The Toronto Star recently published an article on companies creating serious games and the impact that they are having on education. I was interviewed for this piece about the work we’ve done at Wero Creative. Also interviewed was Jeremy Friedberg at Spongelab and the great work that they’ve been up to, they have a fantastic new web service for connecting educators to good interactive content.
Also interviewed is the very smart and wonderful Jennifer Jenson from York University, she has done some great work looking at gender and gaming.
Some teachers are still uncertain of how to incorporate games into the classroom, said Adam Clare, co-founder of Wero Creative, which makes educational and “just for fun” games.
Many games are inter-disciplinary, causing issues in a system that divides math, science and history into separate subjects, he said.
“Our feedback has always been, ‘This game is great. Now how do I use it in class?’” In response, Clare has created a ratings system to help teachers understand the educational value of games.
Studying history gives us patterns that we will repeat if we don’t learn from those existing patterns (yup, those who don’t learn history are bound to repeat it). For example ,if we cut funding for social programs that deter gangs then the number of gang-related crimes will increase. That doesn’t take a long time to play out, but we do tend to forget. In the long-view of history we can find time and time again that civilizations that don’t address environmental concerns will eventually collapse, yet here we are in the anthropecene and experiencing insanely radical weather around the world (sadly, we lack the political will to do anything about it, but that’s a different post).
We need to study history in order to survive as a culture and as a species. We can use technology to help people understand the significance of the past, but before we get there we need people interested in history. Let’s use technology to get people at least interested in the past.
There are companies and organizations that are looking into the use of technology to get history on the minds of everyone. This is obviously a positive thing as far as I’m concerned. I’d like to note two recent strategies that I’ve come across this past week.
My City Before is an app for iOS and Android that literally shows the user images from the past. The app geolocates a user and then shows them pictures in their current area. Of course, it’s possible just to browse the collection at anytime.
It shows images with a brief description about the content of the photo, which will hopefully whet the user’s appetite for historical context and inspire them to find out more. I’m sure that the ability to see different time periods will entice people to wonder “what did it change?” and act on their newfound curiosity.
My City Before has a good scalability factor insofar that it’s the same tech applied to different cities; all it requires is a local historian to fill in the details.
In Toronto there is a project using QR codes to get people engaged with history being done by the Toronto Dreams Project. In essence, they are using creative posters with catchy titles to get people to stop and learn. If the person is interested enough they can scan a QR code to learn more.
I like the idea of using posters placed around town to entice people into a more digital and immersive experience than just stoping to read.
So far, about two dozen sticky plaques have been posted around the city, commemorating events ranging from fatal Christmas Eve streetcar crashes to William Faulkner’s drunken adventures in a biplane at the University of Toronto. Among his favourites is the story of the statue of King Edward VII in Queen’s Park, which originally stood in Delhi, India. After independence, the statue was removed from its prime location and left to rot with other colonial monuments until it was shipped to Toronto in the late 1960s.
Still, I can’t help be bothered by the fact that they are using QR codes. The use of QR codes, to me, seems like an ineffective way to communicate cool stories because people don’t use QR codes.
Edit: I realise that the introduction to this could come across as bitter. I’m too lazy to fix it up right now so let’s just hope I learn from this.
The world of alternate reality games (ARGs) is made up of a very committed and enthusiastic community and tonight that community’s annual conference starts in Toronto. ARGFest-o-con 2012 is running at Ryerson University tomorrow and Saturday (schedule).
It looks to be an informative event in regards to the world of ARGs and I’ll be checking out tomorrow’s activities. Unfortunately I’ll be missing the FestQuest.
This TED talk is by two designers who explore what makes a fun game and provide some insights on how to make something fun. The talk is enthusiastic and, if you’re like me, you’ll want to pick up the game design you’ve been working on right after watching this.
What is “fun”? Modern board game designers Kevin Spak and Sam Liberty unpack this mysterious word in new ways, and usher in a boom of innovation that pushes the limits of cardboard chips and wooden bits.
Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi’s idea of flow comes up a lot when discussing games. The goal, after all, is to get the player full engaged in your game and doing so ideally puts them in a state along the lines of ‘flow’.
I’ve collected here a few things that can get you started down the path of understanding what flow is all about.
