August 31, 2005
Serious Games Showcase - London
There was a great turnout last night at the Serious Games Showcase in London from students showing work in progress to a few game developers and lots of interested colleagues. Here's a picture of the crowd listening to Jon Weinbren who helped organize the event with Ben Sawyer. This is a big week in London for game conferences with the Games Developer Conference Europe (with a day dedicated to mobile games), Games Market Europe and the Connected, Community-Based and 3D Mobile Games Conference all happening at the same time. The buzz is growing louder on mobile games! I'm most excited about multi-player mobile games for learning and culture change apps. I'll be hitting the first two and catching up on mobile specific developments at the Mobile Content World next month.
Posted by Ron Edwards at 01:05 PM | Comments (0)
August 27, 2005
Fun Catalyst
This email from a client I'm advising on a learning game project made my week:
Hi Ron,Following your advice, we changed the story of the game entirely, turning it into a funny mystery game (the mystery of the c------ thief, aka The C------omaniac). I'll tell you all about it on Monday, when I'll also send you a written outline of the new story.
I can't wait to tell you about it and hear what you think.
I think a Skype conference would be the best choice too.
Regards,
R.
It made me feel great to see the shift from low energy from following a safer route at the cost of fun and creativity for this corporate project, to it being more enjoyable for the client, and more importantly, their clients!
I'm also glad to be using Skype increasingly with clients to keep telecom costs low (how's ZERO!) You can download it and use it for free - give it a try if you haven't yet.
Posted by Ron Edwards at 11:15 AM | Comments (0)
August 25, 2005
Games Becoming a Communication and Learning Medium
I am impressed with the exciting and bold statements on how games could evolve to be an actual communication and learning medium (and the provocative indicators of how we'll know when we're there) that I found via a speech blogged by Ben Saywer on the Serious Games Initiative website - an excellent keynote by Adam Singer at the Edinburgh Interactive Entertainment Festival.
Singer mentions a few good "serious" game examples as well, including the UN Food Force Game you should download and play - it's one of the best I've seen that actually feels like a game worth playing. And guess what? I learned something too!
It's great to find more people sharing the idea that games could be a primary way of communicating. Why not turn an idea for a book into an interactive story/game, instead of the other way around of a book then a movie and/or game? Why not use a well developed game to communicate public service messages in a more fun and effective way? I'm hearing the chorus grow louder on this nascent approach and really enjoying helping a few people get started!
Posted by Ron Edwards at 10:36 AM | Comments (0)
August 22, 2005
Nesta Endorphin Del.icio.us... (reminds me of those refrigerator word magnets!)
Today I took a look at Nesta FutureLab's bi-annual journal Vision which had a few articles of interest on games for learning - Could Computer Games Transform How We Learn? and mobile learning - The Future of Mobile Technology: Learning on the Run. While not revolutionary (most examples and research seem to be the same we've been hearing about all year), they do provide a good summary of the opportunities and challenges for education. The journal itself looks great!
There were a few gems I hadn't heard of yet in the new technology secion, including an animation software called Endorphin by Natural Motion -
Endorphin is a new type of software
that enables 3D characters to be
completely interactive. They are
programmed with adaptive
behaviours which enable them to
essentially animate themselves.
For example, if you move two
football players close to each other,
one will automatically tackle the
other.
The demo examples on their website made me say Wow! Animation that creates it's own realistic interactions...
I wasn't sure quite how to tag it on Del.icio.us as my first public bookmark there. I chose Wow, Cool, and Games (you can only choose one word keywords). I wanted to say something like --really intriging tool that might enable creative new artforms and a possible platform for educational games to better simulate interaction...
Posted by Ron Edwards at 11:47 PM | Comments (0)
August 20, 2005
Mobile Phones for Learning?
Last May I cited a white paper Marc Prensky wrote titled "What Can You Learn From a Cell Phone? Almost Anything" in an article I wrote for Chief Learning Officer Magazine "Knowledge Sharing for the Global Workforce" A reader followed up interested in examples of how the different learning methods of listening, observing, imitating, questioning, reflecting, trying, estimating, predicting, and practicing Marc listed could be accomplished. A few immediate ideas sprang to mind and I've put them in Flash Paper here for nicer printing. What ideas would you add?
Posted by Ron Edwards at 08:03 PM | Comments (0)
Welcome!
Welcome to the new home of AmbientConnection where we'll help you stay connected to intersting and important developments in the worlds of mobile, gaming and other technologies with applications for learning, performance and fun!
Please feel free to contribute!
Ron Edwards
President and Founder,
Ambient Performance
Posted by ambientperform at 07:18 PM | Comments (0)