October 16, 2007
Conferences Follow up Resources *updated*
Hi!
I have been speaking at quite a few conferences lately and promised to share some of the links I referenced during various speeches and workshops. So, here they are!
We produced the first conference in Europe dedicated to exploring enterprise and education applications for virtual worlds with the Serious Games Institute (SGI) last month. You can access the video and slide archive directly here or the new Serious Games Institute website. We streamed the event into Second Life with the help of Datmedia, the SGI and David Burden of Daden, Ltd (who has generated lots of interest in doing it again!).
We had just over 150 people at the conference and another 150 online. Not bad for a first!
I really enjoyed Dr. Leroy Heinrichs presentation which you can view here, he shared published results showing virtual worlds working as well as or better than physical training for the emergency response training they ran at Stanford Medical School. (You can email presentations to colleagues but this feature doesn't always work in Firefox yet).
My presentation on the various implementation aspects for enterprise use of virtual worlds can be accessed directly here (and can be sent to your mobile phone too. I am curious to how well this works for our overseas viewers, your comments are welcome!).
A live demonstration of the Forterra Systems OLIVE platform was provided by John Burwell, Forterra VP and can be accessed directly here. John showed the retail training and emergency response examples.
Roo Reynolds of IBM posted a nice collection of pictures and comments from the conference on his blog here.
There are also lots of pictures on the SGI site.
Workshops:
Podcasting resources I referenced in the workshop can be viewed on this blog by using the search box on the lower right side.
The video interview on Podcasting, blogging and wiki use at the BBC I did with Nigel Paine, former Chief Learning Officer for the BBC can now be found here . (there are also several presentations there from our annual Seriously Mobile Summit).
My keynote from the Chicago Learning Executives conference was videotaped, I'll add it to the archive when I get a copy. Feel free to email me for the slides in the interim if interested. Update*** A video clip of me discussing virtual worlds for training is embedded below. The .mp3 and slides are now available, I will try to synch them up in the video archive soon.
Posted by Ron Edwards at 09:42 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
June 10, 2007
My IITT Training 2007 Evening Speech
You can listen to my evening address 'All Technology Was New at Some Point' at the IITT Conference in Warwick, UK here:
I spoke about my start in IT training and today's interest in mobile, serious games and virtual worlds.
I wrote out what I wanted to say - but left out some of it. You can check it out below if interested.
All Technology Was New at Some Point
Pornography! …is just one of the many uses of the internet….that’s how I introduced the Internet 10 years ago to 500 sales people who were wondering what possible business benefit it might have. Of course, if I were introducing the web now I’d probably have to say something like “role playing as a furry animal is just one of the many things you can do in cyberspace. I’ve been invited to share a few thoughts on technology for the next 15 minutes. I consider myself a journeyman, always learning what’s new and considering what’s next.
We’ve come a long way, haven’t we? It wasn’t that long ago that we were first introducing the internet to our corporate colleagues, and before that it was personal computers themselves with Windows 3.1! Back then our training software ran in DOS. Just the way we liked it! Windows ushered in an age where workers started to think of their desktop tools differently, from mainframe thin client apps to input data to using new tools for word processing, number crunching, visualization and project management. Email went from zero to hero and I remember how funny we thought it was that people were sending emails across the office instead of walking over to talk to people. Now of course, email is so pervasive, it’s spawned a new device, one that delivers the email within 1 meter of your head 24/7. Yes, the crackberry.
Consumer led technologies keep creeping their way into our organisations, don’t they? Think about it. The personal computer – the first ones by IBM , Apple, Commodore, Sinclair, and Acorn. These were used in the 80s by us geeks in droves before the personal computer started to make inroads in to our organisations.
It wasn’t until 1992 that the large company I worked for started to bring in PCs for all workers. They started with the secretaries in the R&D group I worked in and I was in charge of their training. I started learning everything I could about training and software training in particular. I attended conferences, started a masters in training and development and found kindred minds and spirits (yes, in the bar), and through networking developed a few partnerships with training providers. We figured, when introducing new software, why not just show people how to get their jobs done using the new tools vs. showing what was behind each menu in case they might need it. We undertook a light task analysis to try to find what the high performing workers were doing that we could train the others in while looking for opportunities to further automate things. We called it Job Specific Training. I’ve never been very good at catchy names. While the name may not have caught on outside the US, we inspired quite a few people to take a look at how to better train people by sharing what was working at conferences. I think that this approach still holds value today, but jobs have become more complex requiring more tools and more multitasking – I think this is giving rise to something that’s been around for a long time but is finally becoming “hip” – and that is online performance support. This solves the problem of not being able to remember everything whether it’s a process or a few mouse clicks to get something done.
I’ve always dabbled in performance support as I’ve defined my role as enabling and developing performance, rather than delivering training. I started by simply putting sales materials on the new Intranet I lobbied for because I could see that if we could get people using the Intranet to get their day to day business information, it wouldn’t be long before we could use it to support and eventually deliver learning. This of course became known as eLearning. Who knew?
If we jump forward a few years to 2001 when I moved over here to lead eLearning for Unilever globally, one of my first tasks was to advise a group looking to train 28,000 people across Europe on SAP. I was encouraged that they had a well thought out plan that was focused on the change management needed to get people to work differently in new work processes, and that the software was actually just an enabler. They designed performance support into the application so you could always look up where you were in the process and how to compete the transaction. They used shortened classroom time to help people understand the change and to learn how to use the online help. This was an award winning project – DACG won the Gold award in 2002 for it, but to us, it just seemed like the only way to do it and I don’t think any of us went to the award banquet. In hindsight, maybe we should have. Champagne is a good thing. So is sharing what works.
These days, I’m doing what I can to keep up with the rapid technological change that we find ourselves in. I track what’s happening in the consumer worlds where all of us live and play because that’s where we find stuff that people want, that will help our organisations. How do you keep up with developments? I think that once you master the fundamentals of great training, training management and get the infrastructure right, to remain a master Jedi you’ve got to keep an eye on what’s next that will make a difference. Fortunately, nowadays many of the really innovative things don’t cost much.
A great example of this is last year’s hot topic – podcasting. For those of you that just arrived to this planet, Podcasting is simply distributing audio or video clips over the internet to people that choose to subscribe to them so they get constant updates for free. The Christmas gift to have in 2004 was an iPod. It still is because now they come with video. There are millions of these .mp3 players out there and now, not only can you play .mp3 on your phone like this one, but you can actually subscribe and get them on the run over wifi or phone network. So people have the devices and they’re listening to podcasts, some of which could even be educational I suppose, now we have companies saying, hey, the cost of these are less than the round trip taxi to the airport. I could put all of the lectures on them. And companies are starting to do this, with some even supplying thousands of them. I started listening to a few myself, and practiced making a few. I sucked. A few companies asked me to run workshops on how to create & implement them and I started to do public workshops which were fun – I was finally back in the classroom doing what I love – teaching technology. Now I think people are figuring it out on their own which is great. I’m on to the next big thing – or the next few big things.
So what are the next big things? We’re in the midst of a revolution on the web (and on mobiles but we’ll get to that tomorrow). This revolution has a name, Web 2.0, and it is the transition from a read only web where you just access information to a read-write web where we can all contribute whether for personal interests, learning or work. These tools are talked about a lot now, especially in context for how they support informal learning. Tools like blogs, wikis, podcasts, social networking, and social bookmarking and news sites. As Technorati, the epicenter of the Blogosphere says, there are 60 million blogs, some of them must be good. Blogging is good for you. It help keep you on your toes for what’s happening and looking to blog it which I think helps clarify your thinking. Commenting on other’s blogs builds community and can help you find people that are smarter than you are. Or at least more knowledgeable.
Social networking sites such as Facebook are hotter than ever right now. It’s as if the UK has taken over Facebook in terms of buzz. I created an account in both Facebook and Myspace – each of these has 25 and 100 million users respectively. A few people I didn’t know in the far east asked to be my friends in Myspace just after I registered. I felt bad for saying no. But seeing that they had hundreds of friends already, I didn’t worry too much. Meanwhile, one business contact and friend after another keeps adding me as a friend in Facebook and I’m finding it kind of fun. I was doing a piece of research on social media for a client and came across a quote from a marketing director about my age, from his daughter who was 15. she says “All of my friends but 2 are on Facebook and I have 100’s of friends. I only use email to communicate with old people, like you.” For those of you that have kids, you probably notice that they are constantly using Instant Message and now social networking sites to communicate with each other. It isn’t just the teens though. I met some friends a few days ago for dinner, one of the three was a passionate Facebook user who says all of her friends but one (and she’s working on that one) are on facebook and that she only uses email for the few people she interacts with not on it. She’s 26. The business colleagues I’m networked with are older. There’s something to this – a new way of communicating that I think we can tap into. I’m just not sure how yet. There is a growing chorus of “what are we going to do when the youth of today who are used to interacting and learning in entirely new ways come into the workplace? Well, they’re here. And they are going to stay where they feel like they can contribute and work at a pace they’re used to.
I think the other frontier is tapping into games, game technologies and virtual worlds as the immersion is incredible and is providing new opportunities. When was the last time you felt an emotion when doing online learning? Ok, maybe anger, frustration, boredom to take a few cheap shots. But what about laughing out loud? Feeling nervous, on the edge, exploring, not knowing what would happen next? Virtual worlds are so immersive you find yourself transported to another place and you’re very focused on your experience vs the distractions around you.
I first heard about 3d virtual worlds in 2002 from Elliott Masie who reported on them from the big consumer electronics show and suggested they might have some learning potential. I tried to sign up for the beta, but they would never give me a password. I really wanted to try it though. I remembered seeing news articles saying they were hoping to attract women online because if they are there in the online community, then men will follow. The reverse is of course not necessarily true. So, I signed up as Ron-da and got an account immediately. As I signed on I had to choose, be a woman avatar or a man. I was worried that if I selected man they might be on to me, but I didn’t think I could be a woman forever either. So, I chose dude, and I’ve had the account every since. My first experience was intense. I was transported to a cartoonish tropical place and somebody that looked very young and fit walked up to me and introduced herself. I didn’t realise I was wearing ‘nube’ gear – white t-shirt and khaki pants. She taught me how to change my clothes and answered my questions about how to get one of those cool hoverboards. She loaned me hers, I thought that was pretty cool. We joked around a bit and added each other as friends to find each other again. In those few minutes I felt nervous, excited, glad, happy, and a sense of accomplishment once I mastered the hoverboard. I’ll talk more about some of the applications of virtual worlds beyond hoverboards tomorrow.
On the gaming front, how many of you consider yourselves gamers? How many think video games have some potential for corporate training? Well, a lot of people do, too. It’s one thing to read about why people play games and increasingly choose do so over tv, and a lot of other activities including for me, sleep. It’s quite another to actually find a game that you can’t put down and experience it for yourself.
I had heard about Half Life, one of the top selling, most award winning games for some time before finally buying it to try it for myself. Then of course, I had to play Half Life 2, the sequel, which rocked. The game play is that you’re Gordon, there’s been a catastrophic accident that threatens earth and you guessed it, it’s up to you to save everybody. You have to blast your way through tunnels and buildings and you find yourself facing scary zombies in the dark which munch your brain with this horrible crunch crunch sound. It’s awful! I couldn’t put it down. Why?? The theorists will say it’s a concept called flow – when you feel like you’re succeeding just past your capabilities. How do we tap into that, without the zombies??
We have a lot to learn. You’re in the right place. You have some world class speakers here, great sessions and each other to learn from. Of course, the learning doesn’t stop here, and while it doesn’t have to include zombies, I encourage you to try a few new things to find what will add value for you and your organisations.
Thank you for listening.
Posted by Ron Edwards at 10:02 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
April 19, 2007
Seriously Mobile Summit 20 April Live Webcast Link
Hi! We will be broadcasting our Seriously Mobile Summit live from Reuters in London on 20 April.
Here are the links for the Webcast and the 3G streaming video for mobile phones link:
Webcast (Real or Windows Media, click on "Live Broadcast in player (not archived content from last year).
Mobile Phone (Real Format only this time (should work with Nokia and many other phones), link will be added tonight)
The agenda is below. You can ask questions and leave comments using Twitter. (send messages to my Twitter account RonEdwards) We'll get to them when we can! Try to add yourself as my friend, your comments should be listed below this agenda.
The Mobile Internet: Working in Real Time
20 April 2007, 9.30-16.30, Hosted by Reuters @ Canary Wharf, London
Format:
Supporting Mobile Workforce Capability
The Seriously Mobile Summit offers presentations and discussions with thought leaders from an eminent range of commercial, academic and independent organizations. Which business and cultural drivers are requiring new approaches?
Why is traditional event-driven training no longer meeting needs?
How are readily available new technologies including Networked 3D Simulation Environments, Mobile Learning & Performance Support on platforms such as BlackBerrys, PDAs, iPods and Smart Phones making a real difference as part of the blend of informal and formal learning approaches?
Creativity is no longer about which companies have the most visionary executives, but which have the most compelling architecture of participation. That is, which companies make it easy, interesting and rewarding for a wide range of contributors to offer ideas, solve problems and improve products - Tim O’Reilly, O’Reilly MediaAgenda 9:30-10:00 Tom Glocer, CEO, Reuters Charles Jennings, Global Head of Learning, Reuters 'Mobile Learning, Getting Serious About the Potential' Nigel Paine, Conference Chair Opening Remarks
10:00-10:45 Fabrizio Cardinali, CEO, Giunti Labs. 'Towards Personalized Ambient Learning'
10:45-11:10 Break
11:10-11:40 Kristina Nyzell, Director, Working Play Playing Work 'From Playing Work to Working Play… New Work(ing) Models in a Seriously Mobile World'
11:40-12:30 Jay Cross, Founder and Chief Scientist, Internet Time Group 'Free Range
Learners in the Ubiquitous Chicken Yard'
12:30-1:30 LUNCH (view Nigel Paine talking about Podcasting, Wikis and Blogs at the BBC here while you wait)
1:30-2:00 Case Study: Paul Landers, Strategic Product Manager, Ericsson Learning Consultancy Services 'Taking Learning Mobile'
2:00-2:30 Case Study: Hanif Sazen, CEO, Saffron Interactive 'Learning on the Move'
2:30-3:00 Technology Showcases: Datmedia Mobile IPTV & Me2B Next Generation Mobile Hardware
3:00-3:15 TEA
3:15-3:35 Case Study: Lizbeth Goodman, Director, SMARTlab Digital Media Institute and Magic Gamelab at UEL 'Lost & Found > A system to track missing and exploited children (and adults) using mobile technology'
3:35-4:00 Case Study: Claus Nehmzow, Partner, PA Consulting 'Virtual World Applications'
4:00-4:20 New Technology Implementation Panel with Leading Experts including Mark Oehlert, Booz Allen Hamilton, Brent Shlenker, Hospice of the Valley and David Metcalf, PhD, University of Central Florida
4:20-4:30 Closing Remarks: Ron Edwards & Nigel Paine
Posted by Ron Edwards at 03:18 PM | Comments (2) | TrackBack
April 10, 2007
Serious Games & Virtual World Chat Tonight + Community
I'll be chatting tonight with up to 400 community members about virtual worlds and serious game applications.
You can join us at 8pm London time, 3pm EST in Second Life and a SkypeCast, or check out the rest of the three week seminar here: http://scope.lidc.sfu.ca/mod/forum/view.php?id=428
Posted by Ron Edwards at 07:07 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
January 16, 2007
Location Based Learning Games and Serious Virtual Worlds
We're mobile tomorrow with Celine delivering a speech at the University of Bristol on The Value of Location Based Games for Learning where she will be highlighting her Dockers Dilemma game and research (she blogs here) and Dick and I will be in Coventry discussing the new Serious Games Institute and we will be attending a demo on a cool tool that can map indoor facilities using lasers and create 3D models out of them. This gives us some great application ideas for handheld walkthroughs with some advanced handheld 3D gear we are working with and also for integration with Forterra Systems OLIVE Virtual World platform for more realistic, faster importing of buildings for training purposes (fire, security, safety, etc.).
Speaking of Serious Virtual Worlds, Dick has started to blog here.
Posted by Ron Edwards at 09:42 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
October 20, 2006
Games - Great Blogs, User Generated Content Resources
I've discovered a few new games related blogs really interesting, insightful and thorough. Try: Wonderland, written by Alice Taylor, a BBC VP researching games and entertainment and Cross Gamer by a Dan Roy, an MIT grad student exploring the intersection of my two passions - mobile and virtual worlds.
The Game Tycoon blog is written by Microsoft Worldwide Games Portfolio Planner for Xbox Live David Edery, has a section tagged User Generated Content I recommend with a great post here of reasons it's a valuable approach with links to examples ot support it.
Speaking of Xbox live, I met Aaron Fothergill, MD of game developers Strange Flavour a few weeks ago at the London Games Festival where he was showcasing his just released free game on Xbox Live which uses the new Xbox Live Vision Cam as input to play the game. He had all of us jumping around together to try and roll the totem in the game. Great room energizer. I'd like to try that sometime in the middle of a speech or workshop! The game is Totemball, here's an overview. A video of game play will be available soon.
The ancient Ptolmec tribe were a musical people who invented many things in their time. Unfortunately, due to accidentally inventing gunpowder and the barbeque at the same time, all of their musical totems have been scattered through the jungle!Pterry the Pturtle has been challenged with rolling around to retrieve the lost totems and bring the music to the party. Using your Xbox Live Vision camera, control Pterry by moving your arms. As you roll over mountains, islands, rope bridges, and giant pinball games, you help Pterry pick up musical totems, creating your own “totem” beat.
Great to see new forms of game play!
Here's a grainy video of the group trying to play together.
Posted by Ron Edwards at 05:46 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
October 11, 2006
G Man Sings the Blues
I've seen more interest lately in the UK for Machinima, which is using video games to create videos. The Red vs. Blue (based on Halo, in it's 5th season with an estimated 1 million viewers, 1500 comments on last week's episode alone!) creators were at the Edinburgh festival and last week's London Games Festival had a few screenings although the ones I saw at the Dana Centre which were supposed to be highlights were simply game play videos set to related music - not near as creative as getting the game characters to act out what you want with voice overs. My favourite has been The Strangerhood, based on The Sims.
I found this video on You Tube. It's a music video created by using scenes in Half Life 2 and a mod to get the G Man to sing a power ballad! It cracks me up (it's a little out of character for him). Apparently this video has been played on MTV as well. Great example of games being platforms for creativity beyond the initial development for anyone.
If you liked that, you'll love A Few Good G Men, based on the film of a similar name with the voices of Cruise and Nicholson.
Speaking of Half Life 2, has anyone noticed that this building in Manchester looks like the Citadel?
Posted by Ron Edwards at 12:44 AM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
August 30, 2006
Will Wright Talk on the Future of Gaming (and Learning!)
I attended a talk last night by Will Wright, creator of The Sims and Spore. I was encouraged by and in agreement with his comments about the challenges of motivating kids to learn and the value of tapping their natural creativity to let them build their own games, characters and stories with enabling tools, and tapping into this energy to eventually address world problems from the environment to poverty in Africa. I asked him after his talk "What will it take to have a game addressing a social cause become commercially successful". He was very quick to say "Great design"!.
I thought of 100 questions I could of or should have asked, but there you go folks, that was the one I squeeked in.
I'd love to have had more time! Will is cool. Inspiring.
Posted by Ron Edwards at 09:57 PM | Comments (2) | TrackBack
August 10, 2006
Dockers Dilemma Location Based Game Update
There has been a lot of interest in Celine Llewellyn-Jones location based learning game Dockers Dilemma. The The game is nearing completion with the voice over recordings going well. It should be ready to play at the Museum in Docklands soon. You can listen a brief interview she did on it here from her blog which is focussed on location based learning and games.
Posted by Ron Edwards at 10:36 AM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
July 06, 2006
My Games for Learning Presentation @ ELN 7 July
I'm kicking off the eLearning Network conference 'What Can We Take From Games and Simulations tomorrow with the following presentation, I hope to see you there!
Considering Adding Games to Your Learning Mix?
Video games have permeated our culture and are capturing more eyeball time than other media for many of the people we’re trying to reach. This presentation is based on recent experience and research and will explore:
• What is it that motivates people of all ages to play games? How pervasive are they?
• What can we learn from them and apply to our learning and change initiatives to increase reach, fun and effectiveness?
• What are viral games and what role might they have in corporate training?
• What are the challenges of using games in organisations and where should they not be used?
Posted by Ron Edwards at 08:58 AM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
May 10, 2006
Microsoft Live Anywhere - Gaming Across Platforms Launched & Why You Should Care
Today Bill Gates visited E3 for the first time to launch a new service called Live Anywhere which will enable game play across Xbox, Windows Vista and mobile phones. This scenario was described at last year's Game Developer Conference that got me excited thinking how great it would be not only be able to play the same game with the same characters on the move, but to also be able to chat about the games across platforms as well. This highlights a few trends we've been discussing recently; games being a significant part of our culture (and at $30 billion, our economy), mobile gaming is growing in popularity across gender and age groups, instant messaging across platforms is becoming an expected way of communicating and collaborating, and networked game play is rapidly growing (Xbox live will double from 3 million to 6 million players in one year). The implications for learning are significant when you consider how our expectations of collaborating and accessing what we want (anytime, anywhere, any device) will continue to shift as enabling technology makes it easier and sticky games make it fun!
Posted by Ron Edwards at 08:34 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
April 26, 2006
Catch the Cliptomaniac Game Launch
The British Council in Romania have launched their game designed to draw visitors to their site to learn about their services and follow through with visits to their centre which the game is modelled on. It has great graphics and a fun feel to it and shows what can be done for a small budget. It was a great project to advise on as the project leader became more enthusiastic when challenged to make it more fun. Have a look here.
Posted by Ron Edwards at 12:21 PM | Comments (3) | TrackBack
December 19, 2005
Museums and schools are adapting, now libraries are considering it... what's next? Corporations?
This is an easy time of the year to see just how pervasive gaming has become with all of the advertising, press and hype running through the holiday season. It is indeed part of our culture. Other indications of gaming culture include incororation into our learning institutions such as museums (many are very innovative adopters of emerging media and a few have recently explored location based gaming), education - just take a look at the exhibitors at the upcoming BETT conference in London in January (search on keyword 'games' - 27,000 educators expected to visit with dozens of game creation tools and educational game releaseson hand where there were only a few just two years ago, and in libraries, long thought of as bastions of quiet consumption of content now exploring incorporating games to adapt to our changing culture:
A conference was recently held in Chicago titled 'Gaming, Learning and Libraries' to explore how libraries could and should adapt to gaming culture.
Brandon Breyer wrote about it in Gamasutra here where you can find this presentation summary of Constance Steinkuehler, an assistant professor at University of Wisconsin who has been studying massively multiplayer online role playing games and makes a few great points on gaming as a learning environment and an example of 'participatory consumption'
'...She also took care to discuss gaming as an intellectually rich environment, where young players with no classical training in education were utilizing sophisticated techniques: joint participation, scaffolding and sequencing of activities, repeated opportunites for practice and feedback to apprentice newer players not only in technical in-game practices, but full enculturation into the ethos of the game world.Steinkuehler urged libraries to care about gaming for precisely these reasons, that their environments were sites for wide array of literary and educational practices, and that through fan fiction and game modding, they represented a cultural shift toward participatory consumption, where gamers were 'not reading, but rewriting the book.'
Which institutions will be next to adapt to our gaming culture and the capabilities for learning today and tomorrow? Corporations proud of their reputation or aspiration to be 'learning organizations'? Organizations wanting to accelerate speed to competence in their new hires? Companies that see gaming as a communication medium seeking to reach their people in new ways that work and stick? Non-profit social cause organizations trying new educational methods for better results? We're already starting to see examples of these...
Posted by Ron Edwards at 08:24 PM | Comments (0)
December 05, 2005
The Movies Game - First Educational Film?
I just came across this on Water Cooler Games, a posting (excerpt below) describing how a new video game called The Movies in which you play as a Hollywood movie studio executive with the ability to actually create movies and distribute them has been used to produce a film on the recent riots in France.
"I learned this morning about The French Democracy, a machinima film created with The Movies. The film deals with the recent riots in Paris' suburbs and seems to have been created by a French player. While some details are questionable (cops don't ask for passports but for I.D.'s) the film is a quite powerful example of the potential of The Movies. When The Sims was launched, some players started creating social commentary photo albums in order to tell stories of abuse. Technically, the quality of these videos is impressive"
When I first heard of this game in PC Zone several months ago, I suggested it could/would be used to produce inexpensive educational films and here's the first example I've found. It's consistent with Will Wright's (creator of The Sims) view that people creating their own content is very powerful and is the next trend in game creation (you can hear him discuss the "future of game content" from the Game Developers Conference here (you may have to register for free to access).
Posted by Ron Edwards at 10:13 AM | Comments (0)
September 01, 2005
PSP Launch Today!
Today is the long awaited UK launch of the Sony Playstation Portable (PSP), a beautiful, powerful, WiFi enabled gaming/music/photos and movie device. You can catch reviews of it everywhere, including the BBC here and the Guardian here. (There is a nice comparison on the BBC site of 6 handheld gaming devices here). Note the references to how difficult it is to view your own video and the lack of messaging capability on the PSP which in addition to the proprietary development platform inhibit off the shelf use for learning. A more promising device for learning is the Gizmondo, recently launched in the UK and the US, this handheld device also has some 30 titles but also includes GPS for outdoor location based gaming and a GPRS data card enabling network play and messaging. Another handheld device I'm tracking is the Nokia 770 mini-tablet - a Wifi enabled handheld with a browser which will play Flash, thus enabling low cost learning games development.
How might mobile gaming be used in a learning context in the near future?
While much of the discussion at the mobile games conferences I referred to yesterday have focussed on technical capabilities of 3D and multiplayer networked play as usual, there were a few mentions of important developments in location based and multi-platform networked gaming where you interact with your game world and fellow gamers across platforms from mobile to console to pc. Some of this is referenced on the Guardian games blog here by Kieth Stewart who attended the full day.
Location based gaming/learning gives you the ability to have context sensitive content (information based on where you are and what you are looking at) delivered into your hands, eyes and ears. I envision a few "channels" available for wherever you are from history to politics to "how does this work" to entertainment to yes, even the most cited and boring application, the location of nearby retail services. It's great to see more experimentation in this space as I also agree that it will become prevalent and invaluable. Multi-platform networked gaming is important because it connects people independent of device which is key to collaborative learning across distance. This would also enable the type of tracking important to many learning organizations - just as you would "accessorize" your Sim on your mobile device with skills, tools, etc. by trading with a friend you just bumped into (or found online), and play further when you got home on your PC - the same process could occur for accessing context sensitive knowledge objects (and people!).
Posted by Ron Edwards at 09:19 AM | Comments (0)
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)