July 2008 Archives

One of my personal hobbies (terrifying compulsions?) is coming up with absolutely ridiculous ideas.  A 5 star favorite is the rid-able torpedo heater + hand held flame thrower snow removal system (credits to Brian Shook, who will no doubt be abhorred that I just credited him in public) .  Don't pretend you wouldnt want one. 

All too often, my dementia goes unappreciated by the "sane" and the "reasonable" of this world.  Well no longer. Thanks to my many years of bad ideas to the detriment of humanity, my main man Gary Chinn has honored me with my own mark in the O'Reilly series of how to books.

If you are anything like me, you've spent more of your adult life in front of PowerPoint presentations than you have sleeping.  On the surface, I guess thats a good thing (unless you're my doctor or my therapist).  After all, PowerPoint is tool that enables the sharing of ideas, even if it is usually predicated on that archaic "being in the same room as other people" mentality ;-)

Though despite having such a noble foundation, PowerPoint presentations have come to... well... be about as much fun as hitting yourself with a hammer.  Thats not a universal truth of course. There are still a ton of really interesting slide-show presentations being created.  But good PowerPoints seem to be the exception, not the rule, at least in my experience.  Some of that is the fault of presenters who don't know or don't care about engaging their audience, but some of it is the fault of the tool's overexposure.  Did you know that slide-show fatigue plagues nearly 100% of Americans, according to a survey I took in my office 12 seconds ago?

Lets flash back 2 weeks <insert Wayne's World sound> to E3 (the Electronic Entertainment Expo).  E3 is one of the bigger gaming trade shows, and is typically a hotbed of news, teasers, and announcements from across the industry.  It also includes the requisite update presentations from major players at Microsoft, Nintendo, and Sony.  This was my first year watching said presentations live, and I'm going to be honest, they were absolutely terrible.  Have you ever seen an award's show host totally bomb for an entire hour?  It was like that, right down to the really terrible "straight off the teleprompter" jokes.  Has anyone ever sounded good reading canned presentations off teleprompters?  I mean ever?  I digress... 

If there was a diamond in the great white shark infested rough it came during what would normally have been the driest of the dry - Sony's review of the past years hardware sales figures.  So how did Sony Computer Entertainment of American President and CEO Jack Tretton spice it up?  Watch and see for yourself.



    
Sweeeeeeeet mercy. 

What you are seeing is a level from the upcoming PS3 game Little Big Planet.  But this is not some sort of behind the scenes wizardry - Little Big Planet (LBP) is earning quite a bit of attention because custom level building is one of the foundational principals of the game.  In theory, anyone with a copy of LBP could build a presentation (a level) like Tretton's in a relatively small amount of time.

The "Little Big Presentation" has a certain graphical wow factor to it the first time you see it - after all, it is a presentation like none other.  But then PowerPoint had a wow factor at one time.  New things usually do.  Thats not what excites me.

No, what has me jacked up about the idea of using a game like LBP to create presentations is in the potential to shift presentations from something "you listen to" to "something you experience".  A presentation that you not only could but wanted to play through yourself?  A presentation that could be fun?  A medium that could change the way we build and consume the slide-show that has bludgeoned us into submission for years? 

Exciting?  How about potentially game changing.  Maybe. 

Little Big Planet is not scheduled for release until October, so I can only speculate so much without having played it.  But rest assured, you have not heard the last of Little Big Planet from me... nor of Little Big Presentations.



Comic from schol.wordpress.com 

One of sessions I went into GLS most excited about was focused on Games In History classrooms - a personal interest I'm sure I've mentioned before.  Quite predictably, Civilization was the big dawg for the majority of the presentations (personally a Total War guy, but it got enough honorable mentions to keep me happy).

Though there was one session in particular that danced to the tune of a totally different ipod beat.  Jeremiah McCall, a high school history teacher, did a presentation on a tool I had not heard of before - Inform. 

For those who share my lack of "Inform-ation" (HA!), Inform is a tool designed to support the creation of what they call "interactive fiction".  The idea is to write scenarios which other people can then walk through and interact with, using text as the medium.  Its difficult to put into an analogy, but Inform allows people to create something between a game without the graphics (a similar concept to an old school MUD) and a book that adds the interactivity of being able to control the actions of a character.  You can get an idea of what Inform's interface looks like to the left.

In Jeremiah's case, Inform represented a unique solution to a very simple problem - getting students engaged in history by creating artifacts of their own.  While there are an abundance of game engines that can be used to create historical scenarios, they are often difficult and extremely time consuming for your average high school student to use.  Inform, meanwhile, is all build through natural language scripting.  In essence, if you can write, you can use Inform.  And thus Jeremiah's students were able to build out scenarios of characters in historical settings, like taking the role of a shopkeep during the French Revolution.  Because the scenarios had to be historically accurate, research and knowledge of the time period was required.  But this particular assignment also allowed students to personalize their learning experience through creative writing, which built a greater connection to the content itself.

When I look at Inform, I see lots of potential for 3 main reasons:

• As I mentioned, it allows people to create simple games with almost no barriers to entry - something no graphical tool can match. 
  

• It offers an opportunity to integrate games with writing intensive or humanities subjects that traditional games don't integrate with nearly as cleanly.  


• Lets face it - games turn some people off.  Crazy unbalanced people to be sure, but Stub got nothing but love for the crazy folk.  When I see Inform, I see "text based role playing game".  But for students or instructors who are not as hip to the jive, Inform is approachable.  It doesnt look or feel like a game - its a creative writing tool.  And that is something that most people are experienced and comfortable with using in education, far more than gaming to be sure.  Inform represents a foot in the door. 
  

Of course the fact that Inform is a game that doesnt feel like a game could also be considered a weakness.  Though it can support basic static images, Inform is a giant wall of text.  Not a problem for the creator of a scenario, but if sharing scenes between students is part of the experience... well... these better be pretty rich text worlds to keep people engaged.

But then even this weakness might be considered a strength.  After all, if your task is to engage people with text, crappy writing isnt going to get the job done.  And if we're talking about a subject like literature, you could always pair an inform activity with a more visual game for a 1 2 punch of engagement and creativity.  Hmm...

Could the virtual pen be mightier than the virtual sword?

Who would have imagined that a step forward in EduGaming could have involved taking a step back in the technology that supports?  Now to find an instructor here at PSU who wants to dance.




Images from inform-fiction.org and www.youngwriterssociety.com



   

I had put together a gargantuan recap post on the GLS Conference that I probably should have just pulled the trigger and published.  Instead, I decided earlier this morning that the whole thing was absolutely terrible and promptly deleted it.  So I'm going to start all over and put things together one thought at a time.  So we'll start with the post that makes the least amount of sense.


GLS '08 was my first time hearing Jim Gee speak, and I actually had an opportunity to meet him in person.  Lets just say calling him a visionary would be an insult to his intelligence - the man is brilliant, and to be in his presence is nothing short of inspiring.  Though I'm quite confident that you could take his words as gospel, he said one thing in particular during a presentations that had a especially significant impact on me. 

Paraphrased, "21st century learning is about understanding complex systems, an area that games excel in.  Its a waste of time worrying about whether or not 6ths graders are learning algebra when there are so many world ending problems that demand solutions." 
 
This quote led me to somewhat earth shattering thought (at least in my own mind):  will "facts" as units of education soon become irrelevant? (for the purposes of this post, I am referring to a fact as a piece of information, not as a statement of truth) 

Mathematical formulas, dates in history class, the number of electrons in a cesium molecule... why do we teach students these facts?  Why do we assess them on these facts?  In theory these pieces of information represent the building blocks of education.  And yet what would education look like if we didnt teach them?  What if the word "memorize" was removed from the educational vocabulary, and instead the lions share of the effort was focused on how to help people find those facts, and then use them to solve problems.  I suppose this is just problems based learning on steroids.  What if there was no such thing as science class, history class, religion class - just a multidisciplinary issue that required a resolution?  What if the first thing you learned was how to read, and the second thing you learned was how to tag?  What if one day, teacher and librarian are one and the same and multiple choice are used as frequently as the abacus?

Drew Davidson (CMU) held a session at GLS about an analysis of the game Portal.  Teaching a concept like conservation of momentum, he said, can be a difficult, if not time consuming process in the classroom.  But Portal can get the point across in about 3 minutes of gameplay.  The formula behind momentum, the rate at which gravity pulls on you - these details, these facts are irrelevant.  The higher you jump from, the faster you will fall.  And the faster you enter one portal, the faster you exit another.  In Portal, this information is critical for your success.  Without learning these concepts, you cannot progress in the game.  Portal doesnt tell you that you are learning physics or segment the physics knowledge from any other aspects of the game - again, that is irrelevant.  What matters is that you are forced to understand a concept (eventually multiple concepts) that allows you to solve a problem.   This, of course, is not specific to portal.  This is true of just about every video game ever made.

The end of teaching facts, the beginning of teaching fact finding.  The end of learning pieces that solve problems, the beginning of learning to understand problems that demand pieces to solve them.  And games as the glue that ties it all together... perhaps.  Something about this whole idea feels like a chocolate chip cookie thats totally raw in the middle.  Some of it seems painfully obvious.  Some of it seems like an educational revolution.   

But it also feels like something big.  Sorry if this post was schizophrenic - no doubt it reads as insanely as it is verbalized by the voices in my head.  A 21st century education indeed...

Despite the fact that I've been trying to get my thoughts from GLS '08 posted for a few days now, it just hasnt happened.  Most certainly not for lack of inspiration - the conference was absolutely phenomenal.  But for whatever reason I've just felt a little too scatterbrained to get my thoughts down the way I want them.  Rest assured though, they are coming.

In the meantime (insert terrible segway here) I wanted to share some videos worthy of "Off Topic Friday Hilarity" status.  Titled "Business Ideas by Gary Busey" the two videos below are part of an advertising campaign for the company GotVMail.  And they are ridiculous and awesome beyond reproach.  And perhaps most importantly, despite not being a well groomed sales pitch, they work - I remember GotVMail's name because of them.







Those voices are almost insane enough to have come out of my head.  Check that... they are clearly more insane.

Its not quite a viral campaign (only about 8,000 hits per video), but in an era of meticulously crafted marketing efforts, I love it when people try to stand out through insanity.  And I love it when Gary Busey speaks in front of a camera uncensored.  Put the two together and how could you possible go wrong?   

Happy Friday. 

After months of anticipation, the time has finally come for the Stub to sally forth to Madison Wisconsin, for the GLS (Games, Learning, Society) Conference.  The conference lineup is a virtual who's who of the educational gaming community, and I'm tremendously excited for what I expect will be an overwhelmingly thought provoking few days.  Next year, I'm hoping we'll be speaking on behalf of the EGC, but this year, I'm just looking to take it all in and share some ideas with some great people. 

I'm not sure if I'll be blogging at the conference yet (it may take a few days to digest), but rest assured that Thursday and Friday I'll keep the Twitter stream filled with juicy nuggets of goodness. 

Stay tuned, and please forward all requests for cheese heads to my assistant. 

Last week, Blizzard rocked the internet by announcing that Diablo 3 is well on its way to sending gamers to heaven.... by allowing them to fight the minions of hell.  Irony?  Or bad writing?  Lets move on.

Arguably one of the most anticipated gaming sequels ever, Diablo fans have been clamoring for news on the series' third installment for 8 long years.  And with a build up of anticipation like that, one can't simply spit out an antiquated, stale press release.  No no, for a announcement like Diablo 3, you must create an atmosphere of awesomeness.  Know thy Seinfeld, and practice the timeless art of seduction, which is exactly what Blizzard did. <Thinks of that Constanza picture... shudders>.

The images below are two in a series of several splash screens that Blizzard posted on their site over a several day period.  The images were not posted sequentially, but rather "evolved over time", always replacing the image before it (if memory serves, the first image was day 2, the second image was day 5).  No other information accompanied the screens.  Blizzard played the part of the tease...



...and the blogosphere exploded with buzz, speculation, and excitement.  Literally thousands if not hundreds of thousands of posts and comments, covering every gaming site imaginable, chronicling, in nauseating detail, every minor update to each new image and the possible ramifications.  What did it mean?  What game was this going to be for?  Was it Starcraft?  Warcraft?  Diablo?  A giant penguin thing?  Where is the nearest ATM?!  And it all led up to Diablo 3's eventual announcement on the 28th of June.  /scene

Fast forward a few days and from the swell of excitement emerges a petition regarding this highly anticipated sequel.  Do tell?  Apparently, fans of the series are petitioning Blizzard to revamp the artistic direction of the game.  You can't make this stuff up.  Its not exactly the most edumicated sounding petition I've ever read, but the idea is pretty clear - supporters of this movement are looking for a grittier, darker, more "realistic" Diablo 3 than what appears to be being developed. There are even some touched up screen shots to prove their point. 

There is another post to be had here about the death of color in video games, but I'll save that for another day. 

When I first read the petition, I assumed it was just the product of a few Diablo fanboys with a little too much time on their hands.  Then I noticed that there were more than 38,000 signatures on it (as of writing this post).

So where is all this going?

Despite the context, the broader point of this post isnt about gaming, but rather about community.  The popularity of the "mystery reveal" effort is predicated on the idea that the community would drive the buzz.  There were no tv spots.  No radio ads.  There was not even a formal campaign.  Just a few images on a website had the power to generate an enormous volume of traffic and content all across the internet with a total cost to Blizzard of the few hundred dollars they paid an artist.  Now thats what you call bang for your marketing buck.  

The reason the mystery reveal worked is because Blizzard has developed a passionate following around their products - people who legitimately care enough about their games to spend time speculating about the possibilities.  Part of that comes from making great games.  But, just as importantly in my opinion, Blizzard is one of the stronger game publishers at nurturing that community - supporting interaction between gamers and developers, gamers and artists, gamers and other gamers, and ultimately making people feel as though their ideas matter.  Blizzard helps gamers feel invested in a way beyond mere consumers.  Not only does that pay dividends to shareholders, but it also shows itself during efforts like the Diablo 3 mystery reveal.  When people feel involved, when they feel a personal connection to something, they get excited, and that is a powerful thing.  A powerful thing that applies to a lot more than games... like say for example, a Learning Design Summer camp...

But if you extend this notion of community to the petition I mentioned, you can take another lesson from all of this.  When you empower people to feel comfortable speaking, you might not always like what you hear.  Diablo 3, like any big budget game, takes years to produce, million ins funding, and likely to investment (both mentally and emotionally) of a whole lot of artists who took the time to painstaking craft the world.  To finally release it to the world, only to see a petition opposing your artistic direction might feel like a slap in the face.  But this too is a side effect of building that community.   The petition, much like the mystery reveal, plays out because people care.  And that, friends, barbarians, and witch doctors, is a good thing. 

After all, the opposite of love is not hate, but apathy.

From a business/ organizational standpoint, probably one of the chief concerns about web 2.0 is that if you let people say what they think, it might not be all flowers and rose petals.  After all, if you can't hear people complaining, they must not have anything to complain about.  Right?  RIGHT?!  <sigh>

Though I won't have any sales figures to back this up for quite some time, I can promise you all that despite the petition, Blizzard is going to do just fine when Diablo 3 hits store shelves.  But its quite telling that the Juggernaut that is Blizzard actually took the time to respond to the concerns that the petition raises - to engage the community, perhaps not completely as peers, but as customers with a voice that deserved attention.  And in the end, they will be better off for it.  

Just another example of the things we can take from games...