Edublogging : why games are good

This is a copy of a post from my edublog - it's only about 400 words so is a little more readable than the sprawling (drawling?) 4000 words I put together the other day.

I'll try to spare you most of my writing but I enjoyed this one

Interactive multimedia makes Behaviourist learning strategies more engaging.

The use of simple online games and quizzes provides positive reinforcement to learners and adds interest to subjects which focus on fact based learning by bringing variety and heightened sensory experiences to repetitive tasks.

Robyler and Harviluk (1997) point out that among the “needs addressed by directed instruction” (their term for the Behaviourist approach) are “making learning paths more efficient... especially for instruction in skills that are prerequisite to higher-level skills” and “performing time-consuming and labor intensive tasks (e.g., skill practice), freeing teacher time for other, more complex student needs”.

This has been demonstrated in a project undertaken in the Learning Medical Terminology subject at the Canberra Institute of Technology (CIT).

Anecdotal evidence from the teacher of the subject indicates that students now learn and retain the words more quickly and complain less about the subject.

This heuristic is useful to me as a learning resource developer at CIT as we are part of the Vocational Education and Training (VET) sector and many of the initial subjects in our courses require learners to acquire a certain base level of technical subject-specific knowledge. Many of these games can be produced easily by teachers with free or inexpensive software and require minimal technical ability to create and put online.

I chose to write about it as I am a firm believer in the educational possibilities of interactive multimedia, particularly in the form of games and quizzes. Games are a familiar, accessible and engaging medium which can be used in situations ranging from Behaviourist drill and practice exercises to more Constructivist problem based scenarios. There is currently a growing group of educational game producers – known as the Serious Games movement – focussing heavily on the possibilities of the latter.

Learning practitioners wishing to make use of interactive multimedia in the form of games and quizzes should allow themselves adequate time to become familiar with the game/quiz creating software that they wish to use. While most of it is designed with the less technically inclined user in mind (i.e. a wizard based approach), it can often still require the uploading of multiple supporting image and javascript files to your website or learning management system.

References:

Robyler, M.D., Ewards, J., & Harviluk, M.A. (1997) Integrating educational technology into teaching. New Jersey: Prentice-Hall, Chapter 3, p. 54 – 77.

Simpson, C., (2005). Medical Terminology – Prefixes and Suffixes. Retrieved 23/7/2007 from http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xTfs4axi1YU

Ertmer, P.A. & Newby, T.J. (1993). Behaviorism, cognitivism, constructivism: comparing critical features from an instructional design perspective. Performance Improvement Quarterly, 6(4), 50-72. (abstract)

Oliver, R. & Herrington, J. (2001) Teaching and Learning Online (p.52) Western Australia, Edith Cowan University

Wikipedia - Serious Game. Retrieved 23/7/2007 from http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Serious_game

Waiting: with baited breath

Sorkin Will Script Flaming Lips Musical | Yoshimi Battles the Pink Robots | EW.com Exclusive | News + Notes | Entertainment Weekly

This is just so cool on so many levels. (Of course it could well be one of those things that you hear about once that never comes to fruition - David Cronenberg directing American Psycho for instance)

Aaron Sorkin - wunderkind writer/creator of The West Wing, A Few Good Men, The American President and the upcoming Studio 60 on Sunset Strip - is apparently all signed up to write the script for the Broadway musical of the Flaming Lips Yoshimi Battles the Pink Robots.

I think my brain is going to explode.

Here's the video for the title song from the album

Here's a promo for Studio 60 on Sunset Strip. (I'm assuming you've watched The West Wing - sadly S60 is to be screened by Channel 9 so who knows what they are going to do to it)

Blogged with Flock

Solving: the mystery of the missing Simpsons

Thinking about some of my childhood reading favourites yesterday (the Hardy Boys and Jupiter Jones of the three investigators) has put me into a bit of a detective mode - ok, not hugely so but it's all relative.

A quick check of the email last night reminded me that Mum and Dad are off in Tassie and my sister Penny is currently in the U.K (Where hopefully she won't bump into the newly boganish Susan Kennedy/Kinski and Dr Carl - or get mixed up with that minx Izzy). (If you have no idea what I'm talking about there, you're probably better off :)

I'll just have to wait a little while to share the story of the week with everyone.

(How cool would it be if while she's in the U.K, Penny bumped into Rachel's brother though)

Wondering: at the serendipity of it all

This is one of those stories that if you saw it in a film, you'd think that the writer was straining the bounds of credulity (or watched a lot of Bollywood).

But it's true - I know because it happened to me. (It's actually not that dramatic - freaky yes but not so dramatic - I've just always wanted to say that.)

About a month ago I started seeing a (fantastic/smart/beautiful/funny) girl that I'd met through RSVP, a popular internet dating site. We clicked pretty quickly and shared tales that indicated that we had a few things in common in our respective pasts. (Which I guess is one of the things you do in the first flush of dating, nothing unique there.)

We both have (Aussie) dads called Bob who have worked in engineering type jobs, both travelled to the UK in the mid/late 1960s and both met their wives there (our mums - Vicki and Marg) who were nurses and both came back here to live.

Interesting coincidences right but in the grand scheme of things, probably not that unusual. But of course there's more - you know there is - why would I be telling this story if there wasn't more to come?

Anyway, things meander along and Nancy Drew here (not me obviously - if it was me I would have said the Hardy boys or perhaps Jupiter Jones) heads down to Melbourne for work and along to Healesville sanctuary, which triggers memories of a childhood visit there with family friends at the age of five.

Fragments of the visit whirl around in her mind for a few days, gradually taking form until out of the blue, she asks "What's your mum's name?". "Vicki - why?", I reply.

At this point, she gets a little excited. "I knew it, I knew you were going to say Vicki".

Anyway, long story short, it turns out that our dads actually shared a flat in London, our mums did nursing training together and my mum and dad introduced hers to each other.

I haven't had a chance to chat to my folks about this yet but Rachel has confirmed it all with hers and her mum and mine still exchange Christmas cards.

I think I'm still processing it to a degree but it's quite the weird story - particularly given that we may well have met as kids.

Getting: all academical

Because I obviously don't spend enough time in the blogosphere, I've started up another blog where I can get my thoughts out about the things I'm reading and doing in the pursuit of my Masters in Education (ICT in Education).

(Hey, at least I'm not Twittering - now that seems like a massive waste of time - not to mention intrusive, trivial and hyper-ego-centric)

My edublog elearningnews.edublogs.org is probably pretty academic/technical/snorefesty however I have a stack of readings and reflections to plough through and if you're interested in education and eLearning, there might be something worth taking a bit of a look at.

(If not, I completely understand - just figured I'd mention it anyway)

Whistling: in the shower

You know your day is going well (great even) when you find yourself spontaneously whistling in the shower first thing in the morning.

In previous times it's been (somewhat oddly) Click Go The Shears but today's selection was a little cooler - Pavement's 1994 hit Cut Your Hair.

Here's a sample.



Here's the Wikipedia take on the song too

Cut Your Hair is a song by American rock band, Pavement on their second album, Crooked Rain, Crooked Rain. The song is Pavement songwriter Stephen Malkmus' snarky ode to selling out, and, as such, it snidely attacks the importance of image and musicianship's decline in importance in the record industry. Perhaps with a bit of irony, the song was also released as a single and became the band's best selling and most popular song.

(I didn't actually realise that it was about selling out, I just thought it was about hair - oh well, there you go)

I wonder if making yourself whistle (or sing) in the shower in the morning would help you to have a good day

Thanks beautiful.

Concertgoing: At the edge

Maybe I'm the eternal optimist but of all the people that I read the following blurb to last Friday, I was the only one not to be dubious.

At the Edge is a new concert series exploring hybrid forms of music and visual performance. This event is the first of two for the year and features exciting and various new media music and electro acoustic composition performances. This concert showcases the talent and diversity of soloists and ensembles within the ANU School of Music and the Centre for New Media Arts.

Now I will admit that I was aware of the possibility that this could well consist of a handful of half naked performers painted blue standing in a circle singing the word "poop" for the better part of an hour in front of projected video of paint drying while some feral banged away mindlessly on a djembe but given that this is Canberra (and the ANU) and interesting things are tucked away all over the place in this town, decided to give it a go. (Just don't get me started on my issues with ferals/hippies/crusties playing drums).

As it turned out, it was great. (Ok, the first half was great and if it wasn't for the fact that I was starving and crying out for a drink I would have stuck around, honest)

The performance was held in the Band Room at the School of Music and entry was by gold coin donation - attendance was sparse and Buj wondered if we might be the only people there not in the performers immediate family.

The programme began with a piece called Piano Phase, which consisted of a man (Gary France) playing midi percussion pads behind a screen on which was a projection of a man (Gary also) playing midi percussion pads.

The two "performers" begin in sync playing a repeating pattern (which isn't drumlike but a keyboard sounding melody) but gradually one of them speeds up their tempo to move an eighth-note in front of them. (I actually thought that there was a third layer of sound - two percussion tracks and a looping keyboard melody - but according to what I have read, there isn't).

Might I just add at this point that the old axiom "Writing about music is like dancing about architecture" feels painfully true at this juncture

Fortunately, I just found an example of Piano Phase - check it out here. (This version seems a little faster than the one I heard but you should get the gist)

This rolls over and over for what felt like about twenty minutes (though who knows how long) with slight shifts in the tune every so often keeping it from being completely maddening. In fact, it was beautifully hypnotic and while I was listening my mind wandered all over the place, all the while tuning into the music to see where it might go next.

The repetitive nature of the piece made me wonder if it was a response to the information age and the way that we are so bombarded with information that it needs to be repeated endlessly to have any chance to get through. This also reminded me of a lot of contemporary electronic music and the nature of samples and repetition there.

On further reading though, I learnt that this piece was actually composed in 1967 by Steven Reich, so there you have it.

Next up were Shoeb Ahmad and Evan Dorrian, with a simple drums, electric guitar and laptop/effects box setup. They played two pieces which brought together random seeming but still somehow patterned drum beats, building "riffs" from the guitar (as well as randomish notes) and beeps, bleeps and other sounds from the laptop. The first track came to remind me a little of early Sonic Youth noiserock experiments and the second was a little more laid back but equally engaging.

(Did I mention the whole dancing about architecture thing?)

All in all, a great way to get out and hear something different and be carried away for a while. Further evidence that while there may not seem to be a lot going on in Canberra, the little city that could, when you get out and scratch beneath the surface, there are all manner of treats.

(Oh and the crowd grew to pretty well fill the hall as time passed)