May 2007 Archives

The BBC is reporting that Keele University (in Europe) is having a spot of trouble with students being critical of university faculty and staff on Facebook and Myspace. So much trouble in fact that they are revamping their policies regarding sites of that nature, and threatening legal action against certain students for defamation and harassment.

And now Ladies and Gentlemen, it gets real.

I dont know the specifics of the Keele incident. But for the purposes of this post, I'm not sure they matter (assuming of course we're not talking about death threats or something of that magnitude).

Facebook and Myspace are infectious. This isnt news to anyone in academia or anywhere else. Rumor has it that the Amish are even working on an electricity free version (Disclaimer - That rumor may or may not have been started by me, and it may or may not be totally made up). Those two sites are the ultimate example of social networking applications. You might love them. You might hate them. But they are outrageously popular, and have redefined the way online communities are viewed. In the paraphrased words of our Director - figuring out how to channel the countless hours students spend on facebook into something that could be used to teach is the million dollar question for many educators today.

Though Keele in particular may not be trying to use tools like facebook specifically to teach, this scenario got me thinking about a documentary I saw when I was an undergrad, titled Merchants of Cool. The basic idea behind the documentary is that the youth of America are constantly defining and redefining "cool", while big business is perpetually struggling not only to tangibly grasp the ever changing definition, but to then sell it back to said youth (hence the title, "Merchants of Cool").

I am not formally trained in the arts of education, so obviously my opinion should be taken with a grain of salt. But I'm a firm believer that the best way to be an effective teacher is to speak the language of your students. You win when you find a way to bring your message to their world, in terms they can understand, through mediums that they use, with a "so what factor" that matters to them.

Many times, that may mean that you as an educator must become a merchant of cool in your own right, or at least an Ambassador to the land of Coolsville. You might not get invited to their weekend keg parties for learning how to harness their cell phones for class, using gaming to bring content to life, or facebook to build the class community - but once you've learned to speak the language of cool, at least you can rest assured that students will hear the message you are trying to deliver to them.

The catch to all of this, and what brings us back to the Keele story, is that when you dabble in the cool trade, you may not always like what you see. You use facebook for class? You might build an amazing class community. But you might also find plenty of idle chat on things that have nothing to do with education, or come across pictures of students doing things you would consider unsavory. This is only natural to expect, because facebook is not designed to be an educational place. It is designed to be a social one. It is popular because it is a social one. It is cool because it is a social one. It is what it is and as an educator, your job is not to change it, or judge it, or restrict it.... your job is to harness it. Mess with the formula, and you might kill the cool. Or maybe you'll just get your passport to Coolsville revoked. Either way you lose.

I'm not hating on Keele, because Im sure there is more to their situation than meets the eye. But for other educators, seeking to use "whats cool" to answer the million dollar question - I bid thee a word of caution. Always remember that you are a guest when you drive the educational bus to Coolsville. Remember that it exists, that it is loved, and that you want to be a part of it for reasons that have nothing to do with you at all. And remember that if you refuse play or accept the game by the rules that the game (and not you) define, then you might very well not be invited back.

My travels across the lush rolling hills of the internet hath today brought me to a pretty nifty little site - http://www.thesimexchange.com. Its purpose? A futures market built around the video game industry.

So I know what you're thinking. What in the world is a futures market? What am I doing reading this blog? And what happened to my pants? Sadly I'm really not qualified to answer any of those three questions. But, its my blog and I thus I reserve the right to pretend to know what Im talking about... occasionally.

A future's market is basically a market of ideas - a place where people buy and sell the possibilities that some quantifiable thing might happen. For example, in one market, people might be buying or selling the idea that "The San Francisco 49'ers will make the playoffs in the 2008 season", or that "Transformers the Movie will earn more money than Spiderman 3 by the end of 2007". An idea is posted. Stocks in that idea are sold. And then just like a real stock market, supply and demand dictate the price of said stocks, right until the end of an idea period is reached and the condition of the idea is either met, or not. It takes a little while to really conceptualize - but once you have the "ah ha" moment, its easy to see how such a tool could be used to gauge all sorts of metadeta from a vast, thinking public. Why does it work? Well depending on the market, you can make real money buying and selling ideas. People love money. Other markets are free, but we are prideful beings us humans. People love being right. And look at that... Stub's concise take on humanity, available in my new book, Stubstyle Psychology 101.

Sadly however, I have no idea why you are reading this blog, or where your pants are. But 1:3 aint bad =)

I'm just starting to play with it now, but thus far TheSimExchange seems like a really cool site - relativly simple, and yet chopped full of useful information. And best of all - its free. Unlike some future's markets, TheSimsExchange is all about creating a fun, low pressure environment for getting gamers interested in the concepts of stock and predicting industry trends. Your account comes with 1,000,000 DKP (the currency used in many online games) to get started with, and your success and failure is based entirely on your reputation - harnessing a gamer's natural competative instincts to succeed as the motivating factor behind particpating.

Oh yea... and there is always the chance that if a site like this starts to really take off, it could cycle back to the gaming industry as an input into the future of games.

Predictions by gamers dictating the creation of future games? I feel a rupture in the space time continuum coming on...

In case you havent guessed, I'm an avid gamer. I know, please mask your shock. I also work in higher education. So what better way to homogenize my existence than to mash an interest and my professional life together in a Frankenstinian ball of joy. In case you are wondering, yes, that was as fun to write as it looks like it was =)

An enormous part of that marriage between gaming and learning is thinking about ways to make gaming practical (and enjoyable) for people who may not be gamers by natures. After all, much as people have individual learning styles, they also have their own gaming styles. These styles can range from the ultra hardcore to the "get that evil demon machine away from me". That diversity makes it uniquely challenging to conceptualize games that can not only be used to teach something, but are also enjoyable enough that they encourage learning in ways that reading a textbook cant. So where do you start? Figuring out what barriers exist between people and Edugames, and how to combat them.

While not focussed on the educational gaming space, Gamasutra has put together an interesting read on some of the common problems that effect the gaming experience from a design perspective. Their article also talks about accessibility issues (for disabled users) that are an often overlooked area of gaming - one that would be a critical topic when designing gaming experiences in an educational context. They raise some of the common problems in games today that can discourage people from playing them (too unforgiving, not enough help, too fast pace, too many loading screens, etc), and a few options for combating those problems.

I do think the article oversimplifies a few issues (and is missing a few as well) but its a good starting point for thinking about designing a useable, accessible gaming experience.

A recent post from slashdot alerted me to an interesting and very depressing situation developing with the online photo sharing site Flick'r.

The Scoop:
Photographer Rebekka Guoleifsdottir who posts her work regularly to Flick'r, had some of her photos taken and used without her permission by the gallery Only Dreemin. Long story short, after attempting legal action, Rebekka created a new image which represented her protest against the theft of her work, and posted that image on Flick'r as well. Supposedly more than 400 people offered comments and support to Rebekka regarding her plight. Not much of a story right? Well it wasnt, at least until Flick'r deleted the protest image and all the comments associated with it.

Flick'r response to the deletion (from Rebekka's blog):

“Flickr is not a venue for to you harass, abuse,
impersonate, or intimidate others. If we receive a valid
complaint about your conduct, we will send you a warning or
terminate your account.” Saucy.

Now by the letter of the law, the terms of service for Yahoo (Flickr's big poppi) does have a clause regarding the blah blah blah blah blah.

I didnt see the thread with the original comments or the original image. So I wont pass judgement on whether or not Flick'r was within the rights of their TOS to do what they did. Ok... Im lying. I passed judgement ;-)

Regardless, this whole issue raises a starling reminder that Web 2.0 isnt a pure as it might always seem. Yes yes we all know about companies making hiring decisions based on face-book profiles and such. But this casts one of those dark shadows over the beauty of Web 2.0. All the collaboration, and community and communication that rallys behind an image... gone. Big brother doesnt like what you are saying. Big brother smash. And poof. Not such a user built internet after all eh?

Like I said - I didnt see the comments or the page of protest. Maybe it was slanderous and malicious and seething with the pure evil of 1000 generations . And maybe it DID violate the terms of service as defined by Yahoo's team of super lawyers. But then... maybe it was just a woman quietly and defiantly standing up for herself.

To me, it really doesnt matter. The wakeup call just went out that behind the beautiful utopia of the read write web, the big dawgs of the game lurk... red pens and erasers in hand.

But censorship is only part of the scary problem here. Sure its great to be able to share photos with your aunt and uncle in Kalamazoo. But creating a phenomenon like Flick'r also takes the commitment of artists and professionals like Rebekka sharing their work with the world, with an expectation ... a trust... that that work is not merely being displayed to that world with a spotlight, ripe for the taking. Break that trust... and what do you think happens to the community?

EDIT:
After doing a little more digging, I came across a thread on the flick'r forums regarding this situation. According the the flick'r community manager, it was an "operator error" and an apoligy has been made to Rebekka for the hasty action taken again her thread. Nice that Flick'r owned up, but I cant say it makes me feel all that much better from a high level perspective.

I recently had a chance to read an intersting post from Cole Camplese on identity in the Web 2.0 world. If it was thought provoking enough to wake up the monkey that cranks my brain, you might find it to be an interesting read as well.

Cole's post got me thinking again about something that has always been a side interest of mine - the notion of self presentation in this era of the social internet, but in a much more "superficial" way. I'm talking about avatars or the "form" we choose to represent us online.

In places like Second Life and in a large percentage of games today, you interact with the world and those around you through your avatar, which you both create and control. In a sense, it is your "internet body". But unlike your real body, there is an enormous degree of customization available when creating your avatars - in Second Life for example, the possibilities are literally limitless as to what you can make your character look like. Some people strive to recreate their real life form. Some people will make minor changes, like skin, hair, or eye color. Some people will change their gender, and some will go as far as to change their very species. It goes without saying, there is no obligation to make your virtual you look anything like the real you.

Or is there?

I've always been curious about the avatar creation process because of the amazingly vast degree of variance in how people appraoch a virtual host for themselves. However, regardless of the reason why, I'd gamble that there is at least a small degree of self reflection in every avatar you create - be it a mirror image of your physical appearance, or a digital manifestation of some small, hidden part of yourself which is not often exposed to the public eye. Though if you are willing to use it as your face to the internet world, perhaps its not such a small part of you after all...but thats for psychologists to debate.

Cole's post was about the portfoilio of ideas and materials that combine to form our Web 2.0 personna. But what about the literal appearance of that personna? What do our choices in creating a preresentation for ourselves say about who we really are? How much of an impact does that have on the way we are percieved by others? Does it? Should it? Will it? Hmmm....

With Second Life really starting to take off, its no surprise that people are finding all sorts of new and creative ways to use the space. But this one caught me totally by surprise.

Apparently a group within Second Life has recreated the fictional city of Midgar, from the widely popular 1997 Playstation game Final Fantasy 7. Though I havent yet travelled to Second Life Midgar "in person", the screen shots I've seen are stunning - the city appears to have been created with amazing architectural detail and an eye to preserve the feel it had in its first form.

Whats the point of doing this? To turn the open (and yet still highly scripted) Final Fantasy 7 game into a massive multiplayer one. Health bars, materia (your magical powers), weapons, and even a basic combat system have all been built into Second Life Midgar. And just like that one of the most popular single player games of our time has been rebuilt as a multiplayer one.

As I'm writing this, I havent heard any official word from Final Fantasy's game studio (Squaresoft) regarding their thoughts on this unofficial recreation of their bread and butter, but I'm hoping they dont but the kibosh on it... at least not until I have a chance to take a look myself =)

Pull back from a pure gaming context and look at it from an educational perspective, and this is setting the stage for some REALLY cool ideas for Second Life...

So this past week, I had the opportunity to play two games that made me put on the pensive cap. On the surface, neither game seems all that thought provoking - Guitar Hero 2 (for the Xbox 360), and Wii Sports (for the Nintendo Wii). If you arent familiar with either game there are plenty of good reviews out there, but the long and short is that both games use non traditional input devices and both games are insanely fun.

But as I played guitar hero yesterday afternoon for the 5th consecutive hour (you should have seen me rock "Freebird") I asked myself what in the world I was doing. Here I was, sitting on an uncomfortable stool, doing my best "MTV Unplugged" impersonation while I played on "a third grader's guitar" (my girlfriend's term) to songs that, in some cases, I didnt even like. In my younger days and for a stint in college, I played a real guitar. It was most certainly enjoyable, but never in my life had I sat down for 5 hours at a time to play it. And while I may pretend otherwise, between us, I'm really not all that musically inclined. And yet, I rocked, hour after hour yesterday.

I've also played real tennis - never been much of a fan. But enter Wii Tennis, and I'm ready to start hitting the virtual court like I'm headed to Wimbledon. Playing at a friend's place over the weekend, I was literally screaming at my "mii" (the self created Wii avatars you play as) when I swung forehand rather than backhand during a critical point in match. And in five minuets, with no previous Wii Tennis experience, not only had I exhibited more passion than during a lifetime of real tennis games, but I was hooked. I even broke a sweat...

Now other than showcasing my chronic addiction to video games, these experiences have also lead me to wonder... are video games creating real life 2.0?

In case you havent guessed, I'm an avid gamer, and I have been most of my life. Madden, a pro football game, has been one of my favorites as long as it has existed. This is partially because I'm an avid football fan, and partially because Madden lets me be and do the things that I've always wished I could do in real life. Its ironic, as pressing a series of buttons on a strangely shaped little controller really has nothing to do with football. And in that, there has always been a disconnect. Games are artificial. Real life is real. And while some would argue that the line is not so clear, I think its a fair assessment that the input device has a significant impact on the experience.

But with games like Wii Sports and Guitar Hero 2 - are the rules starting to change? In the space of about an hour, I went from novice, to playing along with Aerosmith songs. It took all of about 30 seconds of practice before I could play a competitive game of Wii Tennis. And during these experiences, I'm not just mashing X's and O's on a little control pad - I'm really strumming and changing frets, I'm really swinging and putting slice on the ball. At the time, I was enjoying both games with friends in person - but with this magical internet of ours, I could just as easily play with friends across the country as easily as if they were in my living room (once Wii supports online play). And for whatever reason - both of these "games" were more fun than doing the real thing. But then again... what makes it real? Uh oh... I just went and blew my own mind.

I'm not suggesting that one day you'll go to a Dave Matthews concert and see him jamming out on a video game, or that Andy Roddick will ever play a US Open match from his Wii. But with new, more lifelike games, and more realistic inputs to control them - are we headed down a path where eventually the games themselves become more interesting, enjoyable, and accessible than the activities they simulate? Or perhaps... just as real?

Welcome to the first in what I hope will be a long line of Stub style musings in this my personal blog. I'm not quite sure yet what the nature of this blog will be - but rest assured that I'll try and keep it interesting, keep it fresh, and as always, keep it real. Enjoy!

- Stub