March 2008 Archives

A few days ago, Adfreak of all places turned me on to a story about about a few NASA employees who had turned out a somewhat provocative powerpoint presentation (at least by NASA standards).  Normally, such news would be of little interest to me (which, interestingly enough, is the entire point), but then I noticed that the title of the presentation was "Generation Y Perspective" and my ears perked up.  I'm self indulgent like that ;-)

The presentation, which you can check out here, is based around a very simple question:  Why isnt a whole generation (that being GenY) connecting to NASA?  Their answer?  NASA isnt going enough to engage a new type of information consumer.  In the end, the powerpoint calls for a new look at how NASA communicates with people and a need to engage in both "the conversation" and other activities that can help to make the mission of space exploration relevant and exciting to a whole new group of people.  Check out the presentation if you want to nitty gritty, but if you follow the Digital Native narrative, then you probably won't find anything you havent heard before.

So what then, made this presentation worth sharing?  Two main things:

• It reminded me a lot of the "A Vision of Students Today" video that came out of KState last year.  But rather than coming from an institute of higher learning, it was coming from an organization.  And whats more, it was coming from a small group of people within that organization.  While there are most certainly a multitude of forward thinking companies that are changing the way they work to cater to a new demographic of people, this is the first time I've really seen it come from the bottom up in such a grassroots way.

• The presentation does touch on one area in particular that you don't hear much about when it comes to catering to the young folk - cash money (and subsequently accountability).  Most of the time, when you hear about companies making a shift to be GenY friendly, it has to do with the workplace.  Something along the lines of "Baby Boomers are retiring and if you can't find ways to recruit a new type of worker to replace them, you will loose out on the best and brightest" the next generation has to offer".   But NASA is a government organization, sponsored by tax money.  And if support for a government program wanes, tax money can dry up.  The creators of the NASA presentation then insinuate that if you don't take the time to engage the people that write your checks, you could eventually find yourself on the street.
  

It is this second point in particular that I think resonates a lot with me being an employee of a higher educational institution and (perhaps more importantly) a former student who knows what kind of impact a mountain of college loans can have.

There are a lot of differences between a University and a government organization like NASA - but there is also a big similarity.  They both require support to function - a confidence that the service they provide is worth the money being spent on it.  For a public University like Penn State, some of that money comes from governmental funding.  But some of it also comes directly from its students - the people who pay for the opportunity to earn an education.

I get asked a lot why  I spend so much time thinking about unconventional teaching opportunities (like gaming for example), and I think this notion of the bling gets at part of my motivation.  A college education is expensive and its not getting any cheaper. And while I do not question its worth, I wonder if  students will always share my sentiment. I wonder if there will come a time where students will sit back and question whether or not  $5,000, $10,000, $20,000 a year is worth it if that education is not delivered in a meaningful way that resonates with the 18 year old mind.

Maybe that time will never come.   After all, a college education is just about essential for any long term career prospects.  And a degree achieved such significance through plenty of traditional teaching techniques - the same way that NASA and its old school information policies did just fine to land a man on the moon and a rover on Mars. 

But just because things have worked well in the past, does it mean we shouldn't continue to make efforts to improve them?  Just because learning is an intellectual pursuit with rich traditional methods, does it mean it should not be fun, or adjust to the changing nature of the student?

Because in the end, the students hold the cards.  They decide where they will go to school.  They decide what opportunities interest them.  They decide whats worth spending money on.  And they decide what means something to them. We don't have to listen to them.  But wouldnt it be in our best interests (and theirs) to do so?

Whens the last time you watched a shuttle launch? 

 





 

For quite some time now, I've kept a curious eye on Eve Online - a massive multiplayer online game set in space (several thousand star systems worth of it to be more specific).  What do you do in Eve?  Make your mark as a miner or space trader.  Sell yourself out as a hired gun to protect others or join up with a pirate group to pillage and steal.  You know... typical space stuff =) 

But what peaked my interest in Eve (in addition to that typical space stuff) is the fact that it is relatively sophisticated by MMO standards, largely in regards to its treatment of in game economics - there is even a quarterly newletter).   So I probably shouldnt have been too surprised to find that formal democracy is now also going to play a part in the game.

Eve is currently in the process if implementing what is known as "The Council Of Stellar Management (CSM)" - a democratically selected group of players, whose purpose will be to represent the player base to developer, CCP games.  CSM members are elected during a 2 week vote period, and ultimately chosen by the popular vote of members of the Eve community.  The Council (which is very odd to say) then serves out 6 months terms as the formal liaisons between the Eve player community and CCP. And, at least theoretically, one's ability to succeed as a council member would be predicated on ones ability to accurately represent the voice of whatever player constituents might have voted for them, in an effort to improve the overall game experience.  Almost like a real politician.  Almost ;-)

Just about every modern MMOG I've ever heard of runs focus groups or supports community managers (in addition to public forums) in order to solicit feedback from their player base.  But this is the first time I've ever heard of a company selecting its player spokesman Democratically. And frankly, the notion of elected in game politicians is somewhat remarkable to me on a whole host of levels. 

I'm very curious to whether or not Eve's experiment with Democracy will work, though regardless I think it will yield some very interesting lessons.  But in the spirit of this blog, this latest move only serves to reinforce my belief that using an MMOG as an educational tool could be an absolute goldmine in a huge number of areas, from sociology, to economics, to management and business, to virtual communication and team building, to political science and more.  A true virtual world built with the fun, interactive, forgiving aspects of a game, but supported and driven by real, thinking, individually motivated people.  The ultimate learning simulation.  The fact that its a game will be our little secret.

Assuming I havent totally lost you already, then you're probably wondering why do this?  I mean there are classes on political theory, classes on economics, classes on leadership and team building.  What does using an MMOG bring to the table?  I'm getting a little tired, so I'm just going to bullet list it =)

• it supports the scientifically proven* Stubsian  method of "Fun First Learning Later"  (*not necessarily scientifically proven)
  
• it simplifies the opportunities for the study and exploration of highly complex ideas (do you have any idea how hard it is to completely study a real economy?  Or democracy?)
• it allows students to practice abstract concepts through real (albeit fake - wtf?) exercises.  How do you teach students to be leaders?  How do you teach them to communicate well?  These are abstract ideas that conceptual learning can only take to a point - experientially learning is key.  Think of an MMO supported learning experience as an extension of problem based learning.  
• It allows for this experiential learning while taking advantage of one of the key strengths of games as learning tools: failure is far easier to learn from when you have a reset button
• it extends the potential.  Its very difficult to run, say, an economic system in a class of 30 people.  Or even 200 people.  Imagine if you could somehow use a world like Eve (with more than half a million people) as your playground.  Or perhaps you create an instance of a world - an academic version of Eve Online where the players are first year econ students from major universities all across the world. 
  

Of course there are some fairly obvious problems and questions involved in doing something like this - questions that Bart Pursel and I wrestled with many moons ago.  But with the added element of Democracy that Eve is trying to add, the flames have been rekindled to try and find a way to make this work.

Time to brush the dust off this idea and do some thinking.



Image from http://mmorpg.qj.net
 




 

As I've mentioned before, I've been using Twitter for probably about a year now.  I first started largely out of a compulsion to satiate the curiosity that comes with the desire to be innovative coupled with the peer pressure of working with people who are more forward thinking than I.  I would be lying if I said that I didnt think it was stupid at first, but over time the "what are you doing" battle cry took hold of me, resulting in the closet twitter addict that I am today.

Twitter, like all social networking tools, comes down to awareness.  An awareness of what people are doing - sometimes people we've never even met.  Its a conversation starter.  A glimpse into that which you would not otherwise see.  It connects people - but in a highly informal, ultra-twitch manor, filled with moderately asynchronous broken conversations and half thoughts.  Its brevity is one of its strengths, but also, in some ways, a ceiling.  After all, how much can you really say in 140 characters?  How much depth can there really be to "conversations" that can only span 2 sentences at a time?  Or so I thought...

A few hours ago a conversation began on Twitter between a few members of the Penn State twitter community.  The conversation was simple enough - some playful banter about the promotional sticker books that will play a part in this year's TLT Symposium.  There was nothing particularly unusual or memorable about it.  Just an exchange among colleagues - the kind of thing that, as a part of Twitter, happens all the time and will almost always trail off into obscurity in due time.

But this particular conversation didnt trail off.  The discussion of stickers eventually bled into Symposium Blogging shirts.  The Blogging shirts soon become requests for more types of shirts.  Shirts became coasters.  Coasters became beer steins.  Before anyone was the wiser this simple discussion of stickers had turned into 4 pages worth of a unified twittersteam - all of it accompanied by the impromptu live development of an entire catalogue of TLT Symposium gear. 

Somewhere... somehow... the conversation had ceased to be a 140 declaration of what this group of no more than 10 people were doing.  It had become an online community event - begotten of a few simple questions, a mutual interest, and the willingness of one man to turn a few stickers into a line of merchandise for nerds.  It wasnt about anything game changing.  It wasnt particularly deep or meaningful in and of itself.  But it was an event, happening live for no other reason than it could be.  An experience between people that I have a strong suspicious had, like me, stopped casually observing twitter and committed themselves to being a part of it all unfold. Thats powerful. 

I've seen or heard of twitter being used to do a lot of things.  But never in my wildest dreams did I ever imagine that it could serve the purpose it served tonight.  For a few hours, Twitter stopped asking "what are you doing", and became a place where we were sharing an experience.  Not listening to a colleague note the happenings or a conference, or a friend giving their impressions of a ballgame. Not people sharing drinks at a bar or talking in a meeting room, but rather an experience that played out in the living rooms, offices, kitchens, and cars of all the people involved.  All together and yet no where near eachother sharing in this totally unremarkable happening, together.  And all in 140 characters or less.

I've long since been a firm believer in the power and potential of the online community.  But for me, there was something special about watching last night unfold.  Something unexpected - one of those rare times when the techo junky who never says never sits back and smiles and says "I'll be damned" as he soaks it all in. 

I'm not sure what the rest of the people who took part in tonight's Twitter event thought about it.  Maybe the sense of awe I'm feeling shows that I never really got what Twitter was all about in the first place.  But regardless it was an revelation that opened the mind of someone who thought himself open minded. A reaffirmation of the power of the online community and a rethinking of what it takes to build one.  And perhaps above all, a reminder that I am privileged to do what I do with the people I do it with - even the ones I've never met.

Who knows if this post makes any sense.  But it was too mind blowing not to write.  Thanks to everyone who was a part of experience. 



 

Whenever Rockstar releases a video game, you can pretty much assume that controversy won't be far behind it.  Manhunt 2 is still making waves in the UK, and in a little more than a month the next volume in the Grand Theft Auto series will likely signify the coming of hell on earth (personally, I'm beyond excited for GTA4).  But the story of the moment involves the re release of Bully - a game first turned out in 2006 for the PS2, which has recently been ported to the Xbox 360 and the Wii.

You don't need to be a game junky to figure out what exactly Bully is about.  You play the part of Jimmy Hopkins - a young teenage boy as he gets into all sorts of shenanigans on his way toward becoming the king of fictional Bullworth academy. And with a publisher like Rockstar and a title like Bully, you can guess that good old Jimmy isnt playing paddycake to get himself where he wants to be. Of course its also not a game about  picking a fight with every single person you see either. 

When Bully was first released it saw a flurry or protests from a whole slew of people, not the least of which were parent and teacher groups who didnt feel that the game's content was appropriate or in any way beneficial to the young minds that might take up Jimmy Hopkins' quest.  The re-release has also seen an outcry against the game (albeit subdued compared to the first go), epitomized by one Emily Noble, the president of the Canadian Teacher's Associated who called for retailers to ban Bully.  A quote that sums up Noble's perspective: "What it does is it encourages kids to target other kids, to be a bully with other kids. This doesn't help us as teachers in the work that we're doing at school."  Her words are part of a line of argumentation that I've heard a lot of - what is the good in game like this?  How does Bully make the world any better off because it exists?  Whats the point in playing the role of a Bully?  Why do we want children seeing, and potentially emulating this sort of behavior? 

As I've said before, I don't have children of my own.  And I have no doubt that with the enormous responsibility that is parenthood comes a entirely new way of thinking about the world, and the things you want your own child to be exposed to.

But despite not being a parent myself, I did have a childhood of my own (one that I can only hope never ends).  I was never a Bully (at least not that I know of), nor did I incur the wrath of any school yard brutes.  And in that I was fortunate.  There were plenty of my peers who were not so lucky.  I've seen people get their lunch money taken.  I've seen people get their ass whooped for pretty much no reason at all.  I've seen the Lord of the Flies that is the public school bus.  I've seen girls make fun of the odd one out in ways that would make a grown adult cry.  I've heard names and insults that would make you shudder.  I've even seen someone get a swirly.   Yes it does exist.  And man is it nasty.   This stuff is just the tip of the iceberg.

Kids are cruel, folks.  I don't think I'm making a particularly profound statement in saying that.  Kids can be mean, brutal, hurtful, and down right awful little beings sometimes.  No I don't hate children - but I was one of them once and I, like all of you, have experienced the good the bad and the ugly.  Its a part of growing up.  Whether or not the video game Bully will inspire a wave of in school wedgie attacks is something I'm not qualified to answer (though I doubt it).  But I do know that bullies existed long before Bully was published, and they will exist long after its forgotten.

I have a big problem with Emily Noble's notion of banning the game.  Not because I am particularly fond of it (its next on my Gamefly queue) but because I think games like Bully have the potential to do the same thing that Michael Moore movies do: start the conversation.

There are no required classes for kids to take about how to handle bullies.  At least there werent when I was a child.  It is a subject that was treated with the same pragmatic thinking as abstinence sex campaigns.  If you're being bullied, tell an adult immediately.   Because that has ever worked.  No one ever teaches you how to fit into the complex world that is school.  When you're coming up, there is no such thing as "How do survive Social Darwinism" 101.  You're just supposed to figure it out.  And for some people, those are very painful lessons.  For every popular kid there is a looser.  For every top dawg, there is a bottom feeder.  It sounds like some sort of cliche stereotype out of a bad movie.  But thats how life is.  And no one tells you how to figure that out. 

I'm not going to pretend that Rockstar's aim with Bully was to usher in a new area of schoolyard understanding, or even that the life of Jimmy Hopkins was anything like my own.  But that doesnt mean that it cant be a catalyst to make people talk about the way life is, rather than the way we'd like to pretend it is.  Just because you refuse to acknowledge something, or deny exposure to it for fear of what it might do, doesnt mean you are doing anything to fix the underlying issues at hand. 

And in that I feel like there is a parallel between the way some people would choose to handle a game like Bully, and the way that race, gender, and religion have come to dominate the mainstream media in the midst of the current presidential race. Sometimes its the things we don't talk about - the things we pretend we have the answers to - that make all the difference.

Funny how that works. Or maybe the word is sad.

Ever the sucker for a feel good story (particularly feel good stories that jive so well with the themes of this blog), this one was too good not to share.  

A few days ago, the gaming blogosphere was jazzed up about some very impressive concept art for the anticipated sequel to the game Bioshock.  Concept art is normally released as the first real taste of a game's flavor (the teaser) so the presence of this particular set of artwork was not wholly unusual.  What made this art special, however, in addition to its quality, was that it had actually been created by a fan instead of the studio itself.  A student named Ben Mauro had created this concept art as part of a project for his Architecture 2 class.  He then posted it to his personal blog and it spread like wildfire.

But the story doesnt end with Ben earning some well deserved street cred.  Ripten, one of if not the first site to repost Mauro's work, said yesterday that they had been contacted by 2K Games (the publisher of Bioshock) who wanted to find a way to get in touch with Mr. Mauro to thank him for his efforts (and I would suspect potentially discuss, in some detail, his post college career plans).

There are a lot of things I like about this story.  For starters, this tale all began as a class project.  When you talk about areas where gaming can play a big role in Education, Architecture doesnt usually sit at the top of most lists.  However it is a subject very well suited to some of the benefits gaming can offer.  Ben Mauro's work was conceptual, but with the sophistication of todays game engines, modeling out a space could provide benefits that, in some cases, could outweigh the CAD industry standard, particularly when it comes to visualization.

Two:  This is a great example of a company (2k Games) harnessing the power of community rather than spurning it.  Who can say whether or not 2K will end up signing Mauro's checks one day, but the very idea that they are seeking him out for personalized praise shows a new way of thinking about business that, in my opinion, is the wave of the future.  Its also a great PR move. 

Three:  Its always nice to see talent get recognized.

Four:  Though it is far less prominent, the dark side of the internet tends to be what gets the lions share of media attention.  We don't often take the time to stop for a minute and consider just how unbelievable it is that a random college kid could post some art on his blog and within a few days have made an impact on a community of millions, to say nothing of the potential impact it could have on an enormously popular game franchise.

Five:  As I've been writing this post, the weather ourside went from miserable, gray, windy wintery hail mix to a brighter shade of almost sunny gray with patches of blue sky peaking out.  I'm not saying... I'm just saying...

If you want to see the rest of his Bioshock concept art or some of the other art he has (dude's got some skill) you can hit up his website, http://www.benmauro.blogspot.com/.



Images taken from ripten.com

Yesterday there was a bit of activity in our office surrounding Pownce, a "new" (its not that new) micro messaging tool in the vein of Twitter, but a touch more sophisticated (if I've already lost you, hit the links for the wikipedia entries on both services).  There are quite a few things I like about Pownce (social ratings, file transfer, conversation threading, events posting, etc).  But as I poked around in my little experiment, I realized that it was missing something.  Something critical.

It wasnt nearly disruptive enough. 

It would be somewhat misleading to say that I've been using Twitter for about a year.  Far more accurate would be to say that I've been using Twitterific for about a year.  If you know anything about these technologies, then you're probably doing a head slap right now.  For those who don't know what I'm talking about, Twitterific is a display app for Twitter, that basically turns tweets into desktop popups.  And in that seemingly simple functionality, Twitterific becomes one thing that Twitter alone is not: really obnoxious. 

Twitterific transforms Twitter into a screaming baby.  Every time you get a new tweet, Twitterific pops up, interrupts whatever your doing by covering it up, and then hits you in the face with a boxing glove on a spring.   Sounds awful right?  It is.  But its the only reason I used Twitter for more than 2 days.   The "in your face" nature  makes it impossible to ignore, keeps you perpetually in tune with the Twitterstream (whether you like it or not), and embeds itself as a part of your daily existence.   If Twitter was any less subtle then a dramatic, attention starved child on a sugar high it wouldnt work.  It would slip into the background and eventually into obscurity.  Twitter is interesting, but ultimately forgettable without Twitterific.  Pownce is even more interesting, but no less forgettable if it is not paired with a similar  "screaming baby app". 

Part of being one of those Millennial types (I hate that word almost as much as pedagogy) is having a built in twitch switch that is perpetually set to 11.  Its why I love the tangents of Family Guy.  Why I dislike long paragraphs without line breaks (but curiously feel compelled to write them).   Why uncut camera shots make me uncomfortable.  Why I love the little ding my email client makes, the fact my Xbox pops achievements up right in the middle of the screen, and the way Facebook spams my inbox with messages about the most obscure things imaginable. 

I have always known that I enjoy the disruption. That is not to say that I moonlight as Tweek from Southpark or that I'm incapable of having a sustained thought for longer than.... <wanders off>.  But yesterday was the first time in my life that I had noticed a need for disruption - to the point that it could influence my decision to use a new service.  I suppose, in a way, its very similar to RSS.  "You want me to go to a website?  HA!". 

Obviously services like Twitter and Pownce are about a lot more than interrupting everything you do (sort of).  Obviously both services have associated products designed to bring their message to the highly caffeinated.  And obviously not everyone who uses them is quite so... cross wired as I am.   But its interesting to sit back and reflect on just how important, how curiously desirable the interruptions have become.  As these technologies continue to surface, how big a role will the delivery method play in adoption among people like me?  Will delivery become as, if not more important than a service itself? Does Twitter smell so sweet without its highly disruptive bouquet?  Does anything?  And what will this mean for the desktop of 5 years from now?

Sure its disruptive, but is it disruptive enough for me to use?  I wonder...



Image from beststuff.com