NERALLT conference

varouric What they are… Games vs Simulations vs Environments

Background, hot topic in educational technology as a whole, but very few examples in foreign languages. Languages, though, have a key advantage, not content specific so more flexible than say the sciences or even history.

Why people are talking about games

• One of the reasons educators are interested in games in general is that young adults gladly pay for a piece of software that in most cases requires hours sometimes days to learn before they actually being playing. How? Even after they start playing, they have to continuously learn more in order to progress though the game. Why?

Why game?

• we already play games, role play, simulation

• collaboration

• social

• visualization

• task based learning

• student motivation/interest

• interaction with native speakers (tandem)

Terms to know

• modding

• mmorpg

• avatar

• NPC – character in the game controlled by the computer

People to know

• James Paul Gee - focused on social learning /language pedagogy. Author of “The Social Mind”) http://website.education.wisc.edu/gls/people_gee.htm "Language, Learning and Gaming: A Critique of Traditional Schooling,"

• Ravi Purushotma – MIT graduate student of comparative studies. Very creative ideas for use of new media in language teaching in general. http://www.langwidge.com/ http://www.lingualgamers.com/thesis

• Richard Van Eck – focused on games for learning in general, but theories andideas applicable to languages as well.

http://www.educause.edu/apps/er/erm06/erm0620.asp • Steven L. Thorne - sthorne@psu.edu

Places to know

• Gameology (formerly Academic Gamers) http://www.gameology.org/ • Serious Games Initiative http://www.seriousgames.org/index2.html

Good to know

• different language versions versus settings (usually a config file, though sometimes a registry setting) http://tg.sims2techguide.net/guide.php?g=13 I have a program that shows students radio buttons allowing them to choose the language, I leave English off of the list. The same type of program could be used to change the setting in a text file.

• almost all games can be modded. single player games have fewer restrictions, mmropg games have more to prevent “cheating”. i.e. if you cheat at a single player game, nobody cares, but cheating in a multiuser environment can ruin the game for others.

• even if communication isn't built into the game, third party applications let players speak to each other over the the internet

• since games aren’t designed with a text, you have to think of games in terms of teaching the basic four skills, reading, writing, speaking, and listening. Our goal is always to teach these four skills, but we often try to “make things fit” with the text book. “I’m in chapter 4, so let’s find a game that help teach dative case and furniture in the house”. This will almost certainly fail. Students have a great deal of freedom in the game, a good thing, but this means you won’t be able to focus them on a very narrow area of grammar or vocabulary. The game is also full of authentic language, again a good thing, but students are bound to run into far more vocab unrelated to the chapter than related.

Myths Gaming is for teenage boys

http://www.theesa.com/facts/gamer_data.php

Gaming is not just teenage boys, in fact it’s not even primarily teenagers. Average age of gamers is 30, mmorpg is 26. 38% of gamers are women. Women age 18 or older represent a significantly greater portion of the game-playing population (30%) than boys age 17 or younger (23%) Keep in mind this includes Xbox type games (console games) so the percentages for PC games would actually have a higher percentage of women and adults. For example, mmorpgs: • Fifty-eight of online game players are male. • Forty-two percent of online game players are female.

Gaming is violent and generally “bad” for you This is by no means the definitive study, but it came up first on a Google search and typical of other studies. Unfortunately, it has become general practice in the media to mention if any criminal games or uses MySpace implying a connection. Research has not supported this connection.

http://www.georgetown.edu/departments/psychology/researchmethods/examples/paperthree.pdf#search=%22gaming%20anti-social%22

While researchers continue to search for the negative aspects of video games, they continue to ignore the possible benefits that can be accrued from video games. With respect to the increased stimulation, gamers do not necessarily become desensitized to violence. Many gamers find playing video games as a way to improve and practice their mental focus and attention. The increased stimulation also provides gamers with a way of actively meditating relaxation from diversion of stresses and focusing on a fun game. Kestenbaum and Weinstein (1985) noted how aggressive video games can calm gamers. As with anything music, movies, and even research there exist some repugnant extremes. However, by exaggerating the prevalence of these extreme cases, researchers unfairly discriminate against the majority of games violent or not by associating them with these worst cases. As a result, researchers have portrayed the worst possible aspects that video games have to offer.

Types of Games

• Environments

Second Life and to a lesser extent Virtual Madrid are solely environments. Your character does not win or progress. Those in the environment are governed by rather flexible physical laws (and in the case of Second Life monetary laws), but otherwise are free to do as they wish. Games can be created in Second Life as can objects, places, etc.

• Single person games – while there may be interaction with other players outside of the game in communities, and there almost certainly are, within the game the player is interacting with only computer controlled characters.

• Networked Games – often single person games have an option to play with others on the same network. Civilization IV for example.

• MMORPG – Massive Multi-player Online Role Playing Games. Grew out of the text based MOOs and MUDs. Usually, though not always, of the Dungeons and Dragons variety.

Second Life - pure definition of an environment. Nothing outside of the environment itself is defined. People form their own communities, create places (houses, discos, casinos), and most famously Second Life has its own economy with an actual exchange rate with real money.

Of all games and environments, Second Life has caught the imagination of education the most. Perhaps because everything seems to undefined.

http://secondlife.com/education

http://www.academiccommons.org/commons/essay/watts-second-life

The educational organization most involved with Second Life is the New Media Conference.

http://www.nmc.org/sl/

Second Life is also being used for distance learning

http://blogs.law.harvard.edu/cyberone/

From the social interest stand point, the police blotter is very interesting. I’m unaware of anything like this in any other environment or mmorpg. Online games often let gamers email complaints and can revoke accounts for abusive language or cheating, but nothing even close to this amount and detail. Perhaps due to the actual economy?

http://secondlife.com/community/blotter.php

Which brings up questions about how to control a “society”

http://secondthoughts.typepad.com/second_thoughts/2006/08/the_unmarking_o.html

These incidents came up when Second Life was compromised recently

http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2006/09/15/BUGE9L5JM51.DTL

Virtual Madrid

Virtual Madrid is a also an environment, though there are no other non-NPC in the environment. It’s designed for language learners and uses voice recognition software for converstational practice. There are no goals built in to the game. The student wanders around Madrid and chooses from conversational prompts when they enter the space of an NPC.

Sims

The most popular game of all time, very popular with teen age girls, a breakthrough in the gaming industry at the time. The “game” cannot be won, rather you create and control the characters then structure their actions to play out a story line and make them happy. Each Sim has their own “Life Path” or goals that they need to reach to make them happy.

Unfortunately, Sims online bombed which could have been a very early opportunity for virtual immersion. Text is in an actual language. Downside of the game is that the audio is in “simlish”.

While there is not multi-player interaction within the game, there is extensive interaction online via the Sims community.

http://thesims2.ea.com/community/index.php?pid=Community

Can also create and share objects http://thesims2.ea.com/exchange/object_detail.php?asset_id=272&loginRequireMsg=true&asset_type=object&pid=Exchange_objects

Note, can do so in any language, search function to left by language.

toddbryant927 – password

Civilization IV

I hadn’t originally planned on including Civilization IV, but it’s a good example of a networked game. It has a configuration file with a language setting. It’s also probably the most frequently sited example of an “intellectual” game. For those not familiar with the board game, the player starts off with a small civilization. Decisions need to be made about location of cities, use of resources, diplomacy vs war with other civilization, and most importantly path of technological research. These technologies provide different benefits to the civilization and lead to other technologies. For example, the discovery of paper is necessary for writing, etc. Players can choose great civilizations with which to start, but it’s not an accurate geographical representation. The emphasis is on the technologies that civilization possessed.

World of Warcraft

World of Warcraft has literally revolutionized mmorpgs. The size it has attained is relevant to it’s potential role as an environment for virtual immersion. There are enough players around the world to have dedicated “realms” (servers) for specific languages. This means we can have our students, with some extra steps, connect to German, Spanish, or French servers and play with native speakers. To do this, you need to buy the European version then install the language packs available at the WoW-Europe site.

Like most mmorpgs, WoW has a Lord of the Rings feel to it. However, unlike Lord of the Rings, neither side sees itself as evil. The Horde, the side with the typical ‘races’ connected with evil, view the struggle in terms of land. The Tauren for example, are environmentalists, clearly borrowing from myths and culture of the native Americans.

For players, the game is broken down into quests. NPC with question marks over their heads offer quests. Players usually arrive in a town, gather quests, find other players with similar quests, then set off in small groups returning when they are completed. Players can communicate with each other via a text chat function in the game, though many players prefer to talk with each other using programs such as TeamSpeak or Skype.

WoW communities are also very common online, especially as a resource for solving quests. Players who are stuck can find solutions to quests with some quick Googling.

While the list of commands and strategies is extensive, probably more so than even Civ IV, it is possibly to progress through game with very little knowledge and alone. Though, this is much slower. The game is without doubt designed to be social, which adds complexity and interest to the game.

Why game? (this may have changed depending on discussion)

• collaboration • visualization • task based learning • student motivation/interest • interaction with native speakers (tandem)

Hurdles

• Not all games match all categories. • Problem, interest varies by student for each game and games in general. • Without use of a mod, sometimes difficult to produce something. Note, all cd-roms with text books come with some kind of “print your score”. • Students can’t perceive games as “extra” work. • Don’t try to make the game fit a specific chapter vocab/grammar

Related

Machinima, Digital Storytelling

http://www.machinima.com/

http://thesims2.ea.com/exchange/story_detail.php?asset_id=116870

Fraps video recording - http://www.fraps.com/ Alt-zoom - http://alt-zoom.com/

Result

• I have all of these games installed in one of our language labs. • Students in my German 101 course will have the option of participating in language exchanges with native speaker, or they can play WoW with me and/or a TA in the evening • One professor will be using a German game called Die Gilde II by JoWood as part of his German culture course.