CETIS 2006 Identity Games and Synthetic Worlds

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Facilitators: Paul Hollins and Scott Wilson

About this session
In this session we want to explore the areas of games and synthetic worlds, their impact on ideas about identity, and their potential value in education.

We're interested in any useful experiences that delegates can bring to bear on this topic to help us identify a research and development agenda that has a good chance of delivering some solid benefits.

Below we list some ideas, however these are only tasters and we hope delegates will contribute much more.

We have Ernest Adams attending the session to provide input and informed insight, from a games design perspective, and will discuss the recently completed review of gaming technology commisioned by the JISC.

Topics
Some ideas to get started with:


 * Experiences to date - what has(nt) worked and why?
 * How can games with an educational purposes work in HE?
 * Flash-based games
 * Hi-fi synthetic worlds (Second Life, WoW, GTA: San Andreas)
 * Lo-fi synthetic worlds (Habbo Hotel, CyWorld)
 * Alternate reality games (PerplexCity, Waking City, Troy)
 * Identity: projected, real, assumed...
 * Platforms: NintendoDS, PSP...
 * "Net generation", Prensky etc

Who attended?

 * Education technologists who are also gamers
 * Education technologists interested in games
 * Developers of games for education, or of content delivered using gaming devices

Some things mentioned:


 * World of Warcraft
 * Second Life
 * non-video games: boardgames & RPGs
 * Alternate Reality Games (ARGs)

Sara's Presentation
Reviewed the literature and produced case studies on games in learning.

Issue with reviewing literature is the fragmentation of the coverage across different discourses (e.g. media, psychology, sociology) with different terminology.

Key findings:


 * Games engage and motivate learners
 * Difference between educational games and COTS games
 * Potential for games to support learner communities
 * Potential for immersive worlds and MMORPGs
 * Potential benefit for personalization?

Case studies:


 * Second Life
 * Neverwinter Nights/Revolution Mod
 * Sims School
 * Ardcalloch
 * Racing Academy

Motivation?

Some factors:


 * Realism
 * Challenge
 * Exploration
 * Discovery
 * Learner Control
 * Participation in design

Pedagogy?

Teachers need a framework for selecting games. Sara outlined four dimensions: Context (e.g. type of access, location), Learner, Representation (immersion, fidelity), and pedagogic approach.

Conclusions
 * use of games needs embedding into practice
 * need for evidence of effectiveness
 * need for staff development
 * need for collaborative production with games industry
 * need for roadmap and sustainability

Ernest Responds
The ethos of games not the technology or funding is a major issue. Game developers have different motivations and work differently to educators. They'll sacrifice anything for fun!

Games use shortcuts in representation, and hide those shortcuts from users. For example, the "smoke and mirrors" models behind aspects of simulations. Sim City is not based on real city planning models!

Games use a "sink or swim" attitude to user development. Learners learn by trial and error - this is OK in the context of the "safe place" for experimentation (e.g. Hazmat training simulation). But is it good pedagogy?

More useful are games that use the gradual disclosure of more complex models. For example, "Balance of Power" exposes military, economic and diplomatic models progressively into the gameplay as users gain experience.

In terms of technical platform, consoles are really hard to develop for, both technically and legally, so its best to stick to PC (or web).

Better to use purpose-designed games rather than COTS. But developing them is very expensive!

Edutainment a dirty word in industry - produced very dull drill-and-practice games.

Assessment is a bit odd in gaming - not concerned with 'understanding' only performance.

Games don't teach, they illustrate.

Q & A session

 * People demonstrate commitment to games without authorities
 * Are COTS etc. too big? Isn't a smaller-scale approach better, e.g. smaller single-behvaiour games ("mini-games")?
 * What actually defines a game? And is the learning actually in the game itself, or in the framing (brief and debrief, community discussion etc)
 * Recommendations of report sound like general e-learning recommendations? What is really different in games?
 * Hybrid game-sims seem promising. But is the "game" in the "sim" or in its enframing?
 * Smoke and mirrors in representation used by games is also used by teachers - gradual disclosure of more detailed models
 * Interest in the community aspects of games. What can we learn about identity projection, identity exploration from games like World of WarCraft?
 * Identity creation vital for social community
 * What about non-video-games? Boardgames, RPGs, ARGs... How does the literature of this world relate (e.g. studies of chess).
 * Game engines: Quake etc (world building), Unigame (high-level game engines), and modding
 * MORI report: huge drop of in gaming ages 13-21. Correlation with increase in social freedom?
 * What is our motivation for being interested in this? Is it that we think its popular with students? Is popular necessarily good?
 * Access: universities and colleges block the ports of MMORPGS!

Priorities
COTS: Not a high priority. Could be useful in some areas (e.g. Sims for environmental education)

Synthetic Environments: Worth exploring Second Life, SLoodle etc., but more usefully the dynamics of large informal learning communities found in WoW and 2L. Should tap into existing 2L education community (SLED).

Casual Games (flash games, mini games): Best "bang for the buck". Easier to get into VLEs. Should do both production, and exploration of concept of use. Try competency-oriented rather than subject-specific for better reuse? Not just games: toys, sims, illustrations...

Games technology: Not much interest; modding may be better than middleware, and better to discover and use existing game middleware than make new.

Research priorities: We need the strategic mapping of the space to identify research areas with potential for delivering results.

JISC-CETIS: Should run special events on gaming (although maybe not a full SIG as don't want to ghettoize). Show and tell event would be great. Can also do a meeting in 2L.

JISC should invest in casual games area; first fund some development, then identify commonalities (toolkits, middleware, processes) and then enable discovery with portal/repository as last step. JISC island in 2L?

Other: Informal learning - can we look at the interactions around games, e.g. in communities, and in evidencing of learning that takes place in communities (e.g. coaching of other gamers). Also ARGs have some potential.