Educational Gaming Commons - Press Start

Bots, or robots, are a much-needed item in Second Life for complex simulations that require the user to interact with others. It's difficult to stage a complex simulation with live actors, but the advantage of doing so is obvious - there's a real brain behind the avatar/actor.

An alternative is to use bots. By attaching some clever response scripts to an inanimate object, you can create a reasonable semblance of interactivity. Some folks call this AI, or artificial intelligence, but it's not really that at all. It just a very limited set of programs designed for a very specific purpose.

For example, if you staged a disaster with real actors, they could respond to stange or "off the script" comments, such as a rescue worker commenting on your jewelry. A bot would simply not understand this - probably responding with a neutral comment that totally deflates and stops that particular line in the conversation.

Bots in Second Life are much needed for complex simulations that can be run by any one, any time. Some folks have dabbled with this over the years, but I've not seen anything of real promise, until recently. Check out

http://caledonianblogs.net/soh-secondlife/2009/11/02/aiml-test-bot-colin...

I hope Caledonian U contines to work on this and makes their efforts readily available. It would open up a new area for educators in SL.

Jason Kaveney will conduct a training session on HealthSim tomorrow in 108 Waring Commons. Both the installation files and the documentation have been loaded into Mark's HPA course in ANGEL.

Elizabeth and Mark will continue to work on developing an assessment survey as well as a focus group section.

If you're thinking about adding games to your lesson plan, its a fairly safe bet that you'll see gains in areas like student satisfaction (which in and of itself can be extremely beneficial).  But while satisfaction is great, it can also be somewhat nebulous, which makes it a difficult metric by which to support an educational tool like video games.  If we hope to prove the value of games we must be able to show that they can improve learning - and that means improvements to test scores and grades.

One the goals of every engagement project the EGC runs is to find a way to produce evidence that shows how exactly games are impacting learning.  In the case of ChemBlaster, our Faculty Partner Mary Shoemaker has been collecting data for the past several years on how her students perform on early semester quizzes designed to test students on elements, ions, and polyatomic compounds (the same content which we have used as a foundation for the ChemBlaster game).  As you can likely guess, this sets the stage for a very obvious question - will ChemBlaster help to improve student quiz scores?  But there are also several other important questions we're curious about.  Will the use of a game aid in improved long term information retention?  Will it lead to longer periods of engagement with the subject matter than more traditional study aids?  Will it serve as a catalyst for additional Chemistry based discussion, competition, and mentorship among classmates and friends?  And with Chem101 recently having gone online, will ChemBlaster have a different impact on purely online students as compared to those taking resident classes.  These are just a few of the many questions we're hoping to answer in the coming months when ChemBlaster is deployed to Mary's students this coming spring and beyond.

Just how will ChemBlaster do?  For that answer, you'll need to stay tuned. 

As of October 30, the following has happened

• Instructor Mark Sciegaj is describing the theory of the different policy choices beginning October 26.
• Mark has also created a report template based on screen captures of different reports in the game.
• Jason Kaveney is testing download and running of SimHealth game from a Flash drive. The Flash drive will allow students to store data on any computer (from lab to personal computer).
• Elizabeth Pyatt is reviewing documentation and instructional process.
• Elizabeth will create survey instruments and possibly a focus group opportunity.

Demo: Scheduled for Fri Nov 6, 10 AM in Waring lab

Not Education in Jeopardy - another topic that is continuously debated in the US!

This is in reference to a recent blog post about the game Jeopardy at

http://www.hastac.org/blogs/etussey/pre-digital-edutainment-jeopardy-cla...

It's a short read - well worth the five minutes you'll spend to read it. Things that stick out for me:

• The Jeopardy game is an accepted cultural norm.
• The game can be used as a springboard for social discourse, part of a good learning experience.
• The producers of the game show have a classroom version of Jeopardy that includes authoring software and hardware used to produce a delux experience. See http://www.classroomjeopardy.com/index.aspx .

What other good things arise when we use a "standard" game like this for educational purposes?

BTW - The EGC has a version of the game, named Peril! Check it out.

Faculty are invited to attend a workshop on the educational benefits of the online virtual world Second Life on November 12 from 1:30-4:30 p.m. The workshop will take place in the Educational Gaming Commons Lab in 6A Findlay Commons at the East Halls, University Park, and will be facilitated by the Educational Gaming Commons staff and Shannon Ritter of Penn State Outreach.

Virtual worlds are 3-D, online, persistent spaces created and evolved by their users. The virtual world Second Life (http://www.secondlife.com/) offers tremendous potential for research and teaching. Within this vast and rapidly expanding place, you can do, create, or become just about anything you can imagine.

Virtual worlds provide many educational benefits. The two strongest benefits may be an immersive problem-solving environment coupled with social interactions. For example, at Penn State, Second Life is used for teaching Spanish, as a meeting spot for World Campus online and distance education students, and more. The Penn State Educational Gaming Commons hosts space in Second Life for educators.

This workshop will first introduce you to the basics of Second Life, including how to acquire a free account and to navigate within the world. The second part of the workshop will demonstrate discipline-specific uses of Second Life to spark your imagination on potential uses of this environment.

Space is limited to a maximum of 12 people. To register, complete the online form at http://tinyurl.com/EGCSLWorkshop. The form will ask you to indicate your academic discipline as well as which aspects of Second Life you would be most interested in seeing during the workshop. If you have any questions, e-mail gaming@psu.edu. The workshop is sponsored by the Educational Gaming Commons, a service of Information Technology Services.

Many of you may have heard about the EGC's work with Ann Clements and Tom Cody (Music Education), who were interested in looking at ways to bring the commercially successful game Guitar Hero into the music classroom.  The Guitar Hero project is currently being run for the second semester and is enjoying great success.  However, beginning next week, we're excited to share that the project will be taking its next step.

Though using Guitar Hero in the classroom can provide a number of benefits to music students, at the core of Ann and Tom's efforts has always been the goal of teaching Music Education majors (who will themselves, become the next music teachers) how games like Guitar Hero can be used to inspire the next generation of music students.  As a part of the project, MusicEd students have been asked to create customized songs in Guitar Hero World Tour's music studio - songs, which, based on their own experience learning to play guitar, could help younger students bridge the gap between playing a game and learning to play a real instrument.  Over the next two weeks, those MusicEd students will have an opportunity to put their efforts to the test, as they visit several music classes at Mt. Nittany Middle School and work directly with middle schoolers using the custom tracks they have created.

Be sure to check back next week - we can't wait to share how things go!

See http://www.personal.psu.edu/bxb11/blogs/brett_bixler_e-portfolio/2009/10...

Hi Everyone,

We wanted to give you information about an upcoming event in the Libraries. On Tuesday, October 13, from 5:30–7:00 p.m., we will be hosting a Digital Literacy Contest for students in 302 Paterno Library.  Students will compete for cash prizes by using the Internet and our library databases to answer questions. Contestants will be given 30 minutes, 20 questions and Internet access. Correct answers earn points, and incorrect answers are penalized. Questions are graded in near real-time and the highest score wins. The competition will be followed by free pizza and discussion about the future of libraries, technology, and society.

We will also host an optional, free 45-minute workshop on digital literacy, on Wednesday, October 14, 11:30 a.m. in the same location (open to the PSU Community) and a subsequent workshop at 1 PM for the Libraries' faculty and staff to discuss the contest and engaging students with similar events. Please let us know if you would like posters, handouts, or table tents about the contest for your area.

Purdue University students created the contest in 2007, and in 2009, they received the MacArthur Foundation Young Innovator Award. Cornell University, Indiana University, Northwestern University and the University of Michigan are a few participating universities. The contest creator, Daniel Scott Poynter, will be here to facilitate the contest and the 2 workshops.

Free and open to all students, registration is required due to limited space. Registration is available online at: http://www.DigitalLiteracyContest.org or edit and text the following to 41411: signmeup your@email.com.

Please encourage any students you know to participate, including students in your classes and your student employees (who should have an edge on the completion!).

For more information contact Emily Rimland, erimland@psu.edu or Loanne Snavely, lsnavely@psu.edu.

Thank you,
Emily Rimland and Loanne Snavely

Have you heard about EGC Works? It's a new offering from the EGC. Every several weeks, our "Mr. Podcaster" Jamie Oberdick interviews a PSU faculty member that has worked or is working with the EGC. These 10 minute interludes are a great way to catch up with the EGC during a walk, the drive home, or time at the gym. Check them out!

EGC Works Podcasts

Podcast #1:  Ecoracer Game Accelerates Learning in Penn State Engineering Course

Peter Idowu, Electrical Engineering at Penn State Harrisburg

Podcast #2: Guitar Hero Enhances Learning in Music Education Course

Ann Clements, School of Music, Penn State University Park

Podcast #3: A Virtual Hacienda in Second Life

Gloria Clark, Humanities and Spanish at Penn State Harrisburg

Podcast #4: Second Language Learning Immersion via World of Warcraft

Steve Thorne, Department of Applied Linguistics, College of Liberal Arts, Penn State University Park