At the first keynote of Toronto's Future Play 2007 conference for game educators and developers, Dr. Constance Steinkuehler, assistant professor in the Educational Communication & Technology program for the University of Wisconsin-Madison, argued that MMOs and online worlds are good "push technologies" for education, rather than threats to it.
Her presentation was titled "Massively Multiplayer Online Games as an Educational Ethnology: An Outline for Research," a deceptively straightforward talk about Steinkuehler's research findings on what constitutes gameplay in MMOs and virtual worlds, and how that research might be applied to education programs.
Why did Steinkuehler write a dissertation that was a two-year ethnography on virtual worlds? "I needed to find out what in the world would be productive from playing these games," she explained, describing how she played Lineage, Lineage II and World of Warcraft for research.
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Wednesday, 28 November 2007
Future Play 2007: Researcher Argues MMOs Are Educational
Chinese Government Gets Into Virtual World Business
http://gigaom.com/2007/11/27/chinese-government-gets-into-virtual-world-business/
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NATIONAL INSTITUTES OF HEALTH AWARD CONTRACT TO FORTERRA SYSTEMS TO EVALUATE GAMING FOR TRAINING CRITICAL HAZMAT SKILLS
SAN MATEO, Calif.—(BUSINESS WIRE)—Forterra
Systems, the market and innovation leader in private
virtual worlds, today announced that the National
Institutes of Health (NIH) has awarded a contract to the
Company to study the use of commercial gaming
technologies to produce a distributed, multi-player, online
virtual environment for training individuals and teams
in critical HAZMAT skills. Under the NIH contract, a
hazardous material (HAZMAT) emergency response
scenario will be designed using gaming technology to
test the basic principles of the study and to gather
qualitative and quantitative data to measure the efficacy
of the technology.
Forterra has proposed a solution to NIH that leverages
developments in the commercial gaming industry and
adapts these rapidly growing technologies to produce an
online virtual simulation in which individuals and teams collaborate to increase their readiness to deal with
HAZMAT emergencies. The NIH-sponsored study will include a training task analysis to determine a
proper instructional system design. User tests will be conducted with target audiences and the results will
be analyzed to determine, among other outcomes, what the impact is on cost effectiveness and
distance learning.
“The current obstacles to effective training are often geographic or cost driven, but there are also learning
and retention limitations associated with traditional training that involve video and slide presentations as
the mediums for this training. This experience is devoid of realism and engagement for participants,” said
David Rolston, Forterra’s Chief Executive Officer, “As part of this NIH contract, we will develop a
distributed learning and instructional environment that will put users in an engaging and realistic virtual
world where they are able to collaborate with other people rather than be inundated with boring web
pages and endless PowerPoint slides. A rich, interactive environment based on game technology offers
the most effective, cost-efficient way to facilitate the rapid transfer of learning and the development and
sustainment of necessary skills.”
In addition, the focus of the NIH study recognizes that new training technologies are needed that allow
remote access to large audiences and highly qualified trainers. As a result, Forterra will integrate the
subject matter expertise of Rohde & Associates and the instructional system design expertise of the
Federation of American Scientists to create a compelling on-line immersive training experience in which
to practice the interactions of HAZMAT first responders, incident commanders and site workers.
“We are excited to be involved with this important study sponsored by NIH,” said Dr. Henry Kelly,
President of the Federation of American Scientists. “People acquire new knowledge and complex skills
from game play and we as an organization are working on strategies that harness the potential of
emerging technologies to improve how people teach and learn. Gaming technology, like the virtual world
developed by Forterra, provides a tool that can be leveraged by instructors and subject matter experts to
provide a rich environment for the rapid transfer of learning.”
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Sunday, 25 November 2007
ComicLife and Skitch
http://plasq.com/
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Six Ideas That Will Change the World
They are making orange peel plastic and robots that can heal themselves. They are six researchers with six ideas that will one day change the world.
http://www.esquire.com/features/best-brightest-2007/sixideas1207
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Open University Course Profiles Facebook App
http://blogs.open.ac.uk/Maths/ajh59/010855.html
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Reading, writing and playing The Sims
The door closes with a squeak and a creak. Oh no! Is it locked? Let’s check… No, thank God, you can open it… So now, another go at getting to the ladder. Maybe through this narrow hallway? … No, it’s a dead end.
Fifteen children between the ages of 9 and 11 are staring at the computer screen, mesmerized, as the adventure game Myst III: Exile is played. In the middle of the group sits Tim Rylands, the most popular teacher at the small elementary school Chew Magna, in the village of the same name near the English city of Bristol. Once more he manuevers his cordless mouse to guide the cursor along the dark walls of a hollow mountainside. Rylands then tells his students, “Okay, now write down which way we should go to get to the ladder. What do you come across? What do you experience on your journey?” The only sound heard is the furious scribbling of pens.
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Top 10 Reasons why Marketers hate Second Life
http://www.jaffejuice.com/2007/11/top-10-reasons-.html
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human brain cloud
http://www.humanbraincloud.com/
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Innovation in Fitness and Motivation by Gamercize
Gamercize electronic fitness products help motivate you to achieve health and weight loss goals. Available for PS2, XBox, Gamecube and PC.
Gamercize personal trainer software tracks your health statistics, workouts and progress with help from a real fitness instructor.
http://www.gamercize.net/
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PC Webcam Games
http://www.playdojam.com/
http://www.extendedreality.com/webcam_games_info.html
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The Livescribe paper-based computing platform
http://www.livescribe.com/
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SecondSlice: Virtual world marketing
http://www.secondslice.net/issues/secondslice1.pdf
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Saturday, 24 November 2007
Discovery Channel: The Rise of the Video Game
http://dsc.discovery.com/tv/video-game/video-game.html
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Thursday, 22 November 2007
The Sims 2 Classroom Activities
http://www.lingualgamers.com/thesis/sims2_activities.html
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Tim Rylands - Myst in the classroom
http://www.timrylands.com/html/media.html
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Using computer games in PE
http://hotmilkydrink.typepad.com/my_weblog/2007/03/using_computer_.html
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GAMING'S 30 MOST INFLUENTIAL OUTSIDERS
http://www.next-gen.biz/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=7780&Itemid=2&limit=1&limitstart=3
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Child's Play
Since 2003, over 100,000 gamers worldwide have banded together through Child's Play, a community based charity grown and nurtured from the game culture and industry. Over two million dollars in donations of toys, games, books and cash for sick kids in children's hospitals across North America and the world have been collected since our inception.
http://www.childsplaycharity.org/
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Dust or Magic 2007 videos
Dust or Magic is an annual demonstration-intensive institute for individuals who need to understand the latest interactive media products for children. Because participants stay at the same Inn and come from a variety of perspectives, the event has a retreat feel to it. Time is put into the agenda so that there are opportunities to try out the latest products in both formal and informal settings. As with previous Dust or Magic Institutes, the agenda is planned around the products, and videos of child testers using key products help ground the discussion. Throughout the session, there are presentations by developers, reviewers and researchers on current topics.
http://dustormagic.blip.tv/
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Avatars Help Asperger Syndrome Patients Learn to Play the Game of Life
At the UT Dallas Center for BrainHealth, Adolescents and Young Adults with Autism Practice Their Social Skills in Virtual Worlds
A technology associated with fantasy worlds is helping young adults with autism in the hard reality of life.
Researchers at the University of Texas at Dallas Center for BrainHealth are working with patients diagnosed with Asperger Syndrome using virtual reality training. People with the disorder have normal intelligence, but they suffer from a variety of social cognitive defects, including an inability to read nonverbal clues and adapt well to change.
These young adults -- considered to have a form of autism -- face many obstacles in life. Interviewing for a job or asking somebody for a date can be monumentally difficult.
To help them succeed, researchers from the center have created a virtual world for them to practice their social skills. Each person creates an avatar/character in his or her likeness, who then navigates through a virtual world, interacting with real people represented by their own avatars.
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The Death of E-Mail
Teenagers are abandoning their Yahoo! and Hotmail accounts. Do the rest of us have to?
http://slate.com/id/2177969/pagenum/all/#page_start
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Disaster training goes virtual
Training health care professionals and emergency responders on how to handle sudden large-scale catastrophes such as natural disasters, bioterrorism attacks, and outbreaks of infectious diseases has recently taken on a new life.
For the past two years, as part of the Idaho Bio-terrorism Awareness and Preparedness Program (IBAPP), Dr. Ramesh Ramloll, assistant professor at the ISU Institute of Rural Health, has created "Play2Train". It is a virtual world that he designed specifically to meet the distinctive training needs of the professionals who will be on the scene in the event of any large-scale disaster.
http://media.www.isubengal.com/media/storage/paper275/news/2007/11/14/News/Disaster.Training.Goes.Virtual-3102093.shtml
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The Get-Well Gamers Foundation
The Get-Well Gamers Foundation was founded in 2001 with the goal of bringing video game systems and games to children's hospitals. Video games are an effective and proven pain management tool and provide needed entertainment during long hospital stays.
http://www.getwellgamers.org/
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David Wortley: The Serious Games Institute - Building Infrastructure for the Serious Games Sector.
Serious Games is about the use of electronic games, technologies and practices for non-entertainment practices such as e-learning and simulation. This £3 million project includes facilities to support Serious Games research and a cluster of local companies.
Find more videos like this on Serious Games
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Wednesday, 21 November 2007
The Future of Reading
Amazon's Jeff Bezos already built a better bookstore. Now he believes he can improve upon one of humankind's most divine creations: the book itself.
http://www.newsweek.com/id/70983/
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REPORT: 3D Business - Reality or Fantasy?
http://www.gamesindustry.biz/content_page.php?aid=30230
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Let the Games Begin
Video games, once confiscated in class, are now a key teaching tool. If they're done right.
http://www.edutopia.org/let-games-begin
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Trade Shows Going Virtual ?
Companies like IBM, Cisco, and others are taking their trade shows and conferences virtual. Some, like IBM have used the virtual world Second Life for such events, but virtual trade shows take it a step further.
http://www.webpronews.com/blogtalk/2007/11/16/trade-shows-going-virtual
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Get a life, but make it second life
Most of us have an alter-ego waiting to burst out, and now it can - on the internet, in virtual worlds that are springing up to suit every need and desire. Ian Douglas explores a universe of online possibilities:
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/connected/main.jhtml?xml=/connected/2007/11/18/dlsl18.xml
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Kids Music Games
http://www.musicgames.net/
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Kids Laptop Club
http://www.themorningnews.org/archives/galleries/the_laptop_club/
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Thursday, 15 November 2007
India: VC funds bet on e-learning, digital media firms in October
Venture capital firms struck 3 such deals in the last month; it was the first round of funding for most:
http://www.livemint.com/2007/11/12230529/VC-funds-bet-on-elearning-di.html
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