Academia: November 2005 Archive Page

--Volunteers work smoothly for Operation Santa Clause [sic] (Tribune-Review [Online])

Dear Santa,

For Christmas, what I need most of all is a good copyeditor.

Love,

Pittsburgh Live.com

Okay, okay... To err is human.

I shouldn't be so harsh on whoever typed the headline. It's gloating blog entries like this that annoy professioal professional journalists and make them think of bloggers as "the enemy." But as I deal with the final crush of rough drafts from my students, I've been upbeat and constructive and positive as much as humanly possible, and that takes its toll on a guy.

So I've briefly unleashed the unflinching grammar bastard who dwells within. That felt good.

Now it's time to go back to being Professor Helpful.

All of the professors interviewed agreed that the Civ3 gods created a universe in which war goes a long way. The gods, of course, are the game designers who determine the algorithms by which history, in the game, will progress. So in order for the game to accurately portray the inputs that spit out world history, the game designers had “better create a damn complex algorithm,” says Alexander Galloway, an assistant professor of culture and communication at New York University who used Civ3 in a media studies graduate seminar. “The game doesn’t progress the same way [as human history],” Galloway says, noting that a player controlling Russia would essentially have to pick one form of government and stick with it. “I’m sure there are lower level history textbooks that are reductive too.” --Not Just Child’s Play (Inside Higher Ed)

While it's certainly true that all simulations are reductive, it's not true that a player in Civ3 would have to stick to one form of government. Players start out with "Despotism," but after they have researched such things as "Literacy" and "Code of Laws," they have the option to research -- and switch to -- more advanced forms of government like "Republic," "Monarchy," "Democracy" and "Communism." Each form of government comes with benefits and drawbacks, and just because you're playing Russia doesn't mean you have to move from Monarchy to Communism when the game reaches the 20th century. Each civilization starts out with a slightly different set of resources, and each civilization gets a specific military unit that is superior to the similar class units in other nations.

Don't write the sentence "There has been very little research done on games" in any more papers or articles or theses and essays UNLESS you also have a full bibliography that cites those few existing works. I don't care how many authorities you cite who may have written those words quite recently. Because yes, gamestudies is a new field, and therefore does not have entire library shelves to themselves, like literary studies. However, if the amount of articles and books you have to read to be able to understand the width of the field is so small, it is pretty lazy scholarly work - sloppy craft, simply - not to have read them all. --Torill Mortensen --Please, PLEASE stop (Thinking with my fingers)

Just trying to send a little link love Torill's way.

Turning to a few student samples we can see this concept exemplified even more. Below is a quote from one of Dennis Jerz's students. This is one of the student's first postings, and you can see his/her enthusiasm about designing and creating a blog.

September 08, 2004: LOOK AT ME, I HAVE A BLOG!

I have a blog now. My very own. It's like a baby -- mine to mold, change, and create. Hundreds of people (or in my case, about 5) will be able to see my writings. People from other countries even. Hola! Bonjour! Guten Tag! foreign peoples! I think I may have become addicted though. I just found out how to personalize and change the colors. Now, every free moment I have will be spent changing colors and making the blog uniquely me. Homework? Who needs homework? I have to work on my blog. (Special K)

This student seems to be aware of, probably because Jerz emphasized to his students, the public nature of the weblog: "Hundreds of people... will be able to see my writings. People from other countries even." However, what is even more intriguing is that the student states in parentheses "(or in my case, about 5)," which would seem to indicate that he/she does not think many people will be reading her blog. --Ashley Joyce Holmes --Web Logs in the Post-Secondary Writing Classroom: A Study of Purposes (PDF) (North Carolina State University)

This was a pleasant find -- an NCSU master's thesis that analyzes the use of web logs in higher education. I think I'll throw a few quotes from this into my next annual review.

I'm much better at simply showing people what blogs are all about, so I appreciated Holmes' careful description of precisely how a blog works. I might use a section of this dissertation the next time I teach Writing for the Internet.

My student Vanessa Kolberg is the "Special K" blogger. The paper mentions her name correctly, but the URL given in the Works Cited list is wrong. It should be "http://blogs.setonhill.edu/VanessaKolberg".

Each of the following uses a weblog or content management system to manage the site and/or really breaks traditional conventions in other ways, changing the way that the teacher establishes their professional ethos in comparison to the more traditional forms seen above. --Example Instructor Professional Home Pages (Introductory Composition at Purdue: Technical Mentoring)

Just doing a little egosurfing to remind myself that I do have a professional identity that extends beyond circling punctuation errors. No classes today, but I went into the office anyway and marked papers for seven hours.

Not done yet, so it's back to work. But first, maybe I'll crush Rome in Civilization III.

--MLA citation style: quick guide (PDF) (Cal State University, San Marcos LIbrary)

A handy two-page reference sheet.

I was pleasantly surprised to see what example this guide uses for how to cite a website. Perhaps there's a text-adventure fan on the CSUSM staff.

The most subtle and cogent analysis by a rhetorician of how The Times or CNN frames its stories has all the pertinence to a reporter or editor that a spectrographic analysis of jalapeno powder would to someone cooking chili.

This is not a function of journalistic anti-intellectualism, though there?s certainly enough of that to go around. No, it comes down to a knowledge gap ?- one in which academic media critics are often at a serious disadvantage. I mean tacit knowledge. There are, for example, things one learns from the experience of interviewing people who are clearly lying to you (or otherwise trying to make you a pawn in whatever game they are playing) that cannot be reduced to either formal propositions or methodological rules.--Scott McLemee

--Meet the Press (Inside Higher Ed)

I enjoy discussing things in EL250 in general just because I feel like I learn a lot about all of you who are in there. I feel like I know you all a little better after having these kinds of discussions in class. That is really important to me because I enjoy learning about people and what experiences they have that are different than my own. It really makes me put my own life in perspective and it humbles me by making me realize how much I don't yet know. So thanks guys! Have a great Thanksgiving! --Lorin Schumacher --Kindertransport Performance Discussion (LorinSchumacher)

Lorin is a freshman English education major, who took the time to post this cheerful and encouraging post after today's EL 250 "Drama as Literature" class, during which we discussed our reactions to seeing the school's production of Kindertransport. We had read the script and discussed it briefly already.

I was surprised that several students said they got more out of reading the play. Of course, students who sign up for a class on "Drama as Literature" are going to bring with them a certain literary bias, but I was still surprised to hear that many students preferred the textual experience to the performance.

It's not that they were criticizing the performance, which I thought was excellent. I'd prefer to think that they have developed their skill in reading a dramatic text, and they've realized when they read a play they have to be the director and each of the actors; when they watch a play, they're taken along on someone else's ride.

On the subject of Seton Hill drama, a student in my News Writing class has posted a series of short articles about what it's like "Behind the Scenes of Seton Hill's Theatre Program."

I'd love to see similar projects for other programs.

But in another sense, academic blogging represents the fruition, not a betrayal, of the university's ideals. One might argue that blogging is in fact the very embodiment of what the political philosopher Michael Oakshott once called "The Conversation of Mankind"?an endless, thoroughly democratic dialogue about the best ideas and artifacts of our culture. --Robert S. Boynton --Attack of the Career-Killing Blogs (Slate)

The driver of the police van starts to pull out, momentarily blocking your view of Ide and the protestors. The two young men behind you come forward for a closer look.

"Did Tony just give her the finger?" asks the young man in the sweatshirt.

"I don't blame him," says the second young man.

As you move to a new position, you pass near the young man wearing the sweatshirt.

You glance at your watch and notice that court will be in session in a few minutes. You know that you've got a seat reserved, but you know judge Dickerson doesn't like people coming into his courtroom late. Given all the noise out here, the judge might be in a bad mood.

Do you

A) Talk to the young men
B) Talk to the woman with the megaphone
C) Head right into the courtroom

[In class Friday, you will be given the next chunk of the story.] --Lab: Court Reporting (EL 227: News Writing)

I'm in the process of creating a "Choose Your Own Adventure" exercise for a courtroom reporting exercise in my News Writing class.

Tomorrow morning, I'm going to hand students a packet of information based on the choices they make. There will be a few other quick choices, then when the court breaks for lunch, they'll have an hour to write up their notes.

When court reconvenes, I'll shift into role-play mode, and I'll perform for them what happens in the courtroom.

They'll have to take notes on this sequence, and incorporate these events into the story that's due at the end of the lab.

Wish me luck!

Here’s where it gets fun: after students’ small groups put some thoughts up on the board, we read through the Writing Program’s Statement on Plagiarism out loud, and discuss it, making sure everything’s clear about the policy.

And then I hold a plagiarism contest. --Mike Vitia --Let’s Plagiarize! (Jerz's Literacy Weblog)

I'm home in Greensburg, still coming down from my Serious Games Summit high. This post is a useful reminder that simulation and role-playing doesn't require a computer. Even the fanciest teaching tools may be useless unless they are contextualized effectively (and designed with sound pedagogical principles). I doubt that corporate or military trainers would go for a training exercise that asks learners to perform undesirable actions. The simulators are, of course, designed with the understanding that learners will fail, and the design includes feedback to get the trainee to reach the expected performance level. But the trainee isn't expected to understand all the material. In fact, teaching full comprehension is inefficient, since in many cases the decisions are made elsewhere, and the point of training is to get compliance (and thus save lives or protect valuable assets).

On the other hand, if the point of a simulation is to teach comprehension, situational awareness, or leadership, rather than to teach a particular skill to be performed by those with their boots in the sand, then we're back to Admiral Kirk's Kobayashi Maru -- a training simulation designed to test how a commander performs in a no-win situation.

Not sure where I'm going with this... it's way too late, and the caffeine-and-sugar high that fueled my drive home is starting to fade.

One sunny day shortly after the start of the fall term, Robert M. Dawley was preparing to spend the afternoon tutoring two students on how to measure the DNA content in the cells of tadpoles.

But first he walked briskly out of his building and over to a small lounge with white cinder-block walls, stretched out on the carpeted floor, his head propped up on a bent arm, and asked a small class of bright-eyed freshmen sitting along the walls to reflect on Gilgamesh, the world's oldest-known epic poem. --Burton Bollag --Where a Geneticist Can Teach 'Gilgamesh' (Chronicle)

Serious Games Summit DC 2005, Day 2A Debate Between Jan Cannon-Bowers and Marc Prensky (Jerz's Literacy Weblog)

Do we need instructional design in serious games, or is making a good game enough? This debate is part of an ongoing turf battle within the serious games movement.

As is generally the case with conference liveblogging, these are lightly-edited notes, and shouldn't be taken as a verbatim, authoritative transcript.

Perry McDowell gave the introduction. Developer of "Delta 3D," an open-source games engine.

If games can train and educate without putting pedagogy into it, why waste time/money in it?

If games can't train without instructional design, the results can be scary ("negative training effects").

In the 80s, regarding AI, "Mouths made promises that brains couldn't keep." The result was "the AI winter" -- money for AI research dried up as a result of dissatisfaction with early attempts.

In the 90s, the same thing happened with VR. Serious Games is providing a reprieve for VR researchers. But if we can't show hard evidence that SG doesn't train people better, faster, cheaper, then before long Serious Games will be five guys drinking beer remembering the old days, while, the rest of us will be at the "Hula-hoops for Education Conference."

"We don't want Serious Games to be on the scrapheap of history" along with the pet rock. (Hmmm?. if serious games isn't any good, then why shouldn't it be discarded when the next thing comes along? The argument is predicated on the assumption that serious games do work. He's suggesting the issue is to preserve funding for serious games, not to solve the problems that most of us in this room assume serious games will solve.)

Jan Cannon-Bowers and Marc Prensky; two smart, very well-educated people who have almost diametrically opposing positions on the issue.

Contextualizing the start of the deabate, which started at another conference (sorry, I didn't catch that detail).

Marc -- teachers are basically babysitters, under certain circumstances we can get rid of teachers.

Jan -- "Marc, I could almost defend you until you went off the deep end."

The moderator helpfully contextualized the debate with Jerry Springer and Rock 'em Sock 'em Robots slides, and Dan Ackroyd's famous Saturday Night Live retort, "Jane, you ignorant slut."

So clearly, this debate was staged as entertainment, with the two participants ready to attack each other intellectally.

Jan Cannon-Bowers

Do we need pedagogy in educational games? Of course we do! What moron would think otherwise? Why is "pedagogy" a bad word? Gamers are afraid that pedagogy represents this noose we're going to put around their necks and tighten it to crush out all their creative juice. She suggests that it will be an interesting mix and culture clash. Learning doesn't have to be "fun" in order to be successful. Would you say everything you learned was fun? We can all recall cases in which we were so motivated to learn that we overcame bad instructional environments.

Should we try to make learning fun? Sure! If fun is one way to elevate motivation, then why not? Positive feelings about training -- "I liked it or didn't like it." There's a threshold below which no learning is happening, but does learning have to be "fun" in order to be effective? There's a point at which, once a certain threshold of comfort has been reached, there is little correlation between comfort and learning.

Besides fun, we should also consider that training is interesting, engaging, useful, challenging, fulfilling, and otherwise motivating. If we don't incorporate pedagogy, learning effectiveness is hit or miss (at best).

Jan would prefer that her doctor, mechanic, etc, be trained on a solid system that does its job, and she doesn't care whether they have fun in the process.


Marc Prensky

Had difficulty getting his laptop started. Heckled from the audience -- "Are you having fun?" Marc admitted that he should have tested it, and admitted "There's probably pedagogy involved in testing." The moderator jumped up and joked that the debate was over, Jan cried, "I won!"

To fill time, Jan fielded a question from the audience? what's the difference between enjoyable and fun? She replied that that's splitting hairs, but noted that people may go through an experience where they are sweating bullets, and then look back afterwards and say, "That was fun!"

When the laptop was ready, Marc sarted saying, "Sure sure sure sure." Began with a joke definition of pedagogy -- peda = "foot," gogy = "gouge" -- gagging on your foot in your mouth.

"Whenever you add an instructional designer, the first thing they do is suck the fun out."

Showed a list of 12 activities (trying, deciding, observing. etc.). You need motivation in order to get people to do those 12 things.

Will Wright --If a learner is motivated, there's no stopping him.

Effort for learning can feel like work, but can also feel like play. Learning feels like play when you have the engagement, motivation and passion -- and that should be our number one priority. The main reason you do all these things is to get people to finish the training you've invested your energy in.

A good chart

Curriculum Design v Game Design

Focus: Content vs. Engagement
Mode: Presentations vs. Gameplay
Decisions: Rare vs. Frequent and Important

Negative Training -- the instructional designer's way of instilling fear. "the herpes of training"

("Serious Games" is a subset of games for educational purposes. A term for a subset of education that focuses on enjoyment is "Fun Pedagogy.")

Jan of game designers -- "I don't trust you!" (guffaws). When asked to clarify, she said she didn't trust the instinct of game designers to be able to deliver the content that, for example, helps a pilot to fly a plane, without the help of instructional designers.

(Makes me think of Plato's Ion, the dialogue with a rhapsode who says that he is qualified to act the role of a general because he knows what a general would do or say.)

When asked how a pilot in a "fun" simulation would learn the details, Marc said "RTFM." Someone from the audience asked "Who wrote the FM?"

Marc -- we need good instructional strategies. "If they were good instructional strategies, they wouldn't suck the fun out." We've learned a lot about the world of Norrath, such that if there were a real world of Norrath, it could be validated.

Jan -- design is about making decisions. "I don't think the typical gamer who's not gotten some extensive exposure is going to make the appropriate design decisions."

Marc -- suggested that instead of starting from the beginning that instead you started in the middle, repairing an interesting thing that's broken, rather that creating something from scratch without a sense of how it all works.

Jan notes that moving from simulation to games, you need new, modern models of instruction that can accommodate immersive environments.

Ricardo Rademacher, who was sitting behind me in the audience, pointed to the slide on which Marc had displayed "Whenever you add an instructional designer, the first thing they do is suck the fun out," and noted that you could turn that around. "Whenever you add a game designer, they suck the learning out," and argued that's precisely what happened in the 90s with "edutainment software."

In the last few minutes of the panel, amidst much laughter and zipping-up of laptop cases, when Marc tried to get the crowd to join his rallying cry of "Let's not suck the fun out," Ricardo and I cried, "Let's not suck!"

In a parting shot, the moderator asked the crowd how many of them had changed their minds based on what they had seen. Predictably, nobody raised their hands.

Overall, I thought the whole premise -- do we need pedagogy at all -- gave Jan an uphill battle. Imagine, if you will, in the alternate universe, instead of "Serious Games Summit," a "Fun Pedagogy Summit."

What chance would a game designer have there?

Well, that's it -- time to publish this and head over to the reception. I'm driving back to Pennsylvania tonight.