Derek's Blog

I've just been taking a look at PowerUp, a free, 3D virtual world launched a few days ago by IBM. The game is aimed at educating teenagers about alternative energy sources and environmental conservation. It's really quite engaging, and makes great use of a 3D games environment that merges the appeal of fantasy virtual worlds with the educational goal of building wind and watermills to save the world. Playing the game, students work together in teams to investigate the rich, 3D game environment and learn about the environmental disasters that threaten the game world and its inhabitants.

Players meet Expert Engineer characters and experience the great diversity of the field. Conversations with these experts and engaging interactive activities allow players to explore ways engineers design and build systems to harness renewable energy sources as alternatives to burning fossil fuels. Players take on the role of Engineers, working together designing and building energy solutions to save the world.

Despite the strong use of the gaming environment, Powerup has definitely been created with an educational intent - it comes with notes for parents and teachers, including a list of lesson plans, and also has a strong emphasis on internet safety. There is no requirement for users to input personal details that may let them be identified. In addition, PowerUp players use a phrase-based chat system to communicate with each other. There is no blank field into which another player can type a message and send it to the user, rather, throughout the game players can choose from a contextualized list of messages to send to other players. The list has been created by the game designers and includes only phrases that are necessary for cooperation and positive reinforcement between players.

Unfortunately for me it's only available for PC - no Mac version available (yet?). Take a look at the intro video below for more...

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I spent last week in Auckland interviewing teachers and students who have been a part of a pilot project using Mission Maker - a computer games authoring package from Immersive Education in the UK. During the interviews I had several conversations about the perceived value of games and gaming in education - all of which came back into focus when I read the following:

Games, for learners, are an invitation to interaction. Unfortunately, most classroom-based learning is not.

If you're thinking that maybe you should hide the video game controller from your kids because they're spending too much time in front of the TV or computer, don't. What you think is slacking may just be preparing them to become productive members of the workforce when they get older. Their future offices are likely to be heavily digital???especially if they work remotely???and their work may resemble the online games that many now spend hours playing.

All of this reminded me of the recent announcement about the trialing of the New Zealand's first remote-controlled da Vinci surgery robot at Mercy-Ascot Hospital in Auckland. This state of the art piece of equipment allows surgeons to perform their surgery remotely, using a console that looks more like a computer game station. I heard a comment recently that the successful use of this equipment requires the same sorts of skills that are required for games playing - fine motor control, 3D spacial awareness etc, suggesting that games playing may well be a desired pre-requisite in the search for surgeons who will use the da Vinci robot!

For an in-depth explanation of the da Vinci surgery robot you might be interested to listen to a Radio New Zealand podcast from Louise Wallace interviewing Chris Hawke, one of two local doctors trained in its use.

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Just received an email from my electricity supplier in Christchurch - telling me of an educational website they are sponsoring called ElectroCity. It's worth checking out - reminds me a lot of the SimCity projects that I used to run with kids at school - dividing into groups to see who could create the most successful city, and using the experience to discuss issues such as taxes, transport, recreation, governance etc - and coming to understand the issues involved in designing and maintaining a city.

ElectroCity is very similar, although its focus is on teaching about about energy, sustainability and environmental management in New Zealand. I worked my way through the very well constructed tutorial an can see real potential in this being used as a virtual learning experience in the classroom.

There's a resource area for teachers, a very helpful FAQ area, and some pretty impressive prizes being offered in two categories, one for schools and one for public contributions.

The game is designed to be played online - but something I found to be of interest is that there is an option to download a limited version of the game that runs on any computer and doesn't need internet access, with two versions available, one for MacOSX and one for WindowsXP. (I haven't had the chance to try these yet, so can't vouch for what they're like).

If I was back in a class again I'd certainly be looking at this as a useful learning resource - some notes from the website explain why:

ElectroCity is not a win or lose game. There are lots of different ways to play and you can set your class specific objectives. For example, if you wish to try a green approach, a win might be considered any city with 50,000 people and an A rating in the environment category. Or you might focus on economics and get the kids to go for the most money.

ElectroCity is designed to be flexible, so you can use it as you wish. A whole module that deals with energy, the environment, tourism and growth could be centred around the game, mixing formal lessons with fun interactive game play. You could return to the game again and again over several weeks and compare how the kids played at the beginning with how they play at the end, putting their new knowledge into practical use and getting the kids to assess what they've learnt to help them make better decisions in the game.

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Last year sometime I wrote about an application from called Alice which I considered to be a useful way of introducing students to the object oriented games development environment. This morning I came across Scratch, from MIT which provides a similar sort of "drag and drop" creative environment - with some extra features that really appeal to me. The website explains:

Scratch is a new programming language that makes it easy to create your own interactive stories, animations, games, music, and art -- and share your creations on the web.

Scratch is designed to help young people (ages 8 and up) develop 21st century learning skills. As they create Scratch projects, young people learn important mathematical and computational ideas, while also gaining a deeper understanding of the process of design.

I accessed the free download and managed to get some animations up and running fairly quickly. For those keen to develop further, there are several tutorials available, plus loads of examples of projects created by others that you can view and unpack to see how they've created them.

The developers say that Scratch has been develped with educators in mind, and provide loads of information and resources on their education page to help you understand this.

It's remarkably easy to set up your own account, and create an online space to be able to upload your animations etc into your own gallery for sharing with others. I'd be interested in seeing examples of Scratch being used by students!

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When I was teaching I found the use of simulation activities among the most effective ways of engaging students in their learning. In those days I relied on activities that involved lots of paper, and instructions in envelopes etc. Nowadays you can find some really great simulation activities online - such as the simulation games created by World Vision , and available free for teachers and students.

There are five excellent activities listed on the WV simulation games page - I've registered and had a dabble with Eliminate - Child labour (experiencing life as a social worker with the goal to eliminate child labour in a community) , and with Frontline (Set in a conflict zone, teams face decisions that save lives and assist those impacted by conflict.)

I'm really impressed with the quality of these activities - both in terms of the way the activities themselves are devised and structured, and in terms of the interface. There's quite a bit of reading involved - but hey, in a classroom group situation that becomes part of the activitiy, reading together to decode the instructions etc. Those looking for a Play Station or X-Box experience will be disappointed - but let them. These simulations are engaging in different ways. They're especially useful for developing critical thinking, and exploring ideas and concepts at a deeper level than a superficial read of a magazine or text book article - especially when engaged in as a part of a classroom group activity. Like all good simulations - they're intended to teach not through the imparting of lots of information, but through the understandings developed through the process of participation, problem solving and decision making.

Well done World Vision for making these available for use on our classrooms - from the comments boxes on the web page it would appear that there are many people making good use of them and finding value in using them.

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Here's a cool video clip that I came across on Google Video today. The topic is video games in education - it's 23 minutes long, and is produced by the Orange County District Office of Education in the US. It provides a pretty good overview for educators who haven't been exposed to thinking about the use of video games in education, or for those who want to understand more about the potential for learning of these games. There are some useful comments in the video by acknowledged experts in the field, including Dr James Gee and Dr Henry Jenkins, Clarke Aldridge & others.

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We've added a new logo on the right hand side of the CORE website -titled CORE's Ten Trends for 2007

Clicking on this logo will take you to a list of ten trends that we've identified as being particularly important in 2007. The aim is to create some dialogue around some of the things that are happening in the NZ context regarding the use of ICT in education. The emphasis is on looking at the bigger picture, rather than the things absorb our time every day at the "coal face".

I will be using these ten trends as the focus of my Spotlight at the Learning@School conference this week, and would love to see plenty of contributions being made in the comments section at the end of each "Trend".

Each month or so the CORE staff are going to expand one of the themes with further links and references to prompt a deeper level of participation and discussion. We're sure to have missed some that people think are important, or included some that others think aren't - all of which should make the discussion fuller and richer!

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Following up on the discussions that have been taking place around NZ after Lisa Galareau's keynote at the ULearn conference, here's an interesting report from FutureLab titled Teaching with Games. it's the result of a one-year project supported by Electronic Arts, Microsoft, Take-Two and ISFE.

The study was designed to offer a broad overview of teachers' and students' use of and attitudes towards commercial off-the-shelf (COTS) computer games in schools. It's aims were to:

1. identify the factors that would impact the use of these entertainment games in school

2. describe the processes by which teachers plan and implement games-based learning in existing curricular contexts

3. provide recommendations for future games-based learning approaches in schools for teachers, developers and policy makers.

Of the key findings from the project, a couple that caught my eye were:

• Using games in a meaningful way within lessons depended far more on the effective use of existing teaching skills than it did on the development of any new, game-related skills. Far from being sidelined, teachers were required to take a central role in scaffolding and supporting students' learning through games.

• Where previous studies have suggested that games need to offer a fully accurate underlying model to be of benefit for formal education, this study suggests that for the game to be of benefit to teachers, it need only be accurate to a certain degree: there may be wider inaccuracies within the game model, but these do not necessarily preclude the game from being used meaningfully in a lesson.

(Note: Lisa Galarneau's talk at ULearn is available here - requires registration)

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Lisa Galarneau's presentation at the ULearn conference has certainly stirred up a lot of conversation about gaming in education - ranging from those who are inspired and enthusiastic to those who don't see any place for computer games in the classroom. A lot of this is fuelled, of course, bu the sort of statement that was made in the TV3 news item about Lisa's talk where the intro claimed that "games may be the future of education".

Such extravagant claims are, or course, intended to stir imaginations and evoke response - all of which is constructive as we seek to address questions about the future of schooling in a digital and networked age. I have three children still at school, and while I would not like to think that their future will consist of sitting all day, every day in front of a computer games console, I am continually intrigued by the ways in which their engagement with digital technologies and participation in the online world is contributing significantly to their disposition as learners - both in terms of how they learn and what they learn - as well as with whom they learn.

In response to what I see as an undercurrent of negativity and ultra-conservatism among some at this conference, I thought I'd record why I am a supporter of the use (and ongoing research into use) of games, gaming and game development in education. Here are my three main reasons:

1. Games are engaging - there is little doubt that games engage learners. As educators we are all interested in making learning engaging, relevant, delightful etc. There is much to learn from the whole area of games development that might inform the nature of learning activity that occurs in classrooms in the future. We need researchers like Lisa and others to lead us in this thinking - and we need to be engaging in conversations about how this can inform the nature of what happens in our schools and classrooms.

2. Games can effectively mediate experiences and events we've long recognised the advantages of direct, purposeful experiences in educaiton - theorists such as John Dewey and Edgar Dale have provided excellent frameworks to support this. There are some really useful initiatives going on at present to explore how the exisiting gaming engines may be used to provide pedagogically sound, educationally-oriented experiences for learners. Second life is a good example of an open, simulated environment that is being used by some educators, while simulations such as Darfur is Dying provide a more focused experience based on specified learning outcomes.

3. Game development is effective for teaching important skills - Games in education needn't be focused only on playing games. I believe there is a lot to be gained from providing students with the tools and abilities to create, construct and contribute to their own games. Using such tools students have the opportunity to develop and use skills that are going to be in demand in a digital world - including programming skills, graphical and design skills, collaborative skills etc. There is an increasing focus on the development of games that can be modified by the user (MODs) which fits this category also.

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Have just been playing with Alice again at the Picton conference, preparing for a workshop with some teachers. There's a great little feature in the program that allows you to save the file as a website.

Here's a link to a nifty little "Penguins Game" that was created by Phillip Carroll, the 10 year old son of Greg Carroll, one of my colleagues at CORE. It's impressive how the whole thing works together - although the instructions at the beginning of the animation haven't embedded in this example, so to have some fun with it when it comes up on screen, you'll need to try pressing the following keys to see what happens:
P and Q move the penguin's heads.
L and A make them bob up and down
Space bar ends the game.

Well done Phillip - not bad for just 45mins introduction to the program!

Posted by Derek Wenmoth at 11:32 AM | Permalink | Comments (2) | TrackBacks (0)

When I visited Wellington last weekend I had my 9 year old son with me. We were fortunate enough to be in the right place at the right time to experience flying a 737 aircraft from within a fully decked out flight simulator. Watching my son so quickly adapt to using the controls as he listened to the flight instructor reminded me of just what a powerful learning experience such simulations are. One thing that impressed me a lot was the quality of the computer generated graphics that we were viewing through the cockpit window - all based on actual geographical data of the Wellington airport and environs.

I couldn't help but think of that experience tonight when I read of a Los Angeles company that has developed software that renders the exact physics and topology of the moon in a 3D game, letting players drive the lunar surface, gaze at the galaxy or study objects that were left by NASA astronauts on real missions.

I was in my first year at high school when the first moon landing occurred - and 1300 of us were crowded into the assembly hall to listen to the radio broadcast of the event through a single speaker! How things have changed - read what this company have developed:

Virtue Arts, a Los Angeles-based software developer, has used NASA data on the topology and physics of the moon to build a 3D application that lets kids and adults explore the lunar surface. The software, called Lunar Explorer, works with standard PCs and lets users gaze at the galaxy, walk around the surface of the moon, and study rocks that are actually there. Lunar Explorer will be released this month and will cost $39.95.

Virtue Arts' Lunar Explorer software also depicts objects that were left by NASA astronauts on real missions from the '80s and '90s, thanks to data from the space agency. Point a cursor over an object like the satellite shown here, and the software will educate users on how and when it got there.

Virtue Arts, through its content company VirtuePlay, also has created a lunar buggy game, called Lunar Racing Championship, which is expected to be released next June. The buggy is much like a spacecraft, according to Virtue Arts' chief technology officer, because it must work within the physics of the moon to operate. It has rocket boosters and a reaction control system, which is typically found on spacecraft, to stabilize itself in the event of spinning out of control.

Lunar Racing Championship, which will sell for $49.95 next June, is a networked application so that two kids can race each other from two different PCs. The application can run on a standard consumer-grade PC with a graphics accelerator.

News item courtesy of CNet News.com

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I appreciated a comment by TIm Price-Walker to my recent post about Alice, an interactive, 3D games programming application. Tim pointed me to
MissionMaker, developed out of a partnership between Immersive Education and the University of London (Knowledgelab) 'MissionMaker' is a prototype exploring how student game making can create learning opportunities. Currently 45 BETA trial sites are using Missionmaker in the UK and providing feedback - a release date is forecast for 2007.

I've had a brief look at this project and it looks really interesting - I'll be keen to follow its progress. The MissonMaker Blog looks like a great place to follow the progress that is being made among the 45 schools involved.

I was also interested to note that Immersive Education are also the company behind Kar2ouche, a product that I've seen used in a number of NZ schools, and was the focus of a trial in 10 NZ schools during 2005.

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Sitting at the airport clearing emails - having just flown back from Malaysia and now waiting for a plane to Samoa where I'm going to be presenting a session on blogging to a UNESCO seminar.

This, however, from eSchool News - a story about how Microsoft Corp. plans to offer a consumer version of its professional software for creating video games that run on its popular Xbox 360 console.

I'm sure there'll be all sorts of cynicism expressed about the motivation behind this release etc etc - but from my perspective this is exactly the sort of thing that we need to be looking for - enabling our students to become creators, not just consumers, and so tap into some of the rich potential that lies within them in terms of creativity, flexible thinking and innovation.

Introducing game development into our school curriculum mightn't be such a bad idea either - the skills and abilities that are developed can be applied in fields much wider than simply creating X-Box games. Just this week in Malaysia I was speaking with a business organisation that is about to undertake a significant project developing a training programme for the agriculture sector. Within this they are wanting to develop 3D simulations and role-playing applications - guess who the'll need to build them?

The Microsoft product is called XNA and In their news release about the product, Microsoft says that by joining a ???creators club??? for an annual subscription fee of $99 (U.S.), users will be able to build, test and share their games on Xbox 360?? and access a wealth of materials to help speed the game development progress. This represents the first significant opportunity for novice developers to make a console game without a significant investment in resources.

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A late night IM chat with my friend Paul Rodley led me to explore the emerging world of Activist Games. Paul is currently exploring the use of these within the teaching programme in his school - and I can see why.

Activist Games is an emerging genre of computer gaming that borrows from role-playing, strategy, and other popular genres to engage players - the difference being that, instead of focusing on providing the levels of excitement experienced in the likes of ???Madden NFL 2006,??? ???Pokemon Emerald??? and ???Gran Turismo 4,\ these games aim to educate and mobilize players around a cause such as protecting the environment, fighting genocide and tackling poverty.

One of the games Paul is currently using with his students is Darfar is Dying, which recently won an MTV award. Darfur is Dying is an online video game that puts you in the shoes of one of the 2.5 million refugees who are fighting for survival every day in Darfur. Players learn more about the challenges these refugees face and to how to take action to help stop the crisis.

Other games in this genre include

• Four Years in Haiti is about poverty-stricken children in the Caribbean country and their struggles to find the resources to go to school.
  
• "A Force More Powerful" is an ambitious $3 million game for resistance groups that want to role-play scenarios of citywide and even countrywide nonviolent demonstrations, walking through each step from marching to holding a fundraising party. (not available as an online game)
  
• "Pax Warrior" is a Canadian project that lets users try to prevent the 1990s genocide in Rwanda. Its developers say it already has 250,000 users.
  
• "Peacemaker," a strategy game that tasks players with settling the Israeli-Palestinian conflict by steering the leadership of either side.
  
• "Earthquake in Zipland," a cartoonish game that stars a moose trying to assemble a giant zipper to merge the separate islands upon which his parents are drifting apart, an extended metaphor about divorce.
  
• Food Force A downloadable game based on the scenario of a major crisis in the Indian Ocean, on the island of Sheylan. Players become members of a new team to step up the World Food Programme???s presence there and help feed millions of hungry people.
  
• "The Organizing Game," (still in prototype) which is designed to introduce concepts around social activism, prompt discussion, and allow residents to practice skills in a safe, non-threatening environment.

Posted by Derek Wenmoth at 8:37 AM | Permalink | Comments (1) | TrackBacks (0)

Funny how some things simply pass you by - I was introduced to Alice earlier this week after attending a PTA meeting at the Christchurch South Learning Centre where they use it with groups of students to introduce them to programming 3D graphics.

Alice is a 3D Authoring system, from the Stage3 Research Group at Carnegie Mellon University. It has been completely rewritten from scratch over the past few years - resulting in the most recent release of Alice 2.0

I downloaded the programme (available for Mac, PC or Linux users) last night when I got home from work. You need to allow a bit of time for the download as the file is around 1.4Mb (on my Mac version anyway).

I spent about 15 mins showing my 9 year old son some of the basics - then left him to it while I took part in an audio conference. 90 mins later I returned to find that he'd created a full animation, comprising of some seven individual characters or objects, each of which performed an animation according to the sequence he'd programmed in using the very intuitive programming instructions using a drag and drop menu.

Here's a simple screen shot of the programme showing the various components.

The list of programming instructions at the lower left of the screen can be dragged to the panel at the lower right, and the parameters set for the desired animation in the panel in the top centre - all using simple English and drop down menus.

I've only been playing with this for a day or so - but already the possibilies are exciting me. There's a great page of links to movie clips of animations in the Building Virtual Worlds area of the Alice Website that allow you to see just what can be achieved with this program.

Just a caution - once installed, the program takes a bit of time to load, so don't be impatient to start creating!

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In today's release of eSchool Online, an article titled Educators take serious look at video gaming which reports on the recent Federation of American Scientists (FAS) Summit on Video Gaming held on 25 October this year.

At the summit, attended by a diverse group including those from education, entertainment and the military, experts in pedagogy and game design began the conference by discussing specific attributes of video games that lend themselves to learning applications and went on to examine areas of knowledge and skill development to which game features could be applied.

Key points/quotes in the article that I found of interest include:

• decision environments provided in gaming are great training for all sorts of high-performance teams
  
• Though gaming provides a good medium for instruction, good instruction must transcend the game
  
• the decision-making experience will be most engaging if it takes place in a world with a strong, familiar, authentic story
  
• Educators need tools and standards to create games quickly at low cost
  

The eSchool article continues with a report on another conference titled "Be The game", held jointly by two American High Schools - McKinley High and Ballou Senior High. This was a weekend program for middle and high school students to learn game programming by creating pedagogical games for use by primary school student held earlier this month. In this part of the article there are some really useful descriptions of some of the games being used - as well as some insights into the sorts of resourcing and organisation involved in the high schools themselves.

The FAS also has a useful list of links to Games for Learning Resources on its website for further reading in this area.

See also Serious Games Summit held in Washington D.C on 31 Oct-1Nov.

Posted by Derek Wenmoth at 7:07 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

In a number of forums recently I've talked about the potential value of online gaming to the educational community, and hwo we need to be exploring ways in which we might "harness" the value of these environments for learnig.

Recently released is this research report titled Massive Multiplayer Online Gaming: A Research Framework for Military Training and Education by Curtis J. Bonk from Indiana University and Vanessa P. Dennen from Florida State University. The report reviews relative online gaming research literature and proposes 15 primary experiments pertaining to massive multiplayer online gaming (MMOG), first popularized in the entertainment world and now finding growing interest in education and training environments.

Although the report tends to focus on the Military applications, there is plenty to inform how MMOGs may be used in the wider educational context, including chapters that define wht MMOGs are, the difference between games and simulations, how technoloigy is enabling the development of more sophisticated gaming participation, and the social elements of MMOGs.

The 15 primary experiements proposed in the report cover such things as:
- game authenticity and constructivism,
- collaboration and virtual teaming in MMOGs,
- learning from mistakes and learning histories,
- learning style and game selection,
- problem solving processes nd types of knowledge
- social skills and friendship development

The report is available for public download and unlimited distribution.

Posted by Derek Wenmoth at 12:54 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

An article in today's Guardian newspaper reports that schools are being told to stop students taking time off school to revise for exams after research showed that keeping them in supervised lessons led to dramatically higher grades. It seems that computer gaming is seen as the culprit here...

The move reflects fears that a 'PlaySation generation' of boys in particular is using the traditional few weeks of home leave before their GCSEs to play computer games and hang out with friends rather than study. A third of the boys picked up in government 'truancy sweeps' claim to be on study leave

Students at specialist schools will also get 'e-mentoring' next year, with students given an email address for a teacher or sixth former available to answer questions about revision.

Posted by Derek Wenmoth at 11:30 AM | Permalink | Comments (2)

From the Institute of Education at the University of London comes an interesting story about Researchers and teachers pushing for games in schools . The group made presentations at a seminar on 26 October, as part of the current debate about media literacy, one of the remits of Ofcom , the new media watchdog in the UK. The seminar explored the questions of understanding and creation in relation to computer games, an important - as well as controversial - form of new media. The group says...

"We want to reassure anxious parents and teachers that games are a
legitimate cultural form that deserve critical analysis in schools just as
film, television and literature do. But we also want to argue that full
understanding only comes when children have the tools to create their own
games."

... to contribute towards a better understanding of the motivating pleasures of computer games, in order that their pedagogic potentials can be more effectively exploited.

Posted by Derek Wenmoth at 5:55 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Thanks to Vicki Smith who sent me this link - an interesting story about a simulation game that has been developed, based on the 1980s video game called Donkey Kong! Very topical given the recent elections in Australia - the simulation explores the relationship between Australia and East Timor, drawing attention to the Howard Government's stance on the oil fields "shared" with East Timor.
Tama Leaver's blog includes an interview with Joe Bougton-dent, the originator of Donkey John, detailing the origins of the political simulation, its inspiration, and the Joe's take on the role of political simulation games in Australia.

Posted by Derek Wenmoth at 6:54 PM | Permalink | Comments (3)

For all those interested in the potential of educational gaming, here's an opportunity to do something about it!
The Liemandt Foundation, a nonprofit family foundation focused on promoting technology-enabled education, is hosting a college student video game development contest with a twist--students are being challenged to build entertaining games that "secretly" teach middle school subjects.
The competition has just been announced on the Hidden Agenda website - with the competition closing in May next year.
There's a prize of $25,000 up for grabs, with the final judging based on 70 percent entertainment and 30 percent educational value.
The website has a great deal of information about requirements for the competition, as well as news about last time's winner.
Worth a look!

Posted by Derek Wenmoth at 10:24 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Seems like the talk about the potential for virtual reality in education has been going on forever, but the technology hasn't quite been up to it - until now it seems. I've been taking a look at the developments taking place with Sony's EyeToy for use with Playstation2 - and it seems that here we might just be seeing the emergence of a VR technology in the consumer market that realises the educational potential.

An article on the Ferrago sitereports that there are new releases of software for the EyeToy planned for release this Christmas, including new mini-games Goal Attack and Home Run that will even place the player within 3D environments. Looks promising.

In another sphere, a Toronto company, Jestertek , together with Xperiential Learning Solutions, have developed what they call their Experiential Learning Product Suite which is aimed at people with physical, mental or behavioural disabilities. A recent GlobeandMail article describes how, like Sony's EyeToy, the Experiential Learning Product Suite uses cameras to capture a person's image and project it onto a monitor or large screen, combining it in real-time with the computer-generated action.

Using cameras that capture at least 30 frames a second and hardware much more powerful than a game console, the suite can adapt to a player's physical characteristics and abilities. Sensitivity, speed and range of motion are adjustable, allowing people to control programs with tiny gestures -- from a shrug to a toe-twitch -- letting a bedridden person see what it's like to ride a horse, or someone without the use of their hands play a virtual musical instrument.
Worth a look too at the IREX site for examples of their VR rehabilitation games, offering VR acitivites specifically targetting the development of particular muscle groups with coordination exercises.

And in New Zealand there are a number of developments taking place - look for yourself on the Trade and Enterprise site for a list of them! One I am very familiar with is Mark Billinghurst and his team at HitLab . They've have done some groundbreaking work with their Magic Book project amongst other things. You can even download some sample movies of what they're up to from their site.

All in all, the future is looking brighter for educational applications of VR technologies - I say, watch this space!

Posted by Derek Wenmoth at 10:10 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Useful article in the recent edition of Educause Review - a paper by Joel Foreman titled Game-Based Learning: How to Delight and Instruct in the 21st Century. Foreman??s article is based on interviews he conduced with five leading thinkers in the field; James Paul Gee, J.C. Herz, Randy Hinrichs, Marc Prensky and Ben Sawyer. Well worth a read to gain an insight into how videogames can be used in academe.

Posted by Derek Wenmoth at 4:43 PM | Permalink | Comments (2)

My interest in educational gaming was aroused first when I attended a conference in Finland, and heard Randy Hinrichs from Microsoft's education division speak about the ways in which the gaming phenomenon needs to be harnessed for educational purposes.
one of the lists I belong to is called "Serious Gaming" and in recent postings the following links have been shared which take you to all sorts of research and discussion about educaitonal gaming.

Game Research - Attempts to bring together knowledge on computer games
from the areas of art, business, and science. Traditionally such
cross-communication has been sparse to the detriment of all involved.
http://www.game-research.com

The Center for Computer Games Research - we conduct computer game
research in game aesthetics, game design, game spaces, game worlds,
gaming cultures, and learning in games.
http://game.itu.dk

Posted by Derek Wenmoth at 11:38 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)