As Gee's Probing Principle suggests (2003), play and activity in general are also the processes through which learning occurs. Since the beginning of this course, I've always felt that happiness and pleasure played a part in this too as would suggest the title "Games, Life and the Pursuit of Happiness" (Yee 2004). In order to be happy, we would need to be active, that is, to work/play (which is the same anyway) and therefore, to learn. Let's now turn to a couple of quotes that seem to support that view:

"I remember feeling learning like seeing a huge mountain from its foothills when I was little (few years ago :P). Too chaotic to climb, with so many paths to begin from and follow later,but also exciting like having no choise but to start climbing and exploring immediately. It doesn't matter whether we like the path and decide to follow it without seeing the crown it leads to. Or whether we already see the crown we want to reach and decide which path to follow whether it is pleasant to climb, hard or even dangerous. Learning, like climbing, always provides surprises. Like a green valley full of flowers under the sun appearing in front of you right on time when you think you have taken the wrong path, or being exhausted from climbing, assuming that the climb didn't finally worth so much effort. The trip to the crown is often difficult, but it depents on how well prepared the climbing learner is and how proof against the weather the boots are. Reaching the crown is the best relief that a learner can get. Standing there with hands raised, seeing the difficult paths and gaps from top, smaller and insignificant that get quickly deleted from his head. Climbing never ends for a learner. There will always be crowns to reach the one after the other, each one with different kind of beauty, effort and glory."

Most of us found Flery's metaphor to be the best illustration of learning during the Understanding Learning in the Online Environment module. As I previously explained, MMORPGs such as World of Warcraft (2009) are interesting in that they make this metaphor explicit. However, given the importance of challenge in making a game successful (Malone 1980) and for which the mountain may again be the perfect metaphor, that idea may be extended to all kinds of games. So here we are with a likely link between learning and work/play. Let's now look at how this matches pleasure and happiness:

"Man did not invent play. But it is play and only play that makes man complete"

(Eigen and Winkler in Kane 2005, p. 57)

The idea of 'completeness' here seems to relate somehow to 'happiness'.

"The opposite of play isn't work, it's depression"

(Sutton-Smith in Kane 2005, p. 44)

"I think happiness is not to reach the top of the mountain but to climb it"

(Arthus-Bertrand 2009)

Picture: in the view linking playing/working and learning, we initially focus on the goal but we then realise that it's not reaching it that makes us happy but rather engaging in the climb to it. In short, the role of the goal is to motivate us.

Therefore, the mountain metaphor seems to represent a solid link between:

• learning
• activity, that is playing/learning (which seems to strengthen the link which I previously tried to show)
• pleasure and happiness

References:

Arthus-Bertrand, Y. (2009). Interview for his 6 Milliards D'Autres exhibition. In Tele Star, 1-8 May 2009 issue.

Gee, J. P. (2003). Situated meaning and learning. In What video games have to teach us about learning and literacy. New York, Palgrave Macmillan: 73-112.

Kane, P. (2005). A general theory of play. The play ethic : a manifesto for a different way of living . London, Pan.
Introduction; Towards the Play Ethic

Malone, T.W. (1980). What makes things fun to learn? heuristics for designing instructional
computer games. Proceedings of the 3rd ACM SIGSMALL symposium and the first SIGPC
symposium on Small systems table of contents. Palo Alto, California, United States.

World of Warcraft (2009). MMORPG game. Blizzard Entertainment.

Yee, N. (2004). Games, Life and the Pursuit of Happiness. Daedalus Project.
Retrieved: 8 May 2009. http://www.nickyee.com/daedalus/archives/000776.php

Druids and bears

As a Druid, one of my quests made me teleport to Moonglade to heed the Great Bear Spirit. That teleporting ability was really rewarding, even more so that it took me to a completely different place. Further, I have been browsing the web for information about the game over the past few weeks: I knew that Druids could change into bears and therefore, I found that quest quite motivating for me (in fact, I now remember reading about that in the game's book and that capability prompted me to make my character a Druid in the first place).

I just couldn't wait to learn how to do that... Well, actually I could... I mean I had to since that was only the first quest of a series which should lead me to learn that: a perfect implementation of the Achievement Principle since this fascinating ability needs to be deserved (Gee 2003).

Developing my character

Unlike with my Mage character, I haven't forgotten to go back to the master of Druids to learn new skills: this is the perfect answer to the killing boredom which I had been feeling for the last few playing days. I chose several spells that added variety to my capabilities and made me change my approaches to fighting. I also improved the spells I commonly used which helped me kill my opponents more easily (until, I suspect, I cross harder creatures on my way).

Learning how to properly use the mini-map tracking feature also helped me improve as a herborist and made me realise that my progress could be tracked via the Character Information panel.

More importantly, my choices with regards to the way I develop as a character in the game are a very important learning principle, very well explained by Gee's tripartite play of identity (2003, pp. 51-71).

Implications for educators

Too often, teachers want students to solve a problem their way or the one they deem the best. Unfortunately, that's not necessarily the strategy that fits all students better and can potentially impede their progress in a dangerous way. On the other hand, helping students learn several strategies can strengthen their knowledge structures which I remember was very helpful when I was studying Physics and Chemistry: I could use the most appropriate strategy according to the specifics of the problem at hand and I was also more confident in my approaches since I could support my findings in several ways.

I think teachers shouldn't prevent students from using their preferred strategy or learning style but at the same time, they should still prompt them to learn better ones.

I believe assessment can play an important part into this: the use of the best approach (if any) could be awarded more marks while the use of a different one would be given less marks. Such a design illustrates Gee's Ongoing Learning and “Psychosocial Moratorium” Principles (2003) in that it would be less daunting for students than simply requiring them to quit using their preferred strategies for better ones but would still encourage them to do so.

When several strategies are available for a given task, students are usually taught the easiest ones first before learning more powerful and sophisticated ones. I remember instances of that in my scholarship when we were taught a more powerful formulae to solve a Physics problem or when we were allowed to start using scientific calculators to perform routine tasks such as drawing the graph of an equation to check our results against it. Just like my case, signs of boredom ("average boredom" among class students perhaps) may be an excellent indicator of the appropriate time to teach a new strategy.

References:

Gee, J. P. (2003). What video games have to teach us about learning and literacy. New York, Palgrave Macmillan

Thinking Worlds is one of the tools that was suggested in the course discussions and I had downloaded and run version 2 until I downloaded version 3.0 a few days ago, for what was a disapointing journey

The tool consists of an authoring and a runtime environment.

I had tried the runtime environment of version 2 and it worked fine.

I was more interested in learning how to create environments from scratch and therefore tried the authoring part of the tool.

At first, it was nice to receive On-Demand and Just-in-Time information to guide me through the creation of a journey and scene. The tool proposes many environments and characters to begin with which greatly facilitates the design process (provided one of them fits our needs).

When I ran the environment as a player, I realised that my character wasn't walking but that it sort of floated above the ground instead (which didn't happen with the version 2).

After adding another character and a communication interaction with it, I received an error and couldn't run the environment as a player anymore:

Screenshot: a miserable start to 3 D authoring

Several attemps with other types of interactions didn't change thing.

Neither the videos available on tools' website nor the in-depth guides proved more useful (Thinking Worlds 2008) even though they gave me further information as to how to use the interaction editor.

I don't understand why I haven't been able to replicate the results of those tutorials.

Given the variety of interactions that the tool proposes, I'm sure it can be quite powerful if I can figure out the origin of my problem.

Unfortunately, it seems that there isn't any demo version of Mission Maker, another authoring tool Matthew tried successfully.

So for now, I'll wait for the Innovate's Online Simulations, Role Playing, and Virtual Worlds issue which will feature, among other things, information about "technologies used to create and manage virtual environments (tools, hardware, software)". If any tool stands out, I will invest more time in learning how to use it.

References:

Thinking Worlds (2008). In-depth guides.
http://www.thinkingworlds.com/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=78&Itemid=90

A few weeks ago, I started a thread about Gee's key principles of good learning design because while reading his book, I felt that some principles lead to or were redundant with others. Other students' views reminded me that all principles are very important. Nevertheless, by reading some sections of the book again (especially the definition of each principle), I still believe that understanding properly the core ones can help reduce the list:

That's very obvious for the first principle:

Active, Critical Learning Principle is very complex and, according to pp. 39-40, encompasses Situated Meaning Principle, Affinity Group Principle, Design Principle and Metalevel Thinking about Semiotic Domain Principle.

It is also linked to Identity Principle (see pp. 43-44) and strongly related to Semiotic Principle and Semiotic Domains Principle

Similar relationships may be drawn for other principles:

• Semiotic Principle => Multimodal Principle
• Subset Principle => “Psychosocial Moratorium” Principle
• Committed Learning Principle => Practice Principle which leads to Intuitive Knowledge Principle
• Subset Principle in addition to Practice Principle => Bottom-up Basic Skills Principle
• “Regime of Competence” Principle => Ongoing Learning Principle
  It's also related to Incremental Principle
• Probing Principle => Discovery Principle
• Situated Meaning Principle => Text Principle
• Distributed Principle => “Material Intelligence” Principle

On the other hand, I find the following principles are more independant:

• Identity Principle
• Self-Knowledge Principle
• Amplification of Input Principle
• Achievement Principle
• Multiple Routes Principle
• Intertextual Principle
• Concentrated Sample Principle
• Explicit Information On-Demand and Just-in-Time Principle
• Transfer Principle
• Cultural Models about the World Principle
• Cultural Models about the Learning Principle
• Cultural Models about the Semiotic Domains Principle
• Dispersed Principle
• Insider Principle

I hope this need to summarize them hasn't lead me to make false associations. I'd be happy to know what you think and to be corrected as appropriate...

References:

Gee, J. P. (2003). What video games have to teach us about learning and literacy. New York, Palgrave Macmillan

General findings about students' engagement in online versus face-to-face learning show that:

"distance learners generally scored higher on the student engagement and outcomes measures than their campus-based counterparts. For example, distance learners reported experiencing higher levels of academic challenge (on a scale measuring the amount of reading, writing, and higher-order thinking activities students engaged in and the amount of time spent studying) and reflective thinking (a component of deep learning that asks students how often they critically examined their own views, considered the views of others, and adapted their thinking on a topic). They also reported that they gained more in terms of practical competence (e.g., career skills, interpersonal skills, and technological proficiency) and in personal and social development (e.g., developing values and ethics, understanding people from diverse backgrounds, and self-understanding), and they were generally more satisfied with their educational experiences"

 Chen et al (2008)

Making mistakes

When I play Word of Warcraft and other games, I learn a lot by making mistakes. This is also inherent to learning through exploration. When I get killed, I can always find my corpse back and continue to play.

The problem with face-to-face learning is that learners are more afraid of making mistakes, mostly because of the social and immediate nature of this traditional mode. Not that online learning doesn't involve risks (learners are, most of the time, not anonymous) but the distance “filters” people's reactions in such a way that when someone makes a mistake, they won't feel or hear others' laughs or immediate reactions (unless a synchronous voice medium is used for example).

Often, teachers themselves make humiliating remarks about students' attempts at solving a particular problem which can harm their self-esteem and prevent them from trying and learning at later times.

In relation to that, on the Course Design module and in response to the sort of power relationships between learners described by Reynolds and Trehan (2000), Eneas suggested that participative assessment could be conducted using Second Life.

A learning network

In fact, online learning forces students to focus on learning. This is the distinction that Rovai et al 2006 make between social community and learning community. Even though the social element is crucial (particularly at the beginning), the learning aspect of the community gradually takes over (Salmon 2000).

What makes this possible is that the structure of the web itself reflects the link between the various nodes of the community: online resources and people. Learners can customize their learning experiences better and in a much more timely way than when they are attending a face-to-face lecture or a tutorial. Indeed, when students take exams online, teachers can't expect them to rely solely on their own knowledge.

This change from the traditional to the online medium may be seen as an opportunity for rethinking traditional education and transforming it into one that is more suited to today's demands.

References:

Chen, P., R. Gonyea, and G. Kuh. (2008). Learning at a distance: Engaged or not?. Innovate 4(3)
Retrieved: 8 April 2009. http://www.innovateonline.info/index.php?view=article&id=438

Gee, J. P. (2003). The social mind. In What video games have to teach us about learning and literacy. New York, Palgrave Macmillan

Reynolds, M. and Trehan, K. (2000). Assessment: a critical perspective. Studies in Higher Education 25(3): 267-278.

Rovai, Alfred P., Mervyn J. Wightinga & Robert Lucking (2006). The Classroom and School community Inventory: Development, refinement, and validation of a self-report measure for educational research, The Internet in Higher Education 7, 263–280.

Salmon, G (2002). The five-stage framework and e-tivities. In E-tivities: the key to active online learning. (London, Kogan Page): 10-36.

Recently, my intrinsic motivation in the game has slightly decreased: the fact I have less time to play because of the various assignments probably plays a part into that since motivation in an activity needs to be sustained by practising that activity.

Nevertheless, another factor which may play a part into this is a decreased interest in fighting: as said above, in virtue of the Practice Principle underscored by Gee (2003, p. 68), I spend a lot of my playing time fighting enemies in order to achieve quests. The problem is that I feel bored with fighting and I feel that the game may sometimes make the player over-practice certain skills.

But surprisingly, I still accept, among other quests, some which directly require killing certain enemies in order to bring back specific items: I suppose the reason for this is that I want to progress in the game and I know that killing enemies while achieving quests is the best way to gain more experience points. In other words, extrinsic motivation plays an important role in my trajectory within the game. In particular, I've realised that the experience bar is a very powerful motivator: I often look at it to see how much progress I have made and how close I am to gaining one level (that's my extrinsic objective for any play session). This is a very good implementation of the Achievement Principle (Gee 2003, p. 67).

This reminds me of a paper which, unfortunately, I haven't been able to find the reference of: it suggested that when an activity is really not interesting, extrinsic motivation can be helpful. Even though WoW cannot be said to be uninteresting, the relative boredom that I recently feel and the event which were just described support that idea. I think that in such cases, making any amount of progress obvious to the student or game player can be particularly effective. However, it should not be over-used so as not to undermine intrinsic motivation (Barab et al  2005).

References:

Barab, S., A. Arici and C. Jackson (2005). Eat your vegetables and do your homework: a design-based investigation of enjoyment and meaning in learning. Educational Technology 45 (1): 15-20.

Gee, J. P. (2003). What video games have to teach us about learning and literacy. New York, Palgrave Macmillan

Greenfield states that “there is evidence that violent video games breed violent behaviours, just as violent television shows do” (1984, p. 92) before explaining why “It may be that the most harmful aspect of video games is that they are solitary in nature” (p. 93).

Reflecting on this idea that violence exists in all sorts of media, I still felt that the fact video games are played in an active way results in an important difference, which is encompassed by Gee's Identity Principle (2003, pp. 51-58). I thought that even though all media can potentially generate violence, video games could probably do so more strongly.

But then, Gee's talk about cultural models helped me revise my point of view: I think he's right in saying that violent “group models” are most of the time counter-balanced by “general models” of good which exist in the players' other social groups and in society at large.

So again, it may only be when violent “group models” take too much importance in a player's life that violence becomes a central source of concern. This is more likely to happen with emotionally weak populations such as some teenagers or people having serious personal problems but then, those players don't represent the majority of video game players. With such at-risk groups, parents and friends have a major role to play.

Finally, I found Gee particularly insightful (as usual in his book) when he discusses how locking people into their own conceptions is not necessarily less dangerous than enabling them to experience various perspectives, including bad ones.

References:

Gee, J. P. (2003). What video games have to teach us about learning and literacy. New York, Palgrave Macmillan

Greenfield, P. M. (1984). Video games. In Mind and media: the effects of television, video games, and computers. Cambridge, Mass., Harvard University Press.

After reading about it, I was disappointed that the game Flower wasn't available on PC. But fortunately, someone on the discussion boards drew our attention to Cloud, which is similar and is freely available. Actually, the game's Wikipedia entry links to ThatGameCompany, the company that created Flower.

What is Cloud exactly?

This videogame transports the player in another dimension: it's as if he/she is acting in his/her own dreams: the artwork of the introduction to the various levels, the colours, the music, clouds - the object themselves, everything reminds someone of their best dreams. As such, this kind of videogame is likely to stimulate the players' imagination.

With that in mind, the word experience, which Fiona used to describe this particular kind of videogame, seems quite appropriate.

Guiding the clouds to shower the land

A particular kind of game

A closer look at its feature and design reveals that it is nevertheless a game or ludus, to reuse Frasca's proposed modified meaning of Caillois' word (in Newman 2004). In effect, Cloud:

• has goals such as gathering the clouds, drawing a lollipop, preventing dark clouds (smoke?) from reaching virgin lands, showering the lands

• is made of several levels of increasing difficulty

• contains other scaffolding features such as:

  - a training module as an illustration of the Subset Principle (Gee 2003, pp. 121-122) which teaches players the basic skills they will need later in the game

  - feedback tips

• requires the player to adapt his strategy. Even though I haven't played enough to succeed in the third level yet, one approach that worked better was to divide the bright clouds in several parts and with each of them, pushing light grey clouds towards the dark clouds. This is a good example of the Ongoing Learning principle (Gee 2003, pp. 69-70)

We may further categorise Cloud by saying it is a form of mimicry game (Caillois 2001): the player is an illusory character that one might call the “Guard of the clouds”. As we said above, what gives it this experience-like nature is its design in terms of graphics, music, interactions. But thinking about it, the word experience may be yet another way to talk about mimicry and role-play: the player experiences being in someone else's shoes, using special powers, etc.

References:

Caillois, R. (2001). The classification of games. In Man, play and games. Urbana, Ill., University of Illinois Press; Wantage: University Presses Marketing.

Cloud (2005). Role-playing videogame. USC EA Game Innovation Lab.
http://intihuatani.usc.edu/cloud/

Gee, J. P. (2003). What video games have to teach us about learning and literacy. New York, Palgrave Macmillan

Newman, J. (2004). What is a video game? Rules, puzzles and simulations. Videogames. London, Routledge.

I remember such examples in school, wherein the teacher would talk about a specific abstract concept that I wouldn't understand. I clearly remember trying to imagine what that concept could mean, to figure out a meaning out of my own knowledge. Then, one of us would often ask the teacher to give an example, which, often, would clarify things.

One metaphor of situated meanings that comes to mind is that of birds.

Picture: birds as a metaphor of situated meanings

Non-specialists know very little about birds. When we see them fly in the sky, most of us find that they all look alike, like the abstract concepts we just mentioned.

But when they enter our known world, by settling on the ground, in a tree or even by singing perhaps, they become more accessible. If someone tell us their name at that particular time (a teaching moment), it then enables us to anchor them in our everyday experiences (associate the abstract name with familiar characteristics such as size, song, etc.). Those who even touch them (to take care and heal wounded ones perhaps) can acquire yet a deeper embodied experience of them.

The next time someone mentions their name, we can better understand what they are talking about and the more experience we get, the easier it becomes to discuss birds on a purely conceptual level, without needing to refer back to our embodied experiences (or perhaps we do that, but unconsciously).

References:

Gee, J. P. (2003). Situated meaning and learning. In What video games have to teach us about learning and literacy. New York, Palgrave Macmillan. pp. 73-112.

WebQuests are games similar to treasure hunts, like the ones we were given in Second Life, except they are mostly based on the Web - thanks to web-based communication tools, they may also involve human beings. Usually, they are conducted as a team, which has important implications for how to approach them.

Skills involved

Here are a the main skills involved in WebQuests:

1. Analysing the task document (broad level) in search for patterns or links
2. Planning and strategic thinking for more focused action
3. More detailed analysis of a selection of the information sources provided
4. Constant quick comparisons between information deemed important at a given time (often a lot) and that one is skimming through
   This involves making hypothesis, probing (Gee 2003, pp. 90-96)
5. Ability to keep one's mind open to alternative possibilities

The latter point is particularly relevant: once there are signs of being on the right track (especially because the ideas one has are also driven by one's own interests), it's easy to get carried away, become too selective in the analysis and therefore, to miss out on better hypthesis. In a nutshell, tunnel vision can constantly alter judgement.

That's where working as a team is particularly helpful: at the beginning, it's worth taking the aforementioned risk into account in the team strategy and avoiding exploring the same ideas as those looked at by other members of the team.

References:

Gee, J. P. (2003). What does it mean to be a half elf? In What video games have to teach us about learning and literacy. New York, Palgrave Macmillan