How Video Games are Changing Education

Courtesy of Online Colleges - http://www.onlinecolleges.net

Putting FUN into Functional

A current project provided me opportunities to explore 3-D virtual learning environment platforms and games. This project comes in many parts (will certainly keep me busy in the coming 2011!) and one being simulation-like and a major requirement being user to manipulate parameters to simulate various scenarios *major headache*!

Decided to give it a twist and work with FB games and machinimas instead.

My inspiration came from the videos below:-

Can’t wait to remould the idea(s)! *think Play Doh* 😉

Gearing up!

*clears cob webs*

Finally back to blogging! Tight deadlines and large volume of projects took a toll on me. Sooo much to share in this space so I am going to do this bit by bit 🙂

First and foremost it’s December and as we’re getting ready to let out hair down and party (that very much explains the Christmas-y ambiance via the “snow flakes” in here), there are some hurdles to clear *gulps*

A recent project pave a path for me to discover and explore Edmodo. For those of you who’ve yet to discover Edmodo, think of it as a FB-style secured social networking + micro-blogging tool for education. For me, in short, it’s simply one of the most easy to use LMS-replacement.

What?

An online classroom communications tool for teachers and students to share Notes, Files, links, and assignments similar to Twitter or Facebook.

Why?

• Simple for teacher to create account and set up page
• Easy student/parent registration
• Allows you to upload documents for students/parents
• Allows students to hand in assignments electronically
• Allows you to grade online
• Teacher can message students individually
• Has ability for “forum” type online discussions
• Allows teachers to make groups easily for each class
• Can send mass messages across groups
• Calendar will show assignments with links to document
• And…. easily embed artifacts created using many other Web 2.0 tools within Edmodo!

Embedded Prezi

Embedded VoiceThread

How?

http://blog.edmodo.com/2010/11/17/7-brilliant-ways-to-use-edmodo-that-will-blow-your-mind/

Interested? Here’s a video link on how to get started:

Currently, I’m exploring the possibility of using Edmodo for my personal ePortfolio – showcasing projects I’ve worked on for mid-term appraisal review. Hopefully, in time to come, I do not get succumbed to using other platforms and am able to share my experience on using Edmodo for my ePortfolio.

Looking forward to a fruitful Edmodo journey…

Pocket University: iTunesU FTW

Did I just hear you say ‘Augmented Reality’?

I created a small introduction video to add some humor to a presentation on AR for coming Friday’s meeting. It’s still WIP. Will try to upload the 10-min presentation stuff to this space when it’s more or less concrete.

But in the meantime, this video should be an introduction to yet another interesting tool. Try Xtranormal 😉

TGIF… Have fun folks!

Virtual Worlds: Yay or Nay?

Virtual worlds are often related to idealistic applications in education. Or rather any application that contains “virtual” in it’s name, are categorized so.

In my previous employment, I got the opportunity to work on multiple virtual world projects. Majority of those were for the education sector. It was very refreshing to see that at least a handful of educational institutes here in Singapore, understand it’s demand and are investing time, money and manpower in building “fantasy worlds” to engage their learners in challenging topics.

Last week I was involved in a serious discussion to roll-out some form of virtual world project in my current workplace. There were lots of areas we spoke about but the following were the key points:-

• How does the 3rd dimension help in learning?
• What does the 3rd dimension do that 2-dimensions are not able to do?
• In what situations do we deploy virtual worlds?
• Virtual worlds should not be mirror worlds. They should be “fantasy worlds” that allow you to perform tasks that you are not able to do so in the real world.
• How do we leap from our current level?
• How do learners construct and demonstrate knowledge in a 3D virtual environment?

Lots of thinking went into this whole conversation. And the conclusion was, we will give it a go but the first impression will either make or break the situation. I totally agree!

Currently, very hard at work. Preparing the best I can. But I am going to share with you some stuff so that if such a need arises for you (or else you can always create the need right?), you know where/how to start…

Virtual worlds were created using OpenWonderland

Krisflyer, Coffee Bean, Scouts – What is the common factor?

No doubt, it’s the reward system! So what does reward system do?

…

It drives engagement!

Engagement is the key in any activity. Games are best at it but how do we apply this to education?

…

METAGAME DESIGN is the answer!

Metagame Design for Education: Applying game design techniques to the world outside of games (and games too). Hence, we can ‘borrow ideas from the world of interactive games, we can motivate even reluctant learners to practice complex skills and achieve much more than they would through traditional means’ by layering rewards systems onto existing activities.

Not only in games, but metagames are everywhere and we encounter them in our daily lives – e.g. in scouts you earn badges and ranks, at coffee bean for every cup of coffee you purchase you can earn stamps for free redemption of drink at a later time, krisflyer frequent flyer points and etc.

So for teaching and learning, let’s look at blogging as an example. Instead of encouraging students to participate actively in classroom blog projects using just mere rubrics that most of them time considers components such as comments, blog stats, post frequency, etc, we can look into rewarding students at every stage/level in blogging. An example is cited below:-

1. Post Updates -> Receive free gifts
2. Get feedback from peers -> Get rewarded with points
3. Provide feedback on peers’ blogs -> Earn points to proceed to next level/stage

So the above runs in a loop and encourages constant engagement which will keep the students going to keep attaining higher levels just like what they (or we) do in games!

Of course in terms of points and gifts they could come in varieties just like what we have in Farmville and Cafe World 🙂

Reference: http://www.slideshare.net/amyjokim/metagame-design-3383058