Gaming Trends

I think a 2030 classroom could be anything, depending on what ends up trending at the time. I envision a halogram of a teacher, and students who sit in a virtual classroom and can see each other but they’re not there. If you ever saw the How I Met Your Mother episode "Another One Bites the Dust", You know what I mean. I caught the episode in passing and was impressed by the fact that one character was talking to another via halogrphic projection in the year 2021 from a smart phone. Brace yourself, it’s coming. I also think that schools will change drastically from funding cuts, and it will become expensive to send your child to a brick and mortar school. Writing skill criteria will change. Student will no longer use pens and pencils. Keyboarding and voice will be the way to record results. This is already the case in hospitals, etc. Gaming might be a part of curriculum, or it might be a passing by then. I think halo-gaming would be fun in a lot of ways. Kids could get exercise and they could see who they are talking to (which we found important in CP). I hope it doesn’t get ruined by marketing!

 

Gaming requires higher level thought processes, organization and communication. Also gamers need rewards. Alexia Tsotsis from the website TechCrunch states, “Pavlovian mechanics are crucial. It’s important as a user to feel like the time that you spent came up with a result, social elements like being able to see how you did with other people, and being able to play with other people play into this.” Seth Priebatsch from SCVNGR stated “Humans love progress bars, if you see a progress bar, you want to complete it.” Both game processes are cues that keep us interested in the game and the goal.

 

I love McGonigal’s concepts of enjoyable work and voluntary participation! This week I have been working with an esteemed colleague on a project for another class, and he made me think of this very topic. We were talking about Second Life and Google Earth and how much fun they are. He has been using both for a while now voluntarily, and has found many fun ways to use them for the things that interest him. I mentioned about Cloud Party and how we were all pretty amazed by it. Then I realized that this class in general has been enjoyable work. Perhaps it wasn’t voluntary participation in the beginning, but it certainly ended up that way in the end. I don’t know about you, but ending my reign as Ileen was difficult. I have made friends in the guild. I believe McGonigal is right, that we build relationships with complete strangers and we all have things in common with everyone. I also believe she is right about the fact that we can fix reality through gaming. We can see each other as assets, not competition, and we can work together to achieve much greater results that we can on our own.

 

McGonigal’s Rule of thumb: “always strive to keep your gaming in the sweet spot: 7 – 21 hours a week”. From what I have read, any more than that subtracts from the benefits of gaming. The research suggests that playing more than 40 hours a week becomes a hindrance. “By the time you’re spending 40 hours or more a week playing games, the psychological benefits of playing games have disappeared entirely – and are replaced with negative impacts on your physical health, relationships, and real-life goals”. I think this point is worth mentioning again because of the prospect of teaching k-12 students online. If coursework is presented strictly online, how will they be impacted? If students do spend 6 or more hours a day on the computer for a total of 30 to 40 hours a week if we include homework, will this have the same detrimental effects? How does gaming fit into a strictly DL school? Can gaming make up for the lack of physical movement by use of GPS-based activities and offset the ill effects of too much computer time? I believe that it can! In fact, gaming could take the form of one of the non-digital versions that McGonigal cited in her book, which would provide lots of physical, social and strategic activity for k-112 students. At that point, the only problem is proximity. Perhaps a weekly scavenger hunt outing would be in order, weather permitting. Students and schools could work within a network of other schools and review their findings together. Different lat/long will yield different results.

 

In the gamification video, DICE 2010: Design Outside the Box, Jesse Schell brings up the point I have been pondering. Facebook gaming does not appeal to me at the present time because I do not want to make Mark Zuckerburg’s corporation any richer, and I don’t think that gaming for money or credit is a good idea. I consider it akin to gambling addiction if I have to wait for my next paycheck in order to play. I noticed the money problem with Settlers as soon as I needed gems to buy gold mining rights to keep my mine open, well actually it was when I needed Settlers to build up troops. Ok, it was constant. I also don’t agree with the idea of selling our personal info to corporations for solicitation. What I get from the video is that we can use all of the hooks that the “for profit” folks do as we (teachers) develop gaming for the classroom. To realize a profit, devs use psych tricks such as the use of the elastic velvet rope, emotional attachment to object or idea, game is not very expensive at first but is over time, social media competition and the time investment value. Lee Sheldon is a genius about grading in schools. Teachers have always used a point system, and students would like this approach. This was the first thing I thought of when we started the course. Unfortunately I thought of the repercussion as well. Gaming is fun, but if it becomes a norm it won’t be. If it is mandated it won’t be. Not sure how that will all pan out. For right now it is new and fun and we should do it. The next big thing in education depends on it.

 

Sources:

 

McGonigal, Jane. 8 January, 2011. Big Ideas. Practical Advice for Gamers. realityisbroken.org. Retrieved from http://realityisbroken.org/2011/

Schell, Jesse. 2010. DICE 2010: Design Outside the Box. g4tv.com. Retrieved from http://www.g4tv.com/videos/44277/DICE-2010-Design-Outside-the-Box-Presentation/

Tsotsis, Alexia. 1 August, 2010. The New Games People Play: How Game Mechanics Have Changed In The Age Of Social. techcrunch.com. Retrieved from http://techcrunch.com/2010/08/01/the-new-games-people-play-game-mechanics-in-the-age-of-social/

Virtual Worlds

Dr. Jones validated what we all have learned. Digital technology and games excite the brain! According to him, it seems as though gaming is safe enough if we keep the children off of games and TV at night. Kids need their sleep to remember their studies, and I am sure that is true. His studies pose some evidence of gaming addiction, but addiction is not prevalent in the digital realm, rather it is a sidebar. That is good news for those of us who have fallen in love with gaming. I was very interested in the science of educational gaming, and I believe that there was something to the hunter instinct with relation to gaming. We need to begin a discussion of how gaming works in relation to uncertain reward and dopamine release. The video explains why my son can pay attention to games but not his classroom studies without ADHD meds. it is interesting to think that gaming could potentially change the way we deal with ADHD. I found it disturbing that we humans have a change in brain pattern when our competitors fail, but not when they achieve. Must be why reality TV is so big now. ; )
 
Dr. Bavelier's video was eye-opening. It is interesting that gamers solve conflict faster and have ability to track more objects within their space. I have heard that gaming helps to develop attention skills before, but I didn't know that it improves one's ability to switch tasks efficiently. I also found it interesting that multimedia tasking and multi-tasking are not the same, and different games have different effects on the brain. I like her comparison of broccoli and chocolate with respect to action gaming. I have also felt that it has some good and bad impacts, and think we need to learn more if we want to use it for education.
 
Luminosity was great, but I'm afraid I didn't do well on it. Luminosity takes the knowledge of neuroplasticity to a new level by providing games that work the brain harder to build plasticity and grow new synapses. I thought it was interesting to read that taxi driver’s brains changed when they had to learn "The Knowledge" for their tests. Dr. Jones made it clear that video games do change the brain in a relatively short amount of playing time. Playing a game like luminosity seems to be a better solution than Sudoku or crossword puzzles because of how quickly the brain will change and perform better, as Dr. Jones pointed out. I imagine after you have played for a while, you get used to the reward system and it isn't as effective. I wonder if using luminosity would help ADHD children. It seems that if educational gaming was set up to keep student attention through each quarter and phase of learning, it would possibly be different enough to be rewarding and interesting. As a past 3D tech and trainer, it is a very interesting prospect! Finally, if we approach assessment by utilizing gaming, it would be much easier for teachers to track and report progress, plus we could use the data we collect to substantiate the learning techniques we use.
 
VR games like CP invoke spatial thinking in 3D, and fire neurons in the brain that aren't normally used. This enables students to think not just in the X (horizontal) and Y (vertical) 2D dimensions, but also in the Z (depth) or 3rd dimension. The article "improving spatial ability using a Web-based Virtual Environment discussed some interesting facts about the learning timeframe for spatial thinking and that boys were better at it than girls. So my idea of teaching students 3D design at an early age is accurate. Why is this? I think it's a matter of gender bias in teaching young children and it needs to change. Learning in a WVE like CP is a great way to start. What we experienced in Cloud Party (CP) when we initially began to build for this project were depth perception challenges in our brain because most of us haven't utilized those thought processes before. I do disagree that older folks will not learn spatial relationships easily because ALL of my learning occured after the age of 30.
 
I like 3D for everything! I think it would be fun to mashup Google Earth (GE) and a 3D world like CP. It would be really interesting to navigate the entire planet as an avatar too! I believe it is nearly possible to do that now since GE has mapped the elevation of much of the planet (and the moon). I fantasize that our avatars could possibly dig for mummies in Egypt, go diving in the Great Barrier Reef or walk around the Louvre and downtown Paris.
 
Since we can't use VR quite like that yet, I can see a great use for it right now as it stands. I like the idea of people meeting with each other in real time and in one place to get the feeling of connection. I also think that it was neat for us to use our avatars to see how we were building while we were doing it. I can see a practical use for VR as a architect, since it would allow a client to walk around a building and move inside and out to inspect it. There is a program type called BIM (Building Information Management) that allows designers to build in 3D so they can see building conflicts before breaking ground, which saves money. By including the functionality of avatars, architectural firms could hold meetings in and around the actual building model and point out changes. Weather would be good to check strength in materials. This would be really handy for international projects and collaboration for clients, as well as designers.
 
I also have searched for a VR program that students can use to work out problems such as geometry, specifically area and speed. If the scale were set up right and could be utilized, students could build their own shapes and better learn about the mechanics of geometry. This is important to engineering, and I have noticed many students do not know the difference between radius and diameter, which is very basic. it also will help them commit knowledge to long-term memory, which I am guessing is the problem my students have. We all learn the difference between the two, Rad and Dia, in middle school but can forget quickly.
 
The 2007 Horizon Report we reviewed last week was very accurate in their anticipation of user-created content, social networking and virtual worlds. As it turns out students are using these technologies both at school and at home, and they spend most of their time on them. Now in 2013, we see the positive and negative effects of VR and social networking, and I think we can design very good online instruction because we know what does and doesn’t work. Utilizing community networks is a great way to share knowledge and reinforce learning. As students collaborate online, they begin to rely on each other and utilize good teamwork strategies.

In the reading from last week one point stands out that we discussed during our meeting at Dr. Lambert's VR home this week, and that is the idea of blending VR and F2F instruction. the article about using Second Life for educational gaming covered that approach. Dr. Young, et al summized, "one group was allowed to participate in both online and traditional classroom sections, which out performed both groups. For this study, a combination of the two technologies was more effective than using either technology alone". It appears that we are not the only grad students who believe this approach to be most effective. I think that for some reason we as humans want to put a face to the communication we receive from other people. It validates our learning for some reason and I think it provides safety. By the term safety, I mean a conflict-free learning environment. Dr. Lambert also brought up halographic gaming in education. I think it will become a leading technology when it becomes more available in the US.

This class has taught me a lot about new tech and gaming. I thought I knew a lot about these topics, but now I know that I have a lot more to learn. I am having fun in the process; McGonigal is quite right about that!

 

Sources:

 

Young, W., Franklin, T., Cooper, T., Carroll, S. & Liu, C. (2012). Game-based Learning Aids in Second Life. Journal of Interactive Learning Research, 23(1), 57-80. Chesapeake, VA: AACE.

 

Fix 14

Taking a long view – We have to plan ahead for adventures in Settlers. If you look at the adventure guides, planning is critical and if you want to use the least amount of resources and troops, you have to plan. How well you do on your own also affects the guild. If you are not strong, neither is the guild and you can’t complete daily guild quests. When you complete guild quests you receive guild coins, and can buy more resources for free.

 

Ecosystems thinking – This is really important in Settlers because we have to consider how each resource affects the others. If we buy buildings, or increase population, it strains water, fish and wheat resources, If we add stables the same thing happens. The effects are immediate. Fortunately we can put our buildings to sleep when they strain the system. This took me a long time to grasp.   :  )   If we have a surplus of resources, we can sell them, and that builds personal wealth and adds to the overall economy.

Pilot experimentation – This is a great way to test ideas before implementing them, and is a key mode of operation for software development. This process would also be very important to risk management, which I believe it not considered nearly as often as it should be. In Settlers we can test out battles in battle calculators and watch how battles progressed in the reports we receive in email. I use maps for adventures so I know the best method to save resources. We are in it to win it, so anytime I can gain loot without using up everything I have worked for.  

These skills are beneficial because they teach us how to better organize ourselves in real life. They give us pause for contemplation and teach us patience also. In Settlers, I like collaboration as a community and enjoy crowdsourcing with my guild. We can fix anything… fast! We also talk about art, music, science. We don’t give personal opinions that would offend, rather we discuss as teachers do, giving pointers, helping each other navigate the game and bringing up new ideas. In the real world, I like the concept of emergensight. I think there is a synthesis in gaming that can only be realized through collaboration and fast thinking as a group. I like the idea of utilizing pilot experimentation in tandem with emergensight. Using these together would open the door for new ideas that make a big difference in solving educational and world issues. Epic wins would come into play whenever a solution is found, like when a student learns new material that otherwise was very difficult to comprehend, or a real world problem is solved.

 

I have decided that gaming is a great venue for all learning. I would be very interested in creating a 3D interactive game for k-12 that is built around state required learning goals. I also think it is possible to do now. The optimal game would record progress toward goals, and data would be extracted from the game by use of queries so that teachers and admin could gauge student progress. To keep interest up, the game would include a reward system and levels (complete learning modules) that scaffold learning. Collaborative gaming would also align well with National Educational Technology Standards (NETS) teacher and student criteria.

 

"...the standards for learning, teaching, and leading in the digital age and are widely recognized and adopted worldwide.” http://www.iste.org/standards *Check on the link to learn more!

 

It would be most beneficial if both teachers and students could “craft” within the game, and challenge each other with tasks to gain points or levels. This would allow students to be very creative and design their own learning, and it would enable teachers to identify student understanding of the material. If the game also supported collaboration, it would allow small groups to work together.

 

Personally I like to do a bit of both in my classes. I let students work independently on their first project then I assign them a project in a group of 3-4. For the final peroject, I have them create a portfolio showcasing their work. I allow them to collaborate, but the final work is ultimately theirs. I have never had any students that plagerized material in the final portfolio because they can’t. For one, the works are their own. I have become familiar with them and the most students can do is teach other some neat tricks. Also, they don’t want to plagerize. By the time they get to the final portfolio project, they are proud of their own work and want to show it off. The assignment has become satisfying work. The students become very proficient at the end of the course and can use what they have learned for other classes, to get a job and as teachers. It is a very empowering and esteem building “epic win” for myself and for them.

 

I can associate game building and playing in the same way. If we build a lesson or game from concept to utilization, the same feelings of accomplishment and satisfaction develop. My son is always showing me something he has built in a game… now I pay attention to it.

 

Sources

 

International Society For Technology In Education. March 29, 2013. ISTE.NETS The standard for learning, leading, and teaching in the digital age. Retrieved from http://www.iste.org/standards

Fix 13

Shared Intentionality, the ability to follow another person's lead is critical for leveling up in Settlers. I think we must work together in order to be productive in the game. In our guild, we all swap resources to meet quest requirements, as I'm sure everyone in our course has experienced. i picked up the habits I have now by watching what my fellow guildies are doing and duplicating them. In the guild I'm in, we also help each other out by buffing when someone goes out of town for a few days, and by working with people in other coutries to keep up with buffing during the nighttime. That collaboration is really useful for production. We are also setting up times for our collaboration and adventures so we can play together even if there is a 12 hour time difference due to world location. Bottom line, we all cooperate to ensure success and "all the emotional rewards of a good game" (McGonigal, P. 272). Finally, my guildmembers swap links to game blogs that helps us to level up. there are battle and trading calculators among the many web resources written for the Settlers game. They are most helpful to minimize loss of troops during adventures, and to guide us to what is fair in trading. it is very easy to overspend on resources.

Today some guildies and I were swapping easter eggs to meet easter quest requirements and receive more eggs. More eggs = battle-hardened generals or savage scouts who are faster in the game than the usualy pay for coin generals. I wanted a house boat, aka floating residence. We can also receive more resources if we collaborate to meet egg quests. That way we can build more and level up, for free. We are using game blogs to find those as well. Many people in my guild are paying for gems and are also on a fixed income, so they are tightly budgeted for gameing. Easter and Christmas events As I'm sure everyone in our course has experienced, pique interest, brings in new players, and probably stimulates spending in the game some way.

Our guild founder qualifies as an extrordinary collaborators. He has problems with talking to and working with people in person, but is an excellent communicator in the game, and able to keep everyone's game fair and balanced in our guild. I have known a few disabled people who found communication with outsiders to be a challenge, but were excellent at game play. They pinged for games that they could excel in and enjoy. They also reach out to other excellent players, many of whom also have some sort of personal issue. They work very well together and are highly successful in the game. Sometimes too much in fact! They also time gaming so they can go on raids together. They have energensight because they do so well in the game, any game, but not so well at all in the real world. To me that is a pitty. So much talent wasted. Is this phenomenon caused simply by social norms? I believe so.

I love the Lost Ring collaboration game and the Sport of Olympia video! This is true gaming and online collaboration. Both videos make the game look like so much fun! The Sport of Olympia game itself is a great example of this week's reading and assignment. The point of it is to provide safety and guidance for the blindfolded person who is the runner  who has to trust the people they are collaborating with. I believe that this is so important for personal success.

I think the Olympia game is also a really important lesson for people with disabilities or those who work with them. The game is intentionally providing the safety and collaboration needed to reach the goal; to finish the game and bring the rings together. For disabled people the goal is also to overcome difficulties and also be successful. It is the same goal.

McDonalds Corp. was really smart to keep marketing out of this game. It would have been a huge turn-off. To be honest I am quite surprised that they backed this approach considering their previous girulla marketing tactics. Perhaps it will become a trend, and I hope so. Actually I heard that KFC sponsored a poetry contest to help offset claims that their chickens are fed steroids. The topic was "Don't blame the chickens". KFC didn't change the way they raise their chickens, but they did use the poetry campaign to distract the public and give them a warm fuzzy feeling! Crazy!

Not quite related to gaming, but interesting: Here is a link to an atricle I thought was very interesting. http://www.replicatedtypo.com/what-makes-humans-unique-iv-shared-intentionality-%E2%80%93-the-foundation-of-human-uniqueness/1552.html. As I read it I realized how advanced my son is... he is also an avid gamer at 13 years old. I remember when he was a baby, very young, like 7 months old. As a new mom, I had a two way mirror gizmo installed in my car so I could see his face when he was in his car seat. One day he caught my eye in the mirror... and started laughing! He learned in an instant how to play with me while I drove. It was amazing! Shared intentionality is definately what makes us human, allows us to evolve, and what attracts us to games!

Fix 11-12

In our settlers economy, we help each other through collaboration, communication and engagement. It seems that our ultimate goal is to become strong as a guild. Our individual accomplishments pale in comparison to what we can do as a group. Every time a new guildie is invited and joins, we all greet them and buff them to show how we behave to others. We communicate with them and see who they are as a member of the team, visit their island, give tips if asked. We offer help to enhance their island, production and meet their immediate needs. As a group, we help to master plan our islands, we collaborate and go on adventures together when we can, and share some of our day to day stories.. We are a worldwide group, and we offer moral support with each other. If you are having a bad day in our guild, you can log on and just say hi. There are always a large group of people that are happy to interact with you.

 

I have mentioned this before. I have found that there are many disabled people in my guild. For whatever reason, most of them are homebound and still have a need for social engagement. We all do. They enjoy the game because they can accomplish something on a daily basis, and they feel they are significant to a greater good. It would be great if we could use their problem-solving skills and desire to work as a team in crowdsourcing games. We can harness their knowledge and mental power for solving real world problems. The settlers game has realistic application possibilities for social problem solving. For one, the guild founder decided in the beginning that all members must be respectful of each other. That in itself is really important, because for some people the internet is a way to vent.and they exploit it. In the corporate world, people are much more cut-throat that they used to be and escaping to the game might help people to deal with the stressful reality of work life. I see hints of that in my guild.

 

In the last few weeks I have built an alliance with a guild member to finally level up by looting and I have received sage advice from another to improve production. I know there are professional people in my guild, and you can tell because they have production ratios memorized. That skill could be harnessed and shared for real world if say someone needed to help a village to gain optimal water and grain production. The idea of crowdsourcing according to MaGonigal would go over well in my guild. I bet they haven't heard of it even though they participate in it.

 

A few weeks ago I wrote about the crowdsourcing Philo project. http://phylo.cs.mcgill.ca, used for finding problems with DNA formation. See class blog.

 

"What's Phylo all about?
The comparison of the genomes from various species is one of the most fundamental and powerful technique in molecular Biology. It helps us to decipher our DNA and identify new genes. Though it may appear to be just a game, Phylo is actually a framework for harnessing the computing power of mankind to solve the Multiple Sequence Alignment problem.

What is a Multiple Sequence Alignment?
A sequence alignment is a way of arranging the sequences of D.N.A, R.N.A or protein to identify regions of similarity. These similarities may be consequences of functional, structural, or evolutionary relationships between the sequences. From such an alignment, biologists may infer shared evolutionary origins, identify functionally important sites, and illustrate mutation events. More importantly, biologists can trace the source of certain genetic diseases.

The Problem
Traditionally, multiple sequence alignment algorithms use computationally complex heuristics to align the sequences. Unfortunately, the use of heuristics do not guarantee global optimization as it would be prohibitively computationally expensive to achieve an optimal alignment. This is due in part to the sheer size of the genome, which consists of roughly three billion base pairs, and the increasing computational complexity resulting from each additional sequence in an alignment.

Our Approach
Humans have evolved to recognize patterns and solve visual problems efficiently. By abstracting multiple sequence alignment to manipulating patterns consisting of coloured shapes, we have adapted the problem to benefit from human capabilities. By taking data which has already been aligned by a heuristic algorithm, we allow the user to optimize where the algorithm may have failed."

I like the Free Rice and Lost Jules games! I think that I have come up with a couple more that pertain to my personal likes. As I read chapters 11 and 12, and about all of the different games, the HIT reporting about government funding gone wrong, the folding @home game, which is like Phylo, and the different ways that wikipedia can be used to harness and gauge crowdsourcing intelligence, I thought about the Red Cross calling my home every week for us to give blood. It seems that a blood app might be useful in a gaming setting. If, whenever the Red Cross needs blood there was a game msg sent out on twitter to respond quickly, like in the groundcrew scenario, I am sure demand would be met. If points were assigned, even better! Hey a latte would be a great prize! Giving a blood is not a latte but giving blood is a great call for action. The Red Cross would be much better served this way instead of calling homes every day to find a blood donation!

 

The game I am likely to start myself is one that would save the manatees. They are killed daily, just like the key deer were years ago. If we could spot them with GPS and google map them, and transmit location, we might be able to protect them from prop damage and other human damage. I have a connection in the keys and plan to email a teen group about how to save them in this way. They are free range animals, just like buffalo and this might be a really good way to save them. There might be an application for Monarch Butterflies also. I plan on growing milkweed in my own garden this year. If we tweet it, they will come. People might be interested enough to preserve milkweed fields for the Monarchs. Sterling Beach Stare Park is a big summer habitat. The Point Place Retiree Golf Course is another one by my home. I have my huge butterfly bush at my home, and I plan to talk to the grounds keepers there about preserving milkweed. There might be a federal grant out there for monarch preservation. A game to keep track of endangered species via GPS and Google Earth overlays and provide habitat for migration would be really interesting and fun!

 

The possibilities of crowdsourcing is endless. I can see good and bad points, but for the general public and wildlife, it can be most beneficial.

 

Fix 9-10

More Fun with Strangers

When I was just getting started in Settlers I was getting a friend request once in a while. I friended everyone that made requests to me, as per Dr. Lambert’s instructions. After I had been playing settlers 3 weeks or so I received a friend request from a person I did not know and accepted it. The next thing I knew there were 100 people in my navigation bar, when there had only been eight. I had been accepted into a guild without realizing it. Right away the interface of the game came to life as though someone else had taken over the game. In a way they did. I was receiving buffs, which I had not experienced real-time before. I thought I had a virus! I received welcoming IMs from the guild, and it was actually quite satisfying once I figured out what had happened. I belonged to a group, where before I was timid and didn’t really understand how to interact with other players.

When I interviewed the person who created our guild for Fix 5-6, he mentioned that he wanted me to interact more with the guild. So I have been. I have made friends with a few of the daily players as I tried to find some common ground and a way to interact with them. They give me help with leveling up once in a while, and they trade with me when I need it. To be honest, most of the time we joke around. I am too poor to trade. They are intelligent people (and I think many are retired teachers), so the conversations are stimulating and entertaining. We have shared some personal information, although I am leery of sharing too much. I did tell them where I live (Michigan) and that it is cold. That in itself can build a bit of a relationship between people as those who also live in the same latitude can identify with the challenges of climate. After the guild founder discovered that I am a student, much of our dialogue relates to my classes and how I am doing. What exams I’m taking, that most of them never want to go back to school. An actual quote from a guild member was “been there, done that, not doing it again”. I feel at home in my guild, just as if I were talking to my f2f friends and neighbors. It is an impressive feat, considering that I have only talked to them for a couple of weeks. Long-lasting alliances exist in the guild, which are apparent as I read posts between other players. As I said earlier, some have actually met f2f because of the game.

Participating in games to build relationships is not a new concept. People have been gaming as teams for millennia. In sports, players do not know much about their team until they practice together and interact. I find that McGonigal’s approach to gaming for the 9the Fix, “Fun With Strangers”, however, is refreshing and dynamic. She takes real world problems into consideration and creates solutions that allow people to share common interests in order to relieve the feeling of isolation. I am particularly impressed with the “Bounce” game. I experience some of the same sharing when I visit my father-in-law who is in the nursing home, and I know first-hand that the older folks there are bored, lonely and love to tell great stories. It seems like a 20 year difference is just about the right difference in age for older people to teach each other about the past and for younger people really listen to the stories they have in common. Maybe we tune out people that are either our age or close to it, but I have found that kids will listen to older folks rather than their parents, teachers or sibs. I, myself have connected with the older people at the home in the same way as McGonigal mentions in “Bounce” without the benefit of a game that breaks the ice. The older folks have lived a full life and like to share their memories if you give them a chance. They need the interaction too. She is right, they are neglected.

Having fun with strangers sounds like a blast and almost like a flash mob type of thing. I am positive that if I were 18 now, I would try it just to know the experience. I like the idea of the “Comfort of Strangers” game, but I would still be a bit conservative about who I played with. For instance, I would not want to play with complete strangers but would be open to playing with other students from UT. The “Ghost of a Chance” game is right up my alley, as I am artist and a lover of all things creative. It is a wonderful way to interact with what the Smithsonian has to offer and learn more in general.

Happiness Hacks

I have experienced random buffs from friends, which is most welcome and makes me feel like I’m loved. I haven’t received gifts, but I have sent them out. In Fix 10, “Happiness Hacking” I found myself thinking about the movie “Pay It Forward”, where a very sick child wants everyone to perform random acts of kindness. I totally agree with McGonigal that providing ways to be good to each other in a game brings a certain harmony to it. It brings out the best in people and lays a ground-work for positive interaction. Research now shows that being positive and having a positive attitude actually helps with depression, improves physical health and helps to fight cancer. Who knew?

http://www.ppc.sas.upenn.edu/

http://www.mayoclinic.com/health/positive-thinking/SR00009

I have noticed that in the last 6 months or so YouTube has been really big with social interaction. The “Harlem Shake” is the latest craze, and looks like fun. Of course the groups of people know each other, but the sharing of each group’s interpretation reminds me of the “Dance in a Cross-walk” video. The Game “Cruel to be kind” sounds interesting and the perfect place to play is a gothic festival, to be sure. I bet it is pretty funny when festival goers hear the interaction. Tombstone Hold ‘em would be really cool to play at my husband’s family plot. There are lots of relative there, and it would help us to get to know them, remember them and their names, maybe even find a well-known politician (or general). All of the games mentioned sound like good positive fun to me and I would welcome the chance to play... at the mall!

My son arrived home from school today and informed me that his crazy teachers did the Harlem Shake at their school assembly. What a hoot! I wonder if it's on YouTube yet? Well, of course it is!

Just heard from one of my students, Harlem Shake Flash mob at the Mall today @3:00.

Fix 7-8

Neuroplasticity is the term given to the brain's ability to form new connections that replace old or damaged cells. http://www.medterms.com/script/main/art.asp?articlekey=40362. I believe that we all need to be challenged every day in order to keep our brains healthy. Gaming helps to provide the stimulus need to accomplish that. Recently gaming has been used to increase neuroplacity for people who have suffered traumatic brain injury (TBI). http://www.traumaticbraininjury.net/video-game-based-therapy-may-help-treat-tbi/. Now I remember where I heard the name Jane McGonigal before. Last year I heard an interview with her in NPR about the exact brain injury described in the book (P. 133-142). That interview is what prompted me to look at the research of gaming and TBI. I believe it works; there are many examples of it now, especially for veterans of Iraq and Afg.

I like the idea of alternate reality Games (ARGs) and "leveling up in real life" (P 146-165). I am going to try Chore Wars with my family. My family and I could use it with my busy schedule these days and my son loves games. I also think that using Quest to Learn would be a great way to organize a course and would like to try that approach as well. Jetset sounds like fun, but I haven't flown in a long time, so I would need a game that serves the same purpose but is different. I can see a use for an app idea like that for teaching kindergarteners about what to do to get ready for school. they have to get dressed, eat breakfast, brush teeth, comb hair, no silliness, no play shoes or holey socks, wear a coat, have your homework, no fighting with your sister... Not sure how to reward the user without the GPS part of it, maybe a parent can interact with the app as a facilitator in order to give rewards.

As for leveling up in life, we actually do play a type of Foursquare in my neighborhood, but I never really thought about it. It's kind of funny really. Most all of us on the street walk our dogs every day and see each other often because we live on a caldesack. Whoever is outdoors the most and talks to the most people every day is called "the Mayor" as a joke, and to acknowledge them also I guess. We are teasing each other, of course, but in reality, that person is the one who knows what is going on at all times. If someone in our neighborhood gets sick or is hurt, we all find out pretty quickly and can help out with pet care, cutting grass, laundry, driving or shopping. Some people might call it nosey, but we don't see it that way at all. We are supporting each other and maintaining connections.

I have an interest to play Settlers because I would like to clear my island of bandits and also be able to help other new players who are learning the game. That is what Dr. Lambert and my guild have done for me. I like the comradary and the feeling of being needed. They help me out so I can try to level up. Otherwise I would not be able to do so. I also like to goof around once in a while, and the game offers the opportunity to joke and be silly as long as we are all respectful. To me that is the best kind of humor, and laughing is very good for us because it produces hormones that positively affect our health.

Since I felt like I needed to be more engaged for this course, I decided to communicate more with my guild, for research purposes initially, but also to build relationships. As it turns out, I was told some personal information about the players. I get the impression that many of the folks in my guild are older. They think first before entering comments, and they are on the game a lot of the daytime during the week. I leave the game on as I work on assignments and projects doing the day, and as a result I am able to monitor what is going on in my guild. It occurs to me that game playing and communication is very beneficial for people who are homebound. This could be true because of the weather, or the users could be disabled. I think online communication and game playing also contributes to maintain neuroplasticity, a problem that older people deal with and effects brain health.

I did get a couple of comments the other night from guild members about making friends online. They are very opposed to the opinion some people have about online relationships. One person said she met her husband online and commented that “he was the only person I knew that I didn’t catch in a lie”. Another person told me that he has been warned that he shouldn’t befriend the people he meets online, but he has visited his online friends f2f and has built real relationships with them. I find it interesting that these people have built relationships online over time and trust those people enough to take it to the next REAL level. To me, online communication is a great innovation opportunity. In the right context, it gives people who might be shy or withdrawn (for whatever reasons) the opportunity to gain trust in others without the judgments that they face in real life. They can try a new thing, learn while they do it, make friends as they go, and feel a sense of accomplishment. This could be a stepping stone to gaining the confidence needed for building real relationships; essentially, to level up in reality.

I see great potential for this finding with regard to my future research. I would like to develop DL social networking/communication and even gaming solutions for DL that will help learners who are at risk and/or have exceptionalities so they can overcome some of their obstacles. My hope is that they can feel confident and do better scholastically and personally in real life. Seriously, I would not have arrived at a great deal of these conclusions without the DL courses I have taken at UT in the least 2 years. I find it exciting, and to me this is also wholehearted participation. It does work!