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:
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
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
That's a great question. At the end of this year, my first semester of experiments with this particular tool, the final products themselves were far more valuable for the design processes they inspired -- i.e. the games themselves were generally very primitive. As I experiment more and develop a stronger framework for teaching Inform skills progressively, I expect the simulation games themselves will be valuable as educational experiences.
If you check my website
http://www.historicalsimulations.net/inform/studentprojects.htm
The 12th grader projects are closer to that goal. The ninth grade projects, though terrific achievements all things considered, are a way off from viable stand-alone educational simulations.
This year will be a big one for pushing the envelope. I'll keep you posted. Let me know if I can help if you want to try this out at Penn
Thanks for the comments Jeremiah! You're presentation was most certainly inspiring, and I'm hoping that your success with Inform is something we can learn from and apply to our efforts here at Penn State.
I'm curious though, if at any point the text based environment was something that overwhelmed your students' attention spans, not as creators, but as consumers? Put another way, did you find that your students were learning anything when they worked through the scenarios that their peers had created as to opposed to the learning that occurred by building their own? You mentioned the power of creativity that helps to overcome the lack of graphics - have you found that creativity applies to reading/ playing through a scenario as well?
Very interesting news about Inform looking to include animation, though I think you hit the nail on the head. The more complicated you make the technology, the higher the barriers to entry, and the more you run the risk of shifting the focus away from the content creation experience.
Actually, some work is being done with displaying animated sequences in Inform but that starts to violate the whole "ease of use" concept.
Thanks for spreading my ideas, glad you liked my presentation. It's the creative power that Inform gives that trumps the lack of graphical sophistication for my students. Just FYI, Inform does allow images to be displayed pretty easily so your comment "you could always pair an inform activity with a more visual game for a 1 2 punch of engagement and creativity." could be done in Inform (static images only).
Jeremiah