Along with co-founders Allan Stitt and Frank Handy, he runs the online game company Zap dramatic.  The games at Zap Dramatics site consist of interactive simulated adventure games that focus on the art and science of negotiation.  They tend to be text heavy and aim to educate as well as entertain.   The Canadian New Media Award for Excellence in Learning (Professionalism and Ethics simulation) was awarded to Zap dramatic in 2005.  In the same year it received the Vortex prize at the McLuhan International Festival of the Future for the adventure game ‘Move or Die‘.  Four years later the company became an official honoree at the 2009 Webby Awards for the game ‘Sir Basel Pike Public School’ which deals with the issue of bullying.  You can see the promotional video for this game here:

Recently Zap dramatic has released the engaging real life drama game ‘Inside the Haiti Disaster’, which places the gamer at the scene of the Haitian earthquake.  At the beginning of this simulation you choose a character and play as either an aid worker, a journalist or local victim of the disaster.  The game is particularly hard hitting in it’s use of film, photos and audio recordings of the actual event and people concerned.  You can read an interview with one of the team members that worked on this game here.

I think the games we’ve mentioned here are best for high level language learners and they are particularly attractive not only because of their high language content but also because they aim to educate the gamer in real life skills as well as raising awareness in some important issues.  They are definitely worth a look into even if it’s to have fun and educate yourself.

Clockwise from the top -Magnavoz game console, a light gun, game cartridges, SIMON

The Father of Video Games

In 2006 Ralph H. Baer was awarded the National Medal of Technology by the President of the United States for his “groundbreaking and pioneering creation, development and commercialisation of interactive video games”.  In fact many believe he invented the gaming industry.  Quite an accomplishment.  Would it surprise you to learn that Ralph is 88 years old?

Born in Germany into a Jewish family and the son of a shoe factory worker life could not have been too easy.  At the age of eleven Ralph was expelled from school for being Jewish and in 1938 the his whole family left Germany for America just in time to avoid the anti jewish purge of Kristallnacht.  Once in America Ralph took a job in a factory on minimal wage, self educated himself and two years later graduated from the National Radio Institute in Chicago.  In 1943 with the world at war he was assigned to work for US military intelligence.  After the war ended Ralph went back to studying and chose the American Television Institute of Technology from which he graduated from in 1949 with a degree in Television engineering.  His future as the father of video gaming was beginning to take shape.

In 1949 he worked as chief engineer at a small electronic medical equipment firm responsible for making electrical surgical equipment.  Two years later he went to work as a senior engineer at a company that made equipment for the computer company IBM.  By the age of 30 he had changed jobs and moved up again and was the vice president for a company that made semi conductors.  Finally, four years later, he went to work for a US defense contractor that made aircraft electronic systems and he stayed there for the next 31 years until he retired.  It was while he was working here that he established his name in the video gaming history books.

In August 1972 the release of the ‘Brown Box’, or the Magnavox Odyssey, heralded the birth of the first home video game console.  Designed by Ralph Baer the Magnavox Odyssey predated the next video game console by 3 years.  Ralph saw his invention build up 24 game titles, he pushed for the development of sound but his idea was rejected.  So too was his idea to make an add on cartridge that you could use to ‘load’ games on to the console with.  However, some ideas were accepted and the first add on peripheral is credited to the magnavox - the light gun.  This was a plastic moulded gun that when pointed at the screen registered the light emitted from a television set.

Quite an impressive story but it was not over.  Ralph’s story of inventions goes on.  One of these was the single-chip micro-processor controlled handheld game called SIMON that became a cult hit in the 80s.  This game had four large coloured buttons that lit up in a random sequence starting with one colour and then adding one more each round.  The object of the game was for players to repeat the sequence by pressing the correct buttons and the game ended when a mistake was made.  Other inventions included a recordable talking doormat called the ‘chat mat’ and a talking speedometer for a bike.

Ralph has retired now and has donated all the original game units he owned to the Smithsonian Institution  This government run educational and research institute owns  just under twenty public access museums and if you want to see some of Ralph Baer’s inventions then you can go and visit them there.  Alternatively you can play any one of the half dozen home video consoles and appreciate the legacy that he has left.

Classroom activities

Download a worksheet focusing on the pronunciation of -ed in regular verbs.

An Interview With Hayo Reinders from darren elliott on Vimeo.

One thing that comes out of the interview, that Hayo also mentioned in his keynote, is that existing games should be adapted, which is exactly what we are doing on Digital Play. There’s no need to try to get involved in game design – it’s too expensive and Reinders suggests adjusting existing games.

Reinders also mentions being disappointed with existing language learning games that have been produced for platforms such as the Nintendo DS. Most are not interesting or interactive and would not be motivating for students. In the abstract to his keynote, he states that “the pedagogical approach underlying such games is often not clear…the games were intended to develop fluency but in fact offer only simple spelling exercises with right-wrong answers.”

Reinders has a website, http://innovationinteaching.org/ , which has some details about the research related to gaming and language learning that Reinders is involved in:

“One of my PhD students (Sorada Wattana) and I are looking into the effects of game play on students’ Willingness to Communicate (WTC) and their actual in-game interaction. We are also looking at the effects of different types of instructions (in the form of in-game quests) on the quantity and quality of target language use“

Also on the website is an article that Reinders wrote for English Teaching Professional called ‘Using computer Games to Teach Writing‘, which is full of useful ideas for teachers. One of these, which is new to us is ‘Gamics’. This is a contraction of games and comics, and would involve students using images from their favourite games to create their own comic.

Finally, Reinders has also been involved in making games for the ipod – he calls them podquests (a combination of ipod and webquest) and wrote a chapter of a book about this, which is available here: Podquests: Language Games on the Go

photo by Preoccupations

Event: More Details are here
Date: Wednesday, February 3rd, 2010
Time: 5pm Pacific / 8pm Eastern / 1am GMT (next day) (check your time here)
Duration: 1 hour
Location: In the Elluminate Virtual Classroom. Log in at. The room will be open up to 30 minutes before the event for those who want to come in early. If you have never used Elluminate, go to http://www.elluminate.com/support. Recordings of the session will be posted within a day of the event at the event page (here).

James Paul Gee is perhaps at the forefront of those academics calling for others to take the use of video games in education seriously.

He states in his book Situated Language and Learning that he is a linguist ‘whose interests have changed over the years.’ This is probably the understatement of the decade – he has moved from being a theoretical linguist to being the author of What Video Games Have to Teach Us About Learning and Literacy, which “argues that good video games are designed to enhance learning through effective learning principles supported by research in the Learning Sciences“.

He is currently the Mary Lou Fulton Presidential Professor of Literacy Studies at Arizona State University, and is an engaging speaker who always has something thought-provoking to say.

Manyparents complain that their children waste too much time playing video games and not enough time on their schoolwork.  Maybe it’s because they are worried that their children won’t study hard at school.  If they don’t get good exam results they won’t grow up and get a good job when they leave.  Well, this is not a problem for Victor De Leon III, AKA ‘Lil Poison , who first took up playing video games when he was two years old.  His parents have been so supportive of his video game playing that he is now, as his website says, the world’s youngest professional video gamer.

‘Lil Poison first started playing games such as basketball and Star Wars: Episode I on the Sega Dreamcast when he was just two years old.  Two years later, he signed up for a HALO tournament in New York.  By the time he turned nine he was competing in championships against thousands of other competitors and coming third.  In one to one challenges he was unbeatable.  He is now in the Guinness book of records and there is a film being made about him.   He even earns a living by charging $25 an hour for personal online tuition to people who want to learn how to play Halo better.  He also earns money from gaming tournaments, licensing deals and having his very own clothing company.  That’s not even where the big money is.  Prize money at one of the gaming tournaments he attends can be as much as $200,000.  Not bad for a video gamer.

What do his parents think of all this?  His father is very proud of his son’s achievements and he calls him “Superkid . . . He just needs a cape.”  It was ‘lil Poison’s dad, also called Victor De Leon, AKA Vic, who first noticed his son’s gaming talent.  One day Vic was playing a game when his two year old son joined in. By playing together they completed the whole game and it was at that moment that he realised how talented his son was.  His mother hopes that ‘lil Poison will make enough money to pay for his university education, which in America can be more than $30,000 (about 20,000 Euros).

His parents do have some worries though.  Some of the more violent games, such as Grand Theft Auto, are games that they want to keep away from ‘lil Poison.  The strong language content, both in these types of game and that used by gamers at conferences, is something they frown at.  They are even careful about how much time he spends playing on his games.  His father says “He comes home from school, does homework first, takes a little break – eats, of course – and then plays two games, just two.  Then he goes in the pool, plays basketball . . . Then 8 o’clock comes and he plays with the team from 8 to 10 pm.”

‘Lil Poison himself says that he has got a lot of interests outside of playing video games.  He likes to swim and play basketball.  He likes to draw, play with his toys and watch TV.  He also has 3 pets he like to play with and look after.  Their names are Rocky, Scruffy and little Cortana.  Those are the names of his two dogs and hamster.  As for school work, he always does his homework because his mum and dad won’t let him play if he doesn’t.  His school work always comes first.

Both his father and uncle are avid gamers and give him advice on the ‘dos and don’ts’ at tournaments and how best to deal with all the female groupies that ‘lil Poison has been known to be pursued by.   He is still a little too young for that kind of attention though and prefers to play with his hamster than spend time with girls.  He’s a long way off being eighteen.  But what does the future hold for Victor De Leon III?  ‘Lil poison himself is uncertain whether he’ll still be playing games, at least professionally, but reckons if there are still cool games out there then he’ll be playing them.

Download a copy of “‘lil Poison plays video games – parents are ‘oh so happy!‘with a reading activity.

Her ARG The Lost Ring, which ran at the same time as the last Olympics, was a great example of how these sorts of games can engage huge audiences and be be both collaborative and creative without losing elements of competition. The idea revolved around devising the rules of play to a lost sport. Now the game is over, but you can get an idea of the kind of creative content that was produced by people while the ARG was running by browsing the archives.

EFL CLASSROOM IDEA – SUPERSTRUCT

Another game that Jane was involved in is Superstruct, which can be used with students in the English language classroom. The premise is for players to imagine what their lives will be like in the year 2019. Although the description on the site tells us the game is now finished (it ran for 6 weeks from October 2008), students can still register and interact with the content. You could also use the game in the classroom for discussion and as an impulse for writing.

If you want to get students to use the site, they can register in a matter of seconds (if they have an email address) and the next step if to create a profile by answering the following questions about their life and world in 2019 (which could also be done in the classroom instead):

• Where do you live?
• Who do you live with?
• What do you do? Where do you work?
• What matters to you most?

After comparing answers, the next step is to watch one or two of the Superstruct videos with students and ask them to react to them to come up with possible solutions to the problems.

OR/AND

Students could prepare video diaries such as the one Laura (one of the participants in the ARG) prepared:

If the students react well to this, there are other missions for them to follow on the site.

Find out more about how to play the game by watching Jane’s introductory video:

HOW GAMES CAN CHANGE EDUCATION

Jane is particularly interested in looking at how games can change the way that we learn and work in the future, something which she explains in more depth in the short video interview below.

She also explains the potential that collaborative gaming such as that promoted through XBox Live can contribute to the development of collective intelligence and other skills.

Jane talks about the future challenge for education and the world of work to take advantage of the potential of such gaming systems. Surely there are possibilities for language learning and teaching here. What do you think?

More about Jane McGonigal (follow her on Twitter here) and her work here:

• Articles and Papers by Jane McGonigal
• Boing! Boing! Video: Emotion, Gaming and Dance
• Video – Explosion of Opportunities offered by Games