Educational Gaming Commons - Press Start

Hot off the press - This ECAR research bulletin focuses on the rapid growth in the use of simulation technologies in higher education and the implications this will have for information technology planning and policy decisions.

Download the PDF.

The Nethernet is a Firefox add-on that lets you play and create web crawls based on existing web pages. Originally named Passive Multi-player Online Game (PMOG), it was later renamed The Nethernet, then it disappeared. But now it's back!

This is a really nice example of what I'll call an instructional overlay on the web. Think of a transparent window between you and the browser. That's The Nethernet. Now imagine that you can populate that window as desired, placing "stuff" between the browser and your eyes. Thus is born a new web surfing experience.

Once you have the add-on installed, you'll find places on the web with a dialog box that will ask you to take a mission. It might be a tour of wedding dresses, or chocolate. Peopl use it to share their favorite sites on a topic, adding their own thoughts in the journey.

NN is gamelike, in that you have character classes in whick you can build expertise. You can also lay down crates full of goodies (and bed stuff) for others to find. You can place DP cards that give other points they can use to build more NN missions.

I hope now that it's back, NN will continue to grow and thrive. Try it!

From virtualworldnews.com:

Out of Ireland V Rising, the National Digital Research Centre (NDRC) and Trinity College have announced their collaboration for a virtual learning project, V-Learning. The project aims to plug a 3D virtual world into existing learning management systems, allowing users the benefit of an immersive environment for distance and local education without having to build their knowledge and databases from the ground up.

It's not clear what existing platform, if any, V-Learning is built on, but V Rising has worked in Second Life and also lists Qwaq as a partner, both of which have been pushing into the educational market. V-Learning will target the Continual Professional Development (CPD) and corporate training markets, where integration is crucial. The companies say their 3D environment will work alongside traditional 2D offerings.

This Educational Gaming Commons brownbag session will introduce how the online game Kingdom of Loathing relates to game researcher Richard Bartle's four player types. Implications for game development will conclude the session.

Objectives:

• Receive a brief overview of Kingdom of Loathing
• Learn how the game relates to different player types
  http://www.mud.co.uk/richard/hcds.htm
• Discuss implications for development of future games

For those who are unable to attend in person, this session will also be presented online through Adobe Connect at (http://breeze.psu.edu/egcbrownbag). Note that for the Adobe Connect session, we will be using the telephone option for audio. Click the yellow phone icon to enter the phone wizard (enter your phone number, and it will dial you).

Registration is required and available for the live Adobe Connect session at https://register4its.psu.edu/Public/ShowDetail.asp?scheduleid=107545.

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For those of you not familiar with the game, Kingdom of Loathing (http://www.kingdomofloathing.com/) is an role playing adventure game, unique for it's relativelu simple graphics (by which we mean stick figures). It's also known for its satiric twists. For instance, one can choose to be a master of "saucery" with weapons like secret spice mixes.  You can also battle drunken rats and hordes barbecuing trolls.

It can be a good introduction to role playing games and provides intresting insights on how they can be used in education.

    “Form reading, judy brady’s essay entitled Why i want A wife i learned many Rhetorical techniques to use in my now writing.”
    Microsoft Word only picks up on three of the errors in the above sentence. Unfortunately, most college students would correct only those three and then confidently hand in the essay, leaving their instructors to encircle the rest in red with reminders to proofread more carefully. Typo, EGC’s newest release, encourages students to do just that. The game features scrolling text plagued with common typographical errors like capitalization, spelling, and punctuation. Students strive to identify these errors with the click of a mouse, scoring points for each error they find.
    One unique aspect of the game is its addicting nature. After each level, players receive their score and ranking so that they can see where they stand with others who have played thegame . There’s also an option to play again for an even better score. As the text becomes more familiar, errors are easier to spot and students can compete for top scores in their class. Furthermore, the levels become increasingly more difficult, with text scrolling at a faster pace and errors more difficult to find. Typo, then, follows the model of popular video and computer games, introducing players to the gist of the game in early levels, then challenging them in later levels as the players’ abilities progress. Also great is that professors of all disciplines can input their own text and errors into the program, making the game customizable for any course.
    Though still at an early stage of development, Typo promises to students a much-needed alternative to tedious grammar drills while still promoting the type of careful editing skills necessary for both academic and professional success. Check it out at http://gaming.psu.edu/EGCTypo.

By Lauren Tyrell

Sorry for the short notice, but FYI:

Jeremy Bailenson, director of Stanford's Virtual Human Interaction Lab, will be giving a talk titled "Transformed Social Interaction In Virtual Reality" today at 12:30 EST.  Check out the abstract below for more information:

In this talk, I describe a series of projects that explore the manners in which avatars (representations of people in virtual environments) qualitatively change the nature of remote communication. Unlike telephone conversations and videoconferences, avatars have the ability to systematically filter their physical appearance and behavioral actions in the eyes of their conversational partners, amplifying or suppressing features and nonverbal signals in real-time for strategic purposes. These transformations have a drastic impact on interactants' abilities to influence others in social and professional contexts.

As I'm assuming no one outside of the greater Massachusetts area can make it to Harvard in an hour, the talk will also be webcasted, thanks to Harvard's Berkman Center for Internet and Society.   For the webcast, or more information about Jeremy or the talk, check out:

http://cyber.law.harvard.edu/events/lawlab/2010/01/bailenson

This semester, the Educational Gaming Commons will be hosting a series of luncheon brownbags, usually on the 3rd Thursday of the month.

At the first luncheon we will demo the Typo! game and hopefully brainstorm on games and activities to improve writing.

Date: Thursday, 21 January 2010
Time: 12:00 - 1:00 PM
Location: 202K Rider

Adobe Connect Room - https://breeze.psu.edu/egcbrownbag

To register, please go to https://register4its.psu.edu/Public/ShowDetail.asp?scheduleid=107520

This semester, the Educational Gaming Commons will be hosting a series of luncheon brownbags, usually on the 3rd Thursday of the month.

At the first luncheon we will demo the Typo! game and hopefully brainstorm on games and activities to improve writing.

Date: Thursday, 21 January 2010
Time: 12:00 - 1:00 PM
Location: 202K Rider
 

To register, please contact gaming@psu.edu.