Learning Through Play
Posted by Peter | Filed under Education, Games
Through my work and research in the university and on the SLOODLE project, I’ve encountered plenty of mention of constructivism in relation to education. However, considering my wonderful neice (who will be 2 in January), and my practically newborn nephew, I was quite interested by a recent Newswise article about constructivist play for young children.
The principle is that simpler toys encourage greater use of imagination and development of cognitive skills for very young children, but slightly older ones will benefit from more directly educational toys, such as board games and chemistry sets. The article quotes a great example from R. Keith Sawyer:
“For example, if you bought your child the toy cowboy from the movie “Toy Story,” the child will probably already be familiar with the movie, with the character and how the character talks and acts. That narrows the range of pretend play options or scenarios the child will engage in. However, if you get your child a generic cowboy toy, the child might act out scenes from “Toy Story,” but might also do something completely different.”
Watching my niece play with absolutely anything and everything she can get her hands on, from placemates to cuddly toys, certainly bears this out. I cannot suggest what she sees in the toys when she plays, as she’s too young to express much verbally (although for a not-yet 2 year old, she’s doing remarkably well with language… or maybe that’s just my proud uncle-ness talking!). At any rate, she manages to play equally well (if not better) with abstract objects as she does with realstic items.
I see very similar things with a couple of slightly older children at my church: one is about 2 and a half, and the other (who started school this year) is nearly 5. They certainly love acting out superhero scenes from series they watch on TV or DVD, but after church this past Sunday, they seemed to be having a lot more fun pretending an upturned toy table was a boat. It doesn’t look like a boat, nor is it in anyway seaworthy, and the carpet certainly doesn’t look (or feel) like the ocean, but those things didn’t matter to them… it was just a bit of fun. (Perhaps more significantly, they happily involved a bit of superhero stuff in the boat scene, but not the other way round.)
The slightly older kids (particularly the 4 year old) were capable of constructing more complex scenes than my little niece, but it all seems to be part of the same process. It leads me to wonder what learning is actually going on in these cases. Certainly getting the imagination active is great, and learning the difference between fantasy and reality is very important. Perhaps also through doing these things, they are experimenting with relationships, learning social skills. They are also using language to express themselves in their make-believe personae. Most importantly, I think, they are maybe learning to see things from another perspective — i.e. from the point-of-view of their character, rather than themselves.
I’m not a developmental psychologist though, so I’m probably just waffling. One wee thing I will mention though is that similar situations exist in video games for kids and adults of all ages — in bygone days, I remember having lots of fun racing a line around a bunch of dots on an old Spectrum. The hyper-realism of today’s games is great, but not necessary for fun, and can in many ways perhaps impede it.
Studying Games Development
Posted by Peter | Filed under Games
The LA Times is running an article about studying computer/video games development at university-level. It is certainly impressive to see how many institutions are taking up this area, but in line with the quote from an EA employee, as well as many users on Slashdot, I am dubious about the wisdom of quite such enthusiastic uptake.
As was the case with many folks on the Computer Games Technology degree I studied, it seems that too many of the wrong kinds of folks are being attracted to the courses: people who like playing games (which admittedly is an important attribute), but are either unable to develop the necessary skills, or simply can’t be bothered doing the work. In part, I think the problem is people who come straight from high school into university — they are used to being spoon-fed all their education, and have never experienced a significant workload. University and the real-world are full-time endeavours, children… get used to it!
I am certainly all in favour of Higher Education, but only where appropriate. Students undertaking a course where they are likely to fail or drop-out is waste of time, effort, and money for all concerned. Furthermore, unless they manage to change to a different (more suitable) degree, it gives them a pretty bad start for any kind of career.
“Park My Car” — practice makes perfect!
Posted by Peter | Filed under Games
There have been a few little web-games along the lines of “Park My Car“, but it’s quite fun for a quick play anyway. The premise seems to be that you’re a valet parking assistant who has to park fancy cars in designated spaces for the rich and famous. Refreshingly, you actually fail the level if you squish a passing dog or that blind man who just happens to be wandering past the parking space. (Admittedly, there is at least one Mafia-style level where you have to shoot the bad dudes who are trying to shoot you while you park… as if reversing round corners wasn’t already hard enough!).
I actually found this quite a surprising challenge, because it’s got a much more realistic control concept than your average driving game. You control it with your cursor keys, but instead of instantly-turning wheels when you steer, you have to hold the key for a period of time to turn your wheels to the desired direction. Your steering also won’t automatically revert to centre when you release the keys, so it’s rather unintuitive for guys like me who grew up playing racing games on the PC! (That’s not necessarily a bad thing though.)
The graphics are clean and fairly well-made (it’s top-down, 2d), and the sounds/music is OK. I have one criticism of the interface, and that’s the fact that it’s quite hard to see which way your wheels are steering until you actually start moving (I would recommend an on-screen steering wheel or something just to give you a better idea). Also, it’s a little unforgiving in the way you progress through the levels… 3 crashes (even if all you hit was a poor frog) and you have to start over completely. For a casual game, I prefer it to be at least a little easier to get through to the later levels… but maybe that’s just because I’m still rubbish at it! 
Theft, Divorce, and Murder
Posted by Peter | Filed under Games, Software, Virtual Worlds
A less-than cheery topic to accompany some interesting virtual activity, starting with the NY Times report of the theft of some virtual inventory in RuneScape (also reported with slightly different details by the Telegraph), in which a 13 year old player was violently coerced to log-in to his account to let the thief (~16 years old) transfer the goods to another account. The incident occurred over a year ago, but a Dutch court ruled earlier this week that it amounted to theft under real-world law, and sentenced the thief accordingly. It’s a tough area to deal with from a legal standpoint, but I think it has been handled well.
A somewhat more bizarre case sees the recent arrest of a scorned divorcee who allegedly murdered her ex-husband. Sounds grim… until you realise she has been arrested on suspicion of (effectively) computer hacking, and nothing more. Seemingly, the pair were only virtual spouses in the Maple Story MMORPG (admittedly, I had never heard of it before). After the ‘husband’ unexpectedly terminated the virtual marriage, the ‘(ex-)wife’ gained unauthorised access to his account, and killed off his avatar in May earlier this year. The arrest itself is very real though, and if charged, she faces a fine of $5000, or a whopping 5 years in jail (though she claims no intent to seek revenge of a more real-world sort).
Pondering…
A comparison of these two cases brings up a fascinating judicial conundrum — isn’t murder worse than theft? On the one hand, you’ve got virtual goods being attributed a real value, so that the legal system perceives virtual theft in the same light as real theft. On the other hand, you’ve got virtual murder, which is completely ignored as the legal system tackles a mere case of unauthorised access to (and modification of) personal data. Why do real-world legal values apply to the one and not the other?
Virtual goods may represent an investment of time, and thus a certain personal value, since it will take time and effort to re-acquire them following a theft. However, does a person’s avatar in an RPG not count for a greater investment of time and personal sentiment? From a purely logical standpoint, it seems like the virtual murder should be treated more seriously than virtual theft… and yet, try as I might, I cannot bring myself to consider punishment for virtual murder as anything but ludicrous! Maybe I just don’t take virtual worlds as seriously as some people.
I’m confused. And I’m glad I never wanted to be a lawyer. 
“My Word Coach” — vocabulary training on DS
Posted by Peter | Filed under Games
It’s been a while since I used my Nintendo DS, so when I was in the shops today, I decided to buy “My Word Coach“. I’ve enjoyed the Kawashima games and so forth, and given my proclivity for linguistic misdemeanour, I thought I’d give this one a go too.
As is fast becoming tradition in this area, the game comprises several mini-games (most of which are unlockable as you go along), which you play for a while each day, to build up your score. Each mini-game involves a series of words, sometimes needing you to guess the missing letter, or match words to definitions, and so on. After a couple of games, it seemed to gauge my level well enough to provide a comfortable mix of vocabulary, such that I was confident with just over half, familiar with most of the rest, and encountered a handful of totally new words from time to time.
A particular feature I like comes at the end of each mini-game: you are shown a list of the words you saw during that round, and you can scroll up and down the list to see the definition of each one. Any words you got wrong during the round are shown at the top with little crosses beside them, so you can easily spot problem areas when you encounter them. I have not yet seen any longer-term reporting regarding particular words (e.g. a word you consistently get wrong), but maybe it’s there and I haven’t found it or unlocked it yet.
“My Word Coach” definitely has a certain character of its own, so it is not entirely leeching off its fore-runners in the field. However, there are areas where it lacks a little. For example, the handwriting-recognition is not perfect (at least seemingly not as sophisticated as the Kawashima games), and the graphical style as a whole seems a little bit dated. However, these things don’t really hinder the process, and I have certainly had my vocabulary taxed a little by it so far.
Conclusion? Best not to draw any final thoughts just yet, since I have only played it for a couple of hours, but my impressions so far are pretty good overall. I am certainly all in favour of any way to improve the nation’s dwindling competence in literacy, and given the recent successes of the Kawashima games at schools up North (Scotland), perhaps this is one effective way to do it.
Slightly Pointless Addendum:
Being the pedant that I am, I will have to take this opportunity to quibble on a couple of words I have seen in the game thus far. Firstly, it defines a “centurion” as a Roman guard in command of 100 soldiers, when in actual fact it was really only 80 or so most of the time. And secondly, it defines “Armageddon” as the final war between good and evil mentioned in the Bible. Well, it’s close… Armageddon is actually the place where the battle will occur, according to Revelation 16:16.
“In The Doghouse”
Posted by Peter | Filed under Games
Here is an excellent bit of innovative gameplay: “In The Doghouse” requires you to get a puppy from one room in a house to another by sliding and rotating rooms around to make a clear path for him. It is 2d (side-on) and resembles the classic slider puzzle in the way you solve it. Wonderfully original concept; I love it! (Graphics and music are good too!)
“Word Vine” — learning your compound nouns
Posted by Peter | Filed under Games
In browsing Miniclip.com, I discovered this quite simple but excellent game: Word Vine. The objective is essentially to link several small words together into a kind of vine shape (each word being one leaf of the vine), such that the links (or stems) represent compound nouns (that is, words that are made up of smaller words). For example, you might link “post” to “man”, because it makes the word “postman”. You might also link “post” to “office”, and so on.
The game starts out at a very simple level, but soon gets quite tricky. One of the particular difficulties is when the compound noun has a totally separate meaning from the smaller words that make it up. A fairly good knowledge of common English words certainly helps, although it can be played entirely by trial-and-error too, for those who may have a smaller vocabulary. It also needs a pretty good short-term memory, and a little lateral thinking sometimes. (The vine structure is pre-defined when the level starts, so you sometimes have to figure out how to re-orient all your word links to make them fit).
From a gaming perspective, the concept is nice and easy to learn, and the interface is very responsive. The graphics are moderately simple, but very effective. I believe all the levels in the game (with the possible exception of the beginner levels) are randomly generated, so it is replayable, and you couldn’t cheat by stealing somebody else’s answers!
It is a good game, and I reckon it could make quite an effective casual addition to English learning, whether by native or foreign speakers.
Wii: Kids vs. Grownups!
Posted by Peter | Filed under Games
We had a fun-night in my church earlier, at which we ate plenty of good food, and more importantly, hooked up a Nintendo Wii to the big projector in our main hall. We played the Bowling game in “Wii Sports”, and what was interesting was the different ways in which people learned the controls.
The ages ranged from 4 to about 80, so we had a “grownups” round first, then a kids round. Most had never played a Wii before. The Bowling game is a little trickier than some of the others to master, because you have to hold a trigger button on the controller, swing it like a bowling ball, and then release the button during your swing as if you were releasing the ball. Physical assertiveness and timing are important to success.
The younger to middle-aged adults generally learned how to play gradually, and did moderately well, relying a lot on luck. Most of the ’senior’ adults though, to be honest, failed miserably. (No offence guys!). Most struggled to remember which button to press, and ended up pushing others at the same time (perhaps down to issues of dexterity and their first use of a totally alien device); nearly all took a long time to understand how a gesture with a controller bore any resemblance to bowling; they also struggled with complete dissociation between gesture and screen (much akin to the trials and tribulations of technophobes learning to use computer mice, I suppose!); and finally, coordinating the hold-and-release of a button with a physical gesture was impossible! Some released the button too late in the swing, and others simply didn’t release it at all. Some also mentally separated both parts of the action…. press-then-release the button, then swing, or vice versa. It was… ‘interesting’!
The really young children, on the other hand, had a wonderfully natural absorption of the entire concept. It took them a couple of attempts to figure out how to hold the controller (their small hands making it particularly difficult), but admist their ‘creative’ gestures, they absolutely thrashed the adults! Most of them don’t have games consoles at all, and yet their natural curiosity discovered and learned things like pushing the directional pad to alter the trajectory of the ball before the swing.
One child was the exception to the rule though. He understood what he was supposed to do quite quickly, but could not master the skill to the same level as the others. I surmise that his natural shyness resulted in reduced physical confidence, causing him to sub-consiously dampen his gestures in ways which adversely affected their effectiveness.
Anyway, it was a fun night, and we had plenty of laughs. It ended with a quick men vs. women round, in which the men beat the women 124 to 97!
Language Perfect
Posted by Peter | Filed under Education, Games, Software
A new educational game, “Language Perfect“, is making a stir in some New Zealand news (also see the text article).
Screenshot of the Language Perfect system
The news articles mention the enthusiastic response of students, but they don’t really do the software justice (in my opinion); the demo video, on the other hand, makes for some very interesting watching. It doesn’t look like there is anything inherently groundbreaking about what is actually being done, but rather how it’s all put together. It looks like a system than is well-planned, designed to engage students in a modern context, and most importantly, it is complete.
I’ve tried a few language learning software packages over the years, and so many of them are lacklustre and boring. They are little more than digital flashcard systems, maybe with fairly weak excuses for games or quizzes. “Language Perfect” certainly looks different (although I haven’t been able to actually use it myself). The interface looks clean, slick and responsive (which is very important for engaging today’s youth), the automated feedback seems more interesting and useful than just “right/wrong”, and the system as a whole apparently motivates students with a competitive edge, using points and online scoring systems.
That said, this is the first flurry of activity we are seeing. As this dies away, will we see it having a steady presence in education? Will it maybe even spread to other parts of the world? I’ll certainly be keeping an eye on it to find out.
Brain…. too…. slow….
Posted by Peter | Filed under Games
Here’s a brilliant little game… called “NanoTube”:
http://dolphincrap.com/g.php?g=126
The concept is very simple once you understand it… a bunch of coloured dots fly out from the centre, and you have to rotate the outer disc (or tube) so that the coloured dot hits the matching coloured part. Sounds simple, and it is… at first…
When it got on to multiple colours, I quickly found myself getting wildly confused. Mind you, maybe I shouldn’t have been trying it at 2.30am at the end of a LOOOOONG week.
It’s a well made game anyway, and must be great for tuning your quick-thinking and hand-eye coordination!
