacher. After the lesson was over, the two video feeds were put through a video mixer and the student was able to see him/herself as well as the teacher during the lesson. The student had the ability to stop and start the playback, and said what he or she was thinking during specific parts of the lesson. This dialogue was transcribed and analysed.

What they discovered was what we suspected all along. Students thinking during a lesson was all over the place. One example was a girl, who, as soon a she heard the word "horse" was then off in her mind riding her horse and jumping fences. She took in very little of the lesson at all. I loved the expression a "sea of blah", which was how the teacher's talking through the lesson was described. Certain words were a trigger for the thinking which would then go off on a tangent.

Here is a snippet from Dr John Edwards:

"The way we get this data is by using a technique called stimulated recall (Marland: 1984, O'Brien: 1993). A video camera placed at the back of the room follows the teacher wherever the teacher goes. A second camera at the front of the room is focused on the children we are studying, and a microphone is placed so that the talk of both students and teacher is recorded. The two images are put through a video mixer so that both appear on the same screen. At the end of the lesson we make rapid copies of that split screen tape and use it to interview individual children about what they were thinking during the lesson.

So I interview one child while fellow researchers separately interview others. The child presses play on the tape and says what they were thinking. For example, the teacher says something and the child presses pause and says "When he said that I was thinking this and that and the other". They then restart the tape until they pause it again: "see there, when I was reaching down into my bag - I was getting so and so out of my bag and thinking ...." or "There I am talking to my neighbour, she said this to me and I said this to her, and I was thinking this and then that" and on it goes...you get a stream of consciousness recall of their thinking in the lesson. These interviews are recorded and transcribed. It is very rich illuminative data.
Let me take you for a gentle stroll through the minds of some children in a grade eleven Biology classroom in North Queensland (Edwards and Marland: 1982).

Yvonne says: "There's just bits and pieces of it that do sink in but most of it just kind of doesn't register. I do usually get the important bits, 'cause you just learn to kind of half listen and half not listen, just in case he does ask you a question, and you just learn to do it, 'cause there's always his voice there."

Isn't that delightful, - "There's always his voice there."

It is like a security blanket. What I call the sea of blah. The teacher stands at the front of the room and blahs all over the place - blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. The sea of blah fills the room and the students bob up and down in this sea. Every now and again they go under and take a gulp then bob up again for air, and then down again. The gulps are somewhat random. So students spend their days gulping from the sea of blah.

What do they ingest from the sea of blah? Well here is one example from this classroom. The teacher is teaching a Biology lesson about the jawbone of an ancient horse. He says: "Today we are going to study the jaw bone of an ancient horse." Yvonne is a horse enthusiast and she “goes off” jumping hurdles on her horse, on a mental tangent, she's gone.

In the post-lesson interview she cannot remember the teacher's words and instead describes to me the feelings she gets as she goes over the hurdles, during her mental tangent in the lesson. The teacher then says: "The Latin name for this horse is...." and one of the other students is a Latin enthusiast, so off he goes thinking about all the Latin words he knows. All the while the teacher continues to teach Biology - Yvonne is mentally jumping hurdles on her horse and Oscar is thinking about Latin words. What we found was a bewildering array of attention patterns.

When a teacher says "I've got them with me", I would suggest the teacher needs to think again - you never have them all with you! Just as I do not have all of you with me constantly today.

From every delivered lecture using the sea of blah technique each listener takes home a different story. The reason is that when you come back from your mental tangent, all that I have been saying has gone. You can't press rewind and then play it back. All the words have gone.

This is where books and computers have a great advantage over us as information givers. The best analogy I can give you is to imagine you are reading your favourite novel, you go off on a mental tangent, when you come back half of the page has just vanished. Imagine the frustration. That is what sea of blah learning is like for the listeners. Yet teacher talk is the major mode of instruction still in schools (see, for example, Goodlad: 1984) and universities across the world, even though we all know better.

If you must use sea of blah techniques I recommend that every 7 to 10 minutes you stop and give the students what I call a one-minute perception check. One minute where you stop and let the students think about what you have been saying. They can wake if they have been sleeping or dreaming, check understanding with their neighbour, reflect for themselves, or just take a break from intensive information processing, whatever.

The point is, they will take the breaks whether you offer them or not. So why not use them to everyone's advantage? Students can have the technique explained to them, and then learn to use it powerfully in teacher-centred lessons. It is also great for teachers as it helps them to plan and monitor the flow of their lessons. Allowing students time for mental processing encourages a new technique I am trying to introduce into Australian classrooms: it is called learning.".

How could I utilise this method of research?

When I was grappling with my research - studying the socio-cultural learning while taking six year 9 students in to an internet cafe and playing "Rappelz" - a Massive Multiplayer Online Game. I was trying to document their socio-cultural interaction both in the room, and from within the game -quite complex and daunting! I had an epiphany that I could use what John Edwards had told us about all those years ago.

So I set up a video camera in the room and taped their conversations while they were playing. I also used desktop screen capture software to capture each player's screen while they were playing.

Of course this was a multi-player game, so often I was getting the interactions of players working together within the game. I then interviewed the players watching themselves play the game. They talked about what they were thinking while they were playing. I then transcribed these interviews and analysed them looking for evidence of James Gee's 36 learning principles.

What video games have to teach us about Learning and Literacy - James Paul Gee

My problem was remembering and understanding the principles when trying to make connections between the complex behaviors in the game. At one point in my research, when faced with the enormity of the job I had set myself, a friend suggested colour coding the principles and attaching colour coded digital "stickies" to the dialogue in the transcripts - this was my breakthrough. I made each of these in a word document as colored text boxes, which I was then able to copy and paste into the transcripts.

I was able to analyse sections of dialogue, scan the coloured digital "stickes" of the learning priciples and attach them with a click and drag. Then I began a quantitative exercise. I counted the ocuurence of the "stickies' and looked for patterns.

Some fascinating evidence came out - briefly, here are some examples:

The learning in video games is active and critical - students are constantly doing and then reflecting on their actions.

Students are constantly probing in a video game - that is doing, thinking and strategising.
Probing is where they are exploring the game, and trying out different hypotheses, their consequential actions are then based on the outcome of that experiment.

Semiotics - or how symbols have meaning - Game playing is complex and layered, students are constantly making connections between symbols, objects, text, behaviours, actions and reactions.

Learning can be random - the nature of the game environment means students can follow hunches, change their mind, reject common pathways and find their own way, take multiple ruoutes to get to the same place -they get to do things their way.

The learning in games is constantly challenging, yet never too hard to achieve.

The learning is ongoing with new skills to be mastered at each level, with tasks neither being too easy or too hard.

They are rewarded for achievement and encouraged to practice and to make mistakes, without severe consequences.

Often the rewards are amplified - so they seem to get more out than what they put in.

And yes there are gender differences in how boys and girls play!

Boys are often more competitive and pragmatic - they are goal driven - often good at "getting there first", by learning the fastest way to a place or the most efficient way to gain points, health and power.
Girls tend to play "together", they enjoy moving through in a group or in pairs and exploring the environments, yes especially their inventory and wardrobe!
Girls will explore their environment and often discover quirky or interesting ways to do things, often "out-smarting" the boys.
Boys will often "win" at all costs, but will often not have as much fun exploring on the way.
Boys will often appreciate the way the girls play and quickly take on what the girls have discovered.
Girls and Boys enhance each others methods and make great teams.

One example - The boys could not understand why the girls were beating the pants off them in a quest. The girls were moving over the terrain much more quickly. It turned out that one of the girls had discovered how to go into her inventory and "remove" her clothes.

The focus of the boys was building up armour and weapons, but of course this made them heavier and slower - the girls had discovered that they could temporarily "take off" their armour and run faster. Once the group worked out what they had done, this method spread througout the group and they all started doing it - like monkeys washing the potatoes!

It is difficult to find stuff on "Stimulated Recall" on the net - here are some links I found.

Stimulated Recall Methodology in Second Language Research
Action research through stimulated recall
The Stimulated Recall Technique A Qualitative Evaluation of an In-Service Workshop

No one that I can find is using Stimulated Recall in digital ethnography. Perhaps the work of Mike Wesch comes into this arena. I would be interested if anyone else has heard of this being used as a research tool, as I would like to build on this methodology - perhaps for my Masters in Computer Games in Education!

This is a movie by Mike Wesch: The Machine is Us/ing Us:

Graduation!

2008-01-15T22:51:00.000+13:00

Here I am graduating with my Bachelor of Teaching and Learning from Canterbury University on the 7th December 2007 in Rotorua.

I passed my Graduate Diploma of ICT in Education, which was credited to my degree.

I am now taking up my exciting new position at Onslow College.

I will be an eLearning facilitator, with a brief to establish creative projects with staff and students. My e-mail is likely to be gavin.mclean@onslow.school.nz

Home is now in Belmont in Lower Hutt. We have rented out our lovely villa in Napier and are now up in the hills of Belmont with the Tuis and Moreporks.

Keep an eye out as I will be posting some of my projects!

James Paul Gee's 36 Learning Principles at work in Computer Games

2007-10-01T15:58:00.000+13:00

James Paul Gee has compared the learning and literacy in video games to the learning and literacy in both effective and non-effective classrooms. "What video games have to teach us about Learning and Literacy" is about the possibility that video games are the forerunners of instructional tools that will determine how we learn in the future.

The 36 Learning Principles in “good” video games.

This is a list of learning principles that are built into good video games. The first five principles are very basic ones, since quite a number of other principles that are implicated in the earlier discussion are discussed in greater detail in the later principles.

The order of the principles is not important. All the principles are equally important, or nearly so. Some of the principles overlap and, in actuality, reflect different aspects of much the same general theme. Furthermore, these principles are not claims about all and any video games played in any old fashion.

Rather, they are claims about the potential of good video games played in environments that encourage overt reflection. (While good video games do indeed encourage overt reflection, this feature can be greatly enhanced by the presence of others, both players and viewers.)

Each principle is stated in a way that is intended to be equally relevant to learning in video games and learning in content areas in classrooms.

Active, Critical Learning principle

All aspects of the learning environment (including the ways in which the semiotic domain is designed and presented) are set up to encourage active and critical, not passive, learning.

Design Principle

Learning about and coming to appreciate design and design principles is core to the learning experience.

Semiotic Principle

Learning about and coming to appreciate interrelations within and across multiple sign systems (images, words, actions, symbols, artifacts, etc) as a complex system is core to the learning experience.

Semiotic Domains Principle

Learning involves mastering, at some level, semiotic domains, and being able to participate, at some level, in the affinity group or groups connected to them.

Metalevel Thinking about Semiotic Domains Principle

Learning involves active and critical thinking about the relationship of the semiotic domain being learned to other semiotic domains.

“Psychosocial Moratorium” Principle

Learners can take risks in a space where real-world consequences are lowered.

Committed Learning Principle

Learners participate in an extended engagement (lots of effort and practice) as extensions of their real-world identities in relation to a virtual identity to which they feel some commitment and a virtual world that they find compelling.

Identity Principle

Learning involves taking on and playing with identities in such a way that the learner has real choices (in developing the virtual identity) and ample opportunity to meditate on the relationship between new identities and old ones. There is a tripartite play of identities as learners relate, and reflect on, their multiple real-world identities, a virtual identity, and a projective identity.

Self Knowledge Principle

The virtual world is constructed in such a way that learners learn not only about the domain but about themselves and their current potential capacities.

Amplification of Input Principle

For little input, learners get a lot of output.

Achievement Principle

For learners of all levels there are intrinsic rewards from the beginning, customised to each learner’s level, effort and growing mastery and signaling the learner’s ongoing achievements.

Practice Principle

Learners get lots and lots of practice in a context where the practice is not boring (i.e. in a virtual world that is compelling to learners on their own terms and where the learners experience ongoing success). They spend lots of time on task.

Ongoing Learning Principle

The distinction between learner and master is vague, since learners, thanks to the operation of the “regime of competence” principle listed next, must, at higher and higher levels, undo their routinised mastery to adapt to new or changed conditions. There are cycles of new learning, automisation, undoing automisation, and new re-organised automisation.

“Regime of Competence” Principle.

The learner gets ample opportunity to operate within, but at the outer edge of, his or her resources, so that at those points things are felt as challenging but not “undoable”.

Probing Principle

Learning is a cycle of probing the world (doing something); reflecting in and on this action and, on this basis, forming a hypothesis; reprobing the world to test this hypothesis; and then accepting or rethinking the hypothesis.

Multiple Routes Principle

There are multiple ways to make progress or move ahead. This allows learners to make choices, rely on their own strengths and styles of learning and problem solving, while also exploring alternative styles.

Situated Meaning Principle

The meanings of signs (words, actions, objects, artefacts, symbols, texts etc) are situated in embodied experience. Meanings are not general or decontextualised. Whatever generality meanings come to have is discovered bottom up via embodied experiences.

Text principle

Texts are not understood purely verbally (i.e. only in terms of the definitions of the words in the text and their text-internal relationships to each other) but are understood in terms of embodied experiences. Learners move back and forth between texts and embodied experiences. More purely verbal understanding (reading texts apart from embodied action) comes only when learners have had enough embodied experience in the domain and ample experiences with similar texts.

Intertextual Principle

The learner understands texts as a family (“genre”) of related texts and understands any one such text in relation to others in the family, but only after having achieved embodied understandings of some texts. Understanding a group of texts as a family (genre) of texts is a large part of what helps the learner make sense of such texts.

Multimodal Principle

Meaning and knowledge are built up through various modalities (images, texts, symbols, interactions, abstract design, sound, etc), not just words.

“Material Intelligence” Principle

Thinking, problem solving and knowledge are “stored” in material objects and the environment. This frees the learners to engage their minds with other things while combining the results of their own thinking with the knowledge stored in material objects and the environment to achieve yet more powerful effects.

Intuitive Knowledge Principle

Intuitive or tacit knowledge built up in repeated practice and experience, often in association with an affinity group, counts a great deal and is honored. Not just verbal and conscious knowledge is rewarded.

Subset Principle

Learning even at its start takes place in a (simplified) subset of the real domain.

Incremental Principal

Learning situations are ordered in the early stages so that earlier cases lead to generalisations that are fruitful for later cases. When learners face more complex cases later, the learning space (the number and type of guesses the learner can make) is constrained by the sorts of fruitful patterns or generalisation the learner has found earlier.

Concentrated Sample Principle

The learner sees, especially early on, many more instances of fundamental signs and actions than would be the case in a less controlled sample. Fundamental signs and actions are concentrated in the early stages so that learners get to practice them often and learn them well.

Bottom-up Basic Skills Principle

Basic skills are not learned in isolation or out of context, rather, what counts as a basic skill is discovered bottom up by engaging in more and more of the game/domain or game/domains like it. Basic skills are genre elements of a given type of game/domain.

Explicit Information On-Demand and Just-in-Tine Principle

The learner is given explicit information both on-demand and just-in-time, when the learner needs it or just at the point where the information can best be understood and used in practice.

Discovery Principle

Overt telling is kept to a well-thought-out minimum, allowing ample opportunity for the learner to experiment and make discoveries.

Transfer Principle

Learners are given ample opportunity to practice, and support for, transferring what they have learned earlier to later problems, including problems that require adapting and transforming that earlier learning.

Cultural Models about the World Principle

Learning is set up in such a way that learners come to think consciously and reflectively about some of their cultural models regarding the world, without denigrations of their identities, abilities or social affiliations, and juxtapose them to new models that may conflict with or otherwise relate to them in various ways.

Cultural Models about Learning Principle

Learning is set up in such a way that learners come to think consciously and reflectively about their cultural models of learning and themselves as learners, without denigration of their identities, abilities, or social affiliations, and juxtapose them to new models of learning and themselves as learners.

Cultural Models about Semiotic Domains Principle

Learning is set up in such a way that learners come to think consciously and reflectively about their cultural models about a particular semiotic domain they are learning, without denigration of their identities, abilities, or social affiliations, and juxtapose them to new models about this domain.

Distributed Principle

Meaning/knowledge is distributed across the learner, objects, tools, symbols, technologies, and the environment.

Dispersed Principle

Meaning/knowledge is dispersed in the sense that the learner shares it with others outside the domain/game, some of whom the learner may rarely or never see face to face.

35. Affinity Group Principle

Learners constitute an “affinity group”, that is, a group that is bonded primarily through shared endeavors, goals, and practices and not shared race, gender, nation, ethnicity or culture.

36. The insider Principle

The learner is an “insider”, “teacher”, and “producer” (not just a “consumer”) able to customise the learning experience and domain/game from the beginning and throughout the experience.

My challenge is to now analyse the data gathered during my study and see if I can find evidence of the existence of these 36 Learning Principles.

Day 6

2007-08-14T22:43:00.000+12:00

Day 6 brought some interesting events.

Two of the students had been playing at the internet cafe over the weekend and had finished advanced training and were now teleported to another aprt of the game. They had also moved over level 24 and were able to use magic and advanced weapons, as well as train and ride different creatures.

This was fine however, as they agrees to return to where the other players were and help them through. The session went really well, I was able to get more video footage of their conversations, as well as all six desktop videos, this time we tested them and they all worked.

The next challenge is to devise a method of using the videos as each one ranges between 6 to 8 Gigabytes in size. I took my portable hard drive in, but a 6 gig video file would take about 2 hours to copy over from the PC. So what to do? Do I take my hard drive in tomorrow and ask them to copy each of the six files over, which would take about 8 hours, or do I take the kids in to the cafe to watch the video? I thought of recording the sessions into Soundforge on my laptop or even using the old fashioned Sony portable tape recorder.

I think I'll just take my portable hard drive into the shop in the morning and ask them to copy the files over through the day, that way I can access the kids at school without having to take them out of school. we can just do the interviews at school and I can record them straight into my lap top. I might even be able to match the video files up with their dialogue!! The aim of this is the "stimulated recall" mentioned below, the identification of cognitive processes as they play. Tomorrow will be an interesting day.

Day 4 & 5

2007-08-14T20:40:00.000+12:00

I thought I would put these 2 days together as they were very similar. By now the kids have the routine down pat and we arrive and they just get into it. I barely have time to set the camera up and they are away. The camera is still recording the room and their interactions but no game play. I am relying on the desk top recording software for that... The three kids working together are slightly more advanced than the other three but we are seeing some lovely cooperative play and amazing conversations. I have been observing their play and their conversations;they have this ability to concentrate and play the game, as well as have three or four conversations at he same time going on. When someone needs help they sometimes direct a question to a player that is near them or in a more advanced situation, and sometimes just call out randomly and someone from the group will usually, but not always answer their question. Both days produced some stunning play, but the big disappointment was the desktop video recording software which didn't record the play properly. gasp

The internet cafe guy, Justin, said he had tested it, but on another game!It showed the player logging on and clicking on the play icons, but as soon as the game screen came up the screen went black, which meant only the video recordings of the room and discourse survived the fifth day. So I have scheduled another days play and we have installed another piece of desktop video software called "hypercam" Which we tested and it worked. So we have rescheduled another special session where I will record the play with the new software. Thanks to Flynn, my 12 year old son who suggested it after playing World of Warcraft, and reading in the forums that players use hypercam and "Frapp" to video their game play. So we figured that if it worked with WoW it would work with Rappelz!

I have also remembered some research spoken of by Dr John Edwards called "stimulated recall", You can read about how researchers used this method to examine student in-class thinking . In this method they had two video cameras, one pointing at the student and one pointing at the teacher giving a lesson. They recorded the lesson and the teacher as well then did a very quick edit and dubbing at the end of the lesson on to another tape using a split screen. The student then watched the teacher teach and themselves during the lesson, the student was able to stop and start the tape to talk about what he/she were thinking at certain points in the lesson. They discovered some amazing things about what students were actually thinking about during a lesson.

I have an idea to create a variation on this method, by using the video of the game play and have the students watch themselves playing on video and be able to stop and start the video and explain what they were thinking during the game. This I hope to match to James Paul Gee's 36 learning principles which are embedded in "good" video games and that he feels are too often neglected in schools. These include points such as the self-knowledge principle (learners should learn not only about an external domain but also about themselves and their capacities), the situated meaning principle (the meaning of signs are situated in embodied experience), and the discover principle (overt telling should be kept to a minimum, allowing opportunities for learners to experiment and make discoveries.) As Derek W rightly commented on this blog, that I might have some hunches about what is going on but I have to try and show evidence for what I think is happening. I think Gee's 36 principles might be a good start.

James Paul Gee in "What video Games have to teach us about literacy and learning", discusses how video games teach children about semiotic domains, or systems of symbols and meaning, such as those found in a video game, which he describes as a form of literacy. A traditional concept of literacy is being able to read and write, whereas in this context we are talking about a broader definition; the ability to decode images, symbols, graphs, diagrams and artifacts in specific contexts. Gee argues that video games provide opportunities for learning in a virtual environment where players can experiment with solutions to problems without severe consequences for error.

This element of “play” and experimentation leads to the development of systems of mastery that are constantly challenged by higher levels of play. True learning is based in experiences that the learner is able to build on.

Learning in a real situation or authentic way gives opportunities for meaningful learning, this is called situated cognition.

StevenJohnson argues that over the last thirty years popular culture has becomes more cognitively demanding. Despite television being passive rather than interactive activity, the plot lines and narrative devices used in today's television shows are much more demanding than they were thirty years ago - compare "The Simpson's" to "The Mary Tyler-Moore Show".

Johnson's argument is that same skills exercised in modern pop culture are useful in the modern world and also correlate with the type of intelligence measured by IQ tests. As generations grow up more engaged in behavior that exercises this type of intelligence, their IQ scores rise. He asserts that this may be an explanation for the Flynn Effect, a steady increase in IQs over the last forty years.

He also discusses the different aspects of gaming psychology. The driving force that keeps you hooked on a game is what he terms “seeking.” He uses Grand Theft Auto as an example; the player drives around wherever he wishes, seeing new scenes around every corner.

“. . . Most of the time when you’re hooked on a game, what draws you in is an elemental form of desire: the desire to see the next thing. You want to cross that bridge to see what the east side of the city looks like. . . .”

Probing

Probing is the action that seeking induces. Computer games now are not self-explanatory and obvious. The player has to explore the world before he can reach his goal. This includes exploring the rules of the game and the physics of the game world.

“You sit down at the computer and say, ‘What am I supposed to do?’ You’re supposed to figure out what you’re supposed to do. You have to probe the depths of the game’s logic to make sense of it, and like most probing expeditions, you get results by trial and error, by stumbling across things, by following hunches” .

Some of these rules you can learn just by reading the manual; others have to be discovered by playing. My students did not read the manual, they improved their skill by playing the game itself, gaining new knowledge then applying that knowledge in new situations. So the learning is situated in an authentic context, but skills and competencies learned to progress to one level might not work at a higher level, so they need to be adapted and re-learned in the context of prior learning or experience.

Probing constructs the hierarchy of tasks that facilitate telescoping. This means that the gamer must keep long-term goals in mind as well as the current objectives at hand.

“I call the mental labor of managing all these simultaneous objectives ‘telescoping’ because of the way the objectives nest inside on another like a collapsed telescope. I like the term as well because part of the skills lie in focusing on immediate problems while still maintaining a long-distance view” .

Telescoping:

According to Johnson, multitasking is the action of doing multiple, unrelated things at once, and telescoping is doing multiple actions with a single objective in mind. Johnson differentiates between the two by saying, "Telescoping should not be confused with multitasking. Holding this nested sequence of interlinked objectives in your mind is not the same as classic multitasking teenager scenario, where they’re listening to their iPod while instant messaging their friends and Googling for research on a term paper. Multitasking is the ability to handle a chaotic stream of unrelated objectives".

Johnson talks about the result of multitasking which he calls Continuous Partial Attention. He explains this by saying, “It usually involves skimming the surface of the incoming data, picking out the relevant details, and moving on to the next stream."

Multimedia pioneer Linda Stone has coined this valuable term for this kind of processing: continuous partial attention. You’re paying attention, but only partially. That lets you cast a wider net, but it also runs the risk of keeping you from really studying the fish. In other words, continuous partial attention is the result of multitasking where things don’t get studied in depth; they are only looked at on a surface level. Johnson differentiates multitasking and telescoping even further by explaining this idea of continuous partial attention.

Mark Prensky in "Don't Bother Me Mom I'm learning", argues that the increased complexity and cognitive demands of video games is changing the way the human brain develops, that "the Digital Natives" actually think differently. Repeated exposure to video games and other digital media was found to develop and enhance certain thinking skills, for example, the ability to read visual images as representations of three dimensional spaces, and Inductive Discovery – acting like a scientist by making observations, formulating hypotheses, and figuring out the rules governing the behaviour of a dynamic representation.

Day 3

2007-08-13T22:19:00.000+12:00

Day 3 went much more smoothly, however I realise that my playing skills are so much slower than the kids, and they have jumped ahead. I resigned myself to giving up and moving around the room watching the kids play, as I was missing out on too much action in the game. The video capture software is hopefully capturing their game play.

My video camera is capturing their language and discussion, as they seem to have split into two distinct groups. Jordan and Scott have gained higher levels and teamed up with Amy across the table and are working together. Amy is actually the furthest through the game. I suppose I imagined that the boys would be better at this - gender prejudice?

It seems that there is three stages of training, elementary, Intermediate and advanced. They are now working through their advanced training, still on training island though. The other three Harley, Sophie and Stuart are also working together, but at a lower level, not quite moving at the pace of the other three. There are characters in the game that one must talk to - these are guides for the different levels that describe the tasks required to move further into the game.

The complexity of the game is quite astounding, and the kids seem to grasp the rules through experimentation rather than reading the game -play web site. They also gather implements, clothing, weapons, food and of course money. They frequently add powers and skills to their "skill tree". At higher levels one can collect spells and use magic. interesting to see their cooperation emerging, they also run off and play by themselves at times, then team up later at strategic points once they have completed tasks.

You can see examples of game play here:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=il24RJz9NX4

and here:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jtGi_E7aV7A&mode=related&search=

The player guides are worth reading in the forum section of the web site:

http://rappelz-forum.gpotato.com/viewtopic.php?f=4&t=420293

The comprehensive newbie guide is useful:

http://rappelz-forum.gpotato.com/viewtopic.php?t=310373

MMORPGs for e e Learning

2007-08-07T23:21:00.000+12:00

Can the technologies and design principles associated with online gaming support valid forms of ee-learning? What's the other e in ee?

"Historically, electronic and experiential learning have been unique and separate domains of study and practice. The joining of the two e’s in “ee-learning” provides an opportunity to define and organize an emerging pedagogy that brings together these two domains."
Jim Morrison the Editor-in-Chief of Innovate

In their case study, Joey Lee and Christopher Hoadley describe how educators in a summer technology enrichment camp employed two massively multiplayer online games to educate their students about cultural stereotypes, design principles, and how technology can serve as a mediator for different cultures. When the students adopted the identities of online characters with genders and characteristics different than their own, they experienced life as "the other" and soon discovered themselves receiving significantly different treatment from others in unanticipated ways. This eye-opening experience left the students with a more nuanced, less essentialist perspective of diversity, and they drew upon this perspective to design a series of Web sites and projects designed to promote cross-cultural understanding.
(See http://innovateonline.info/index.php?view=article&id=348

Day 2 - IN "the diary of a digital immigrant"

2007-08-07T21:51:00.000+12:00

Day 2 went much better. We arrived and Kathryn at the cafe had also compared notes with her 10 year old son at home, and gave us a quick run down of what he had said. She explained the training island and showed us some of the controls, to make a party a guild, how to make your character sit down etc. See the Player Guide. We were able to quickly get the remaining unregistered player registered by making a temporary e-mail address at yahoo.com.

On the way down in the van I sort of managed to explain my idea of getting us all together in the game, since I was only using my screen for video capture.The thinking behind this was economy of video size; even though all the computer have the software installed, 1 hour of recording makes a file about 6 gigs in size, so the logistics of acquiring and transporting 42 gigs of video in each session was prohibitive. So I made the decision to use just mu PC for video capture...However the interesting thing from today was that the kids were much faster than me in doing the first 8 levels!

They all managed to get through the first 8 levels and be teleported into the main game much quicker than I did. The "digital natives" just learned the game and played the game at a pace I couldn't match! I had the idea of being a kind of Vygotskian mediated instructor, although as it turned out, the kids did most of the instructing! Consequently the first hour of my desktop real time video capture was just my character running around trying to score enough points by killing the lionesque creatures in the training land and collecting money. The others were all off in the main game having fabulous adventures and teaching each other how to play. I knew my only chance was to concentrate and try and get to level 8 as quickly as possible.We had to go half an hour over time for me to eventually be teleported into the main game where to my astonishment the other had all gathered at one point waiting for me, biding their time by collectively teaming up and taking on a series of more powerful opponents. They had mastered a strategy in my absence - that was that you could beat a bigger more powerful opponent by force of numbers.I was astounded.

Scott, the leader from the 1st session had formed a "party" and the final few minutes of the session I managed to find them on my map, move rapidly to find them, join the 'party', which I had to be invited to do by the founding member - and we were able to actually get some video footage from my screen cam of the whole group gathered together on top of a hill. We experimented with some commands like emotions etc and managed to all sit down! We were one, a group - finally united.

There was no objection to my character "Kandorf" being part of the group and I was accepted as an equal. In the van on the way back to school we excitedly discussed the possibility of doing some "quests" together. We parted ways in a very excited mood, as I rushed off to my next meeting. I am excited about the next session, becoming united with the group was a huge achievement. I can't wait to play again - am I "addicted"?

Day 1 reflection

2007-08-07T21:23:00.000+12:00

Day 1 finally arrived and as we pulled away in the van I kept running over in my head whether or not I had the right video tapes and the camera and tripod etc. The kids, my six year nine "goths" buzzed in the back of the van. They seemed very intrigued about what we were doing and why, but very excited.
"This," I thought to myself, "is what school should be like - a buzz".

We parked the van only seconds away and arrived at the door of the cafe. We were greeted by Justin, the owner of And Computers which is a computer shop but has a adjoining e-mail/internet cafe. He introduced us to Kathryn (his wife as we would fine out later), who showed us to the computers, four on one side and 3 on the other. I was able to set up my video camera and take in all the players. All the software was installed on the computers, including the real time video capture software - great service guys.

Day 1 was really just a get to know you day as we struggled to get each player's log in and pass word set up. To do this we had to go to the games site and register, once we got through he mine field of filling out the online forms, the site then sent an e-mail to your e-mail address. Once you opened that you could then click on a link to activate your registration - your user ID and Password.

The problem was that the kids could not access their school e-mails from outside the school, and so had to establish temporary e-mail addresses at hotmail. The registration system seems to have a problem with hotmail addresses and would not activate the registration. However after persevering and mucking around we eventually got everyone except two boys into the game, and although we messed around for another 40 minutes, one boy was still not able to get into the game by the end of the session - which meant the others raced off into the game, happily playing and experimenting, while we struggled to get all the players on board! One boy in particular, Scott made spectacular progress in the session and discovered that the first 8 levels of the game are a "training session", on an island and once you get to that level you are then teleported in to the full game itself.

So at the end of the first session we had two players and myself who had hardly started and then the other four, including the girls at varying degrees of levels 1 - 8 in the training, including Scott who had completed the training and was racing around the main game!

My expectation of us all moving through the levels simultaneously in a civilised orderly manner seemed blown out of the water, I had no video footage of game play and I had stopped the camera waiting for us to begin to play. In retrospect I should have videoed this session as it would have revealed some valuable insights into the pitfalls of research using MMORPGs!

I arrived back the first day feeling very despondent - My players were all over the show in the game, how would I get us all together so I could get some cooperation and collaborative play?

Later that night I downloaded the client onto my desktop at home, (which took 2 hours) and discussed the day with my 12 year old. He registered his user name and password from his iBook in his room and I realised that one thing anyone should do who was trying to replicate this research or improve on it, is get the players registered before hand! Then they can just come in and play immediately!

This is what I learned from Day 1. Even if things go wrong you can still get valuable data about how they handle it and what happens. Don't make judgments about what is good data and bad data - it's all data.

My research into MMORPGs and Learning - Introduction

2007-08-07T20:50:00.000+12:00

My research into MMORPGs and learning has finally got underway.The plan was originally to use World of Warcraft as the vehicle for a "virtual ethnology", to quote Constance Steinkuhler. However, getting hold of the game to install for seven players, and then organising the subscription for them proved to be too much of a barrier. We decided to go with a very similar MMORPG called Rappelz. which is free. More about that shortly.

Also, I have just started a new job at William Colenso College, in Napier NZ, and although I got a surprisingly good level of interest from the technician and HOD ICT, and fantastic support from the principal and year 9 curriculum director, the fact that the school ICT infrastructure had been set up to prevent exactly what I was proposing, in the end was too much. The download of the client in itself was 1.6 Gigabytes, and we couldn't get it to run on the PCs in the lab we tried it in, it seems the video cards weren't up to it. However I plan to interview them both for their ideas on what the barriers are and would be in the average school and include that in my study as well. The ideal situation would be to play the game in the school environment as one of my ideas is that if we can include the games culture in our learning culture and blend them we might get the best of both worlds not the worst! Also the message is that school can be an exciting and engaging place to be, where youth culture and media literacy is embraced rather than alienated.

Anyway the outcome was that we decided to go to a local Internet cafe/online gaming place that is very close to the school. The mother/baby learning unit agreed to lend me their van in the middle of the day and I negotiated 5 sessions with the cafe for $50 all up, i.e. $10 per session for all seven players, which is pretty good. The owner was king enough to install the game on all seven PCs, and also some software for real time screen video capture, which is fantastic - I could record each session with a video camera set up in the room to capture the real time dialogue and conversations and also reference that with the real time video screen capture. The program records the session and saves it as a .avi file.

I am also interviewing each student with a list of questions about video games and learning, what they expect, whether they think video games have a place in learning etc. This will hopefully give me the triangulation I need. My plan is to synchronize the 2 videos and use a coding system to find evidence for socio cultural or high level learning/21st century competencies etc having just finished James Paul Gees book "What video games have to teach us about learning and literacy", I am hoping to develop a set set of categorories that I can use to explore my data for evidence.

Kate, the year 9 Curriculum Director has selected 6 students from 2 year 9 classes. The school is a bit different in that they are using home group classes with one teacher in the junior school, although the classes do have specialised sessions for ICT and technology. She describes this group as "the goths". Having met them, they don't particularly seems that Gothic, but they are perhaps the more "arty" or "alternative" or maybe "geeky" kids. Anyway they are a wonderful group and out of the six, two are girls, so I will have some interesting gender issues to examine as well, it will be interesting to see what I find!! Here goes...

Constance & Lisa

2007-05-22T19:24:00.000+12:00

Who says girls aren't into computer games?

Watch a video of a great presentation by Constance Steinkuehler about Massively Multiplayer Games.

Read more about her research into computer games and learning here.

Read what Lisa Galarneau recently wrote at Terra Nova about her research into Massive Multi player Games and Learning. Read about her research into computer games and learning here.

I am currently reading a book by James Paul Gee entitled "What video games have to teach us about literacy and learning". This is a fascinating in depth look at the amazing learning that goes on in well constructed video games.

The Challenges of using MMOGS in the classroom

2007-05-22T12:37:00.000+12:00

Computer Games in the classroom is one of the most controversial yet exciting areas to be working in at the moment, there is some amazing research going on out there about the learning going on in video games, especially the role play/simulation type games. After all pedagogically, by definition playing is learning.

Yes there are issues attached to using WOW in the classroom; the attitudes of teachers and parents to learning with games is a huge hurdle, and not a small part of this research is going to be how the attitudes of teachers and parents influence the barriers to making school the exciting engaging learning environment that I believe it should be. There is a great article by Clive Thompson at Wired about the implications of being a game playing dad with young children.

The role of the skilled teacher in facilitating the use of this type of game in the curriculum will be crucial, plus a set of agreed rules! Here we run in to teaching and learning about ethics and wisdom, what Mark Treadwell and other researchers like our own kiwi Lisa Galarneau describe as competencies for the 21st Century or digital age literacies.

She is interested in the 'soft' skills like communication, team-work, leadership, etc. In other words the Social intelligences, that players develop as by-products of play, and whether those skills are potentially transferable to real life.

I chose World of Warcraft because it has such enormous flexibility for children to build their character narrative and situated meanings. To play these games children are continually using "inventive thinking".

It is also now the single largest Massive Multiplayer Online Game in the World and many kids will already have huge expertise in playing this extremely complex game.

However there is a debate to be had about whether games like this belong in the classroom, because as soon as we impose an "instructional" framework onto them are we changing the "rules" or the nature of the game itself and will that remove the engagement factor?

Just some quick thought provoking questions...
How old are your children?
Have you actually seen the WOW game/know anything about it?
Also have you actually played any video games yourself/observed your children playing video games?

I'd be interested to get your feedback on how you felt about learning a game.
If its a game you've never played try getting your child to teach you! Observe their delight and engagement in teaching an adult.

I think that a questionnaire for parents along these lines would be a useful idea, as the education of the parents and teachers is part of the exercise.

Marc Prensky has written a great book aimed at helping parents and teachers to come to terms with our 'digital natives' love of learning with games, it's called "Don't Bother me Mom, I'm learning".

MIT professor Henry Jenkins has written an essay that is posted on the PBS website that systematically debunks some of the biggest myths surrounding video games. He covers things such as kids as the primary market for video games, girls playing games too, video games and social isolation, and an "epidemic" of youth violence among other topics. It is a very good read so check it out if you feel like it..

2007-04-26T07:07:00.000+12:00

Jam with your PC?

2007-04-26T07:02:00.000+12:00

Researchers at the University of Indiana in Bloomington USA are experimenting with software that can “listen” to a player and adjust accordingly – computers improvising with musicians?

This software can follow a soloist's lead, and recognize beat, rhythm, melody, harmony, tempo, and other musical elements. A soloist can now practice accompanied by virtual musicians representing other musicians.

See original article at:

http://www.sciencenews.org/articles/20070421/bob8.asp

Virtual Worlds: The future of gaming?

2007-04-26T06:56:00.000+12:00

Virtual Worlds 2007, the first conference devoted to understanding the future of marketing and media, kicked off March 28 – 29 in New York City. The sold-out event brought together about 600 futurists, journalists, metaverse and marketing consultants, platform and content developers, as well as representatives of Fortune 500 companies.

The environment was similar to the first Serious Games Summit, D.C., a mixture of confusion and wonder. Those inexperienced with 3D social environments like Second Life struggled to learn about the potential in virtual worlds while others heralded its future impact, noting that the millennium generation had effortlessly transitioned into digital avatars.

Read the full article here at Gamasutra

Reinventing Public Diplomacy Through Games

2007-04-22T12:36:00.000+12:00

Thanks to Lisa Galarneau at socialstudygames.com for this info. which I've fleshed out.

"Public Diplomacy" is essentially the art of winning hearts and minds to your side in international relations.

In May 2006, The USC Center for Public Diplomacy sent out a list of projects undertaken by finalists in their 'Reinventing Public Diplomacy Through Games' awards.

PeaceMaker took First Place in the First Games and Public Diplomacy Contest!
All four finalists demonstrated their games for the esteemed panelists and in house audience at the awards ceremony. The event was simulcast in Second Life, where the attendance on Annenberg Island exceeded that at USC's Davidson Center!

The awards live at Annenberg Island on Second Life.

The finalists were:

Exchanging Cultures Exchanging Cultures, a diplomatic game built inside Second Life,was created to facilitate the creating virtual communities and relationships based on the exchange of cultural items like: dances, art crafts, food receipts, architectural models, clothing, cultural routes and images of real original places for travelers and explorers.

Global Kids Island: Fostering Public Diplomacy Through Second Life Global Kids, Inc. envisioned a Public Diplomacy program within Second Life where the youth in the after-school program will spend the month learning about a global issue, experience an interactive and experiential workshop designed to educate about the issue. Their demonstration will be shown at the awards ceremony. For more information on the organization:

Hydro Hijinks Hydro Hyjinks is a class project designed to promote discussion about international water issues and to educate players from around the world about sources of international conflict over water rights. Watch the video tour of the game at: .

Peacemaker PeaceMaker is a cross-cultural political video game simulation of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict which can be used to promote a peaceful resolution among Israelis, Palestinians and young adults worldwide. More information, please visit their website:

Also See:
Article "Promoting Peace – Virtually Speaking"
Video games foster cross-cultural understanding among the participants in an award ceremony held both online and in the real world.
Public Diplomacy and Virtual Worlds Project
Serious Games Initiative

My Research for Dip ICT ED

2007-03-01T12:40:00.000+13:00

Watch Tanihasi Coates take you through his TIME "photo essay" on his guild in "World of Warcraft".

My research project will be based around using "World of Warcraft" with a group of students and examining how the game might develop skills which may enhance their classroom engagement.

The official site of World of Warcraft is here.

What is a Massive Multi-player Online Roleplay Game? (MMORG)

For those interested, there is a good introductory video here,
with comments by Dr James Gee and Dr Henry Jenkins, Clarke Aldridge & others.

It's about 20 minutes long though!