@derekrobertson's...

Little Big Planet: Enough to make you buy a PS3

If you 're uncertain about whether to splash out on a PS3 then stop the uncertainty now for Little Big Planet is coming. Made by the creative minds at Media Molecule this sandbox/game creation world will allow you to play,create and share. It looks fantastic and is I'm sure something that will not only be a huge hit at home but can also be put to excellent use in schools.

The general idea is that you can make your own games that other people can play. But the tools and options for the game creationlook limitless, only bound by your imagination or lack of it. You can even use the eyetoy to take snapshots that can then be used a textures in the game. Have a look:



Here is another video with someone talking through the game design procedure


Finally, an interview from Aleks Krotoski's Guardian site with the makers of Little Big Planet.

Games design: get involved with Spaceship!

I had the pleasure of speaking to John Kirriemuir recently about the work that I have been doing with games based learning in Scottish schools. John was writing a piece for the Guardian's Technology site and it appeared yesterday.

I think John caught the ethos of what it is we believe in and what it is we are trying to do when we put games in the class. I also liked the way he mentioned that the people who question what we are doing are asking for hard 'evidence' that our approaches work before they might even consider it. This as he points out, doesn't seem to have happened in the past when thousands and thousand of pounds have been splashed out on interactive whiteboards, interactive voting systems, VLEs and all manner of other ICT products, Nevertheless, it's great that we are getting this evidence from our work and that this is helping to validate and celebrate the rich learning experiences that the teachers and pupils that we are working with are undoubtedly having.

As I scanned the page where the link to the article was I saw and interesting post from Alex Krotoski. A new games design project called Spaceship! has just been launched and its aim is to get people involved at the very earliest design stage...even before a line of code has been written. This could prove to be a very interesting project and it is one that I will most certainly be keeping an eye in terms of how such a methodology could be applied in schools to encourage and facilitate collaborative working in such a project.

Doctor Who games design competiton

It's like buses, wait for ages and then two come along! Well, here is the second games design post of the day. I found it on the BBC site where they have an excellent min-site called Blast. It's aimed at teenagers,13-19, and looks at ways in which it can get them motivated and engaged with writing, art & design, music, film, dance and games.

They currently have a competition to design a game based on Doctor Who. Unfortunately the closing date is during the school holidays. I really feel that this is a great way to contextualise challenging learning activities for learners of this age group. This task could be easily differentiated:

• as with this competition, learners can design the concept for their game on paper
• a more challenging task would be the design and creation of the game via one of the many games design applications there are available

If you feel that you would maybe need some inspiration then have a look at the range of Doctor Who games available through this site.

I have been lucky enough to establish an LTS games design pilot with a number of local authorities in Scotland for this coming session and I can't help thinking that this is the type of context that would really switch the creative circuits on in learners.

Before you go, while you're at the Blast site have a go at the Beat Battle game. It's ridiculously good fun.

Dare to be Digital: Edu-Challenge

I recently met with Paul Durrant from Abertay University in Dundee. He is heavily involved with the Dare to be Digital competition that challenges teams of students to design a computer game for any context/audience of their choosing. This is an annual event that  is gaining in size and reputation. You can view the types of games that have been created as a result of this competition by registering with the showcase area within  their site.

This is where I first became aware of Rama Studios Primary Phonics application and now it seems that the educational potential that can be developed via the expertise on show in this competition can maybe impact on school in a a more general and somewhat aspirational fashion.

Learning and Teaching Scotland and Dare to be Digital have teamed up to create the Dare Edu-Challenge. We are asking the students to take a short segment of their game and use it top help illustrate to learners how maths, physics and even art can combine to create events in games. The idea is that learners can see practical applications of subjects that may sometimes appear abstract to them. Read a bit more about the competition here.

What's even more exciting is that as part of the Edinburgh Interactice Festival 07 there will be an exhibition at Dynamic Earth called Protoplay and it is anticipated that successful games in this competition will make an appearance there.

There is a great deal of talent, imagination and innovation on display in this competition and I hope that this can be applied creating some resources that can use the games context to help switch learners on to maths and physics.

Scratch: a new games creation application

Geekyteach recently pointed me in the direction of a really interesting games design application called Scratch.

This was devised by a team at MIT and they have designed it in such a way that when the designer ids putting a game together, the commands that can be used need to fit together in the way a jigsaw might. This helps contextualise and represent the text driven code world in a more accessible iconic world. I have a feeling that this might just help to lower the skills threshold for games design. The code looks something like this when you create it Something like this:

I haven't yet got in to this as I am still working towards getting to grips with Thinking Worlds, Missionmaker, Gamemaker etc...

If anybody out there is using it then let me know how you are finding it. In the meantime I have joined the Scratch blog and hope to get clued up on how to use it via that establishing community.

Mac or PC?

The debate that explores the advantages/disadvantages and preferences in the use of computers often focuses on which platform you use. I have recently acquired an Intel mac. The reason being was that I feel that they are intuitive machines that come with a free range of killer applications, namely ilife. However, Charlie Brooke in today's Guardian has launched an onslaught against macs and mac users. He takes great offence it seems at Mac owners who say they like Macs because they are 'just better'. Cue his rant:

Mac owners often sneer that kind of defence back at you when you mock their silly, posturing contraptions, because in doing so, you have inadvertently put your finger on the dark fear haunting their feeble, quivering soul - that in some sense, they are a superficial semi-person assembled from packaging; an infinitely sad, second-rate replicant who doesn't really know what they are doing here, but feels vaguely significant and creative each time they gaze at their sleek designer machine. And the more deftly constructed and wittily argued their defence, the more terrified and wounded they secretly are.

From my perspective it's great to have a mac laptop and a PC desktop at home. It seems that I have the best of both worlds. However, I must say that I am increasingly regretting getting the Mac due to the fact that many if not all of the computer games design applications that are available seem to have issues when you try to run them on Parallels.

It seems to be the case that games design companies are not too concerned with making their materials workable within the Mac environment. It's a bit of a pest that I can't work on and demonstrate the range of games design applications via my Mac.

Could I be falling out of love with the Mac? Due to the restrictions that it creates within my specific context...maybe.

Does too high a skill threshold mean too high expectations?

The things we do as teachers eh? I remember spending hours upon hours in 1997 locked away in my classroom and study room at home learning how to use Adobe PageMill teaching myself how to create webpages so that I could then teach my P.5/6 class how to do the very same (poetry example). I also remember taking the school Archimedes home one weekend so that I could practise and in doing so enhance my ability to use Fireworkz spreadsheet and database. My commitment to this was such that I didn’t go with my friends to see my team Dundee United play Hearts in Edinburgh. What made it worse was that we one for the first time in years at Tynecastle that day, 2-1!

What’s the point of this you may ask? Well, I was just thinking about the nature of some teachers in terms of the commitment that they bring in terms of developing their own skill set with new technologies. There will also be a very keen and committed minority of teachers who will, out of their own interest in many ways, take the time to engage with new ideas, news approaches and new technologies. These folks will no doubt always take care of themselves and will continue to push the barriers of what they do in their particular classroom or local authority contexts. The ones who are reading this blog post are probably identifying themselves as members of this group.

In relation to games and learning I have been thinking about this very issue, particularly in relation to games design contexts. When I was a teacher and a lecturer at Dundee University I used the branching stories books by Steve Jackson and Ian Livingstone as the context through which we could create a dynamic, multimedia laden branching adventure story. This task had a low technical skills threshold and every pupil and student managed to create a finished artefact that could be shared, played and enjoyed by others. The beauty of this approach was that it developed technical skills but the real focus was on the imaginative writing. I often hear PowerPoint being talked about in disparaging terms but I feel that it has the facility to support imaginative and dynamic learning contexts…if you used appropriately and I’d like to say that I like it. (That’s better I’ve said it, this is may become a forum for PowerPointers Anonymous) The important point here is that there was low threshold level in terms of technical skill development that allowed the real focus on the writing to occur.

At this moment I am looking at more complex game design contexts such as MissionMaker, Thinking Worlds, Gamemaker and Neverwinter Nights and I am asking questions like:

• How low are the technical skill thresholds here?
• What training is required to support teachers in their ability to learn how to use software like this?
• How can we identify teachers who will run with and be committed to spending time outwith allocated training time to develop the necessary skill set to support teaching and learning with games design software?
• Where do class teachers include time to develop pupil skills in the use of games design software?
• What do we do when the expert trainer goes home….?

I recently held a training day for one of these games design applications and even after that day I still needed to spend quite a bit of time going over the rules so that I could make  a series of basic things happen within my game. I am maybe one of the perceived ‘nerdy’ guys that would be prepared to invest the time necessary to make this work for me but what about the wider teaching body? How do we impact on them in terms of taking low to medium through to high threshold new technology applications? Shouldn't we first focus on low threshold ideas/approaches that will enable a wider group of teachers to engage with particualr contexts such as the idea of creating a games based multimedia artefact?

I hope that this does not sound like defeatist post because I am really up for trying out these new games design applications within a variety of educational contexts in Scotland but I think that this is a question we must address. Yes we must be aspirational and aim for excellence but our dreams must also be attainable by the many and not just the few…

Mind you, we can't not support a small community of nerdy guys (I mean this cross gender and affectionately) who will really run with applications such as this and make it work in their classrooms.

Crazy Talk Player

Click here Link for Crazy Talk web player plug in.

Crazy talking Hot Milky Drink

When I was SETT I met the chaps from Techknowledgey. They were showcasing their Crazy Talk and iClone applications. I was very interested in their products particularly in view of the scope that they have for learners to create avatars for their websites, skype use and mobile phones etc and am pleased to say that I received it today...

Have a look at the one that I quickly put together this evening:

Imagine replacing my ugly coupon with that of Pablo Picasso, Winston Churchhill, Charles Rennie McIntosh, Charles Dickens, Martin Luther King or anyone that learners were investigating. They could then write a biography about that person that would enable the learner to demostrtae what they found out about the person, the context they were in and why they behaved the way they did, what drove them etc.

Really interesting opportunities here that I look forward to exploring. Will post a better example soon...

Ancrum Road PS: The P.6 game designers

I have just returned from spending a most enjoyable, interesting and affirming afternoon with P.6a at Ancrum Road PS in Dundee. They have been working on a games design project with Dr. Judy Robertson from Heriot Watt University (previously Glasgow Caledonian).

Judy and her team are particularly interested in game design applications and how they can be used as a context, not only to develop ICT skills but as a focus for literacy development. The game that she uses for this is called Neverwinter Nights.

In essence, it is a fantasy based adventure game but with a difference. It provides a tool set that players can use to author their own games. In this they design their own 3D worlds, develop characters and write dialogue that would occur within a game.

For example, if the child devises a game that requires that the player needs to find a map then they need to develop this within the game. To do this the player goes into the tool set and scripts the dialogue. This can be done to whatever lengths of complexity and interaction between characters that the player decides.

The sight of these children, of mixed abilities and dispositions, focused, engrossed, challenged, collaborating, teaching adults was superb...incredible. If ever there are doubts about the efficacy of games in schools then this is the kind of experience that needs to be seen and heard. The class teacher was a complete cynic at the beginning of the project and even said that her initial response to be being told that her class had been selected for the project was..."Oh no, why me!!!"

Now  the change in attitude to games in classrooms by this teacher is incredible. When I spoke to her she enthused about:

• the increased motivation by all pupils;
• particular motivating effects on lower achieving pupils;
• levels of collaboration between learners heightened
• increases in self-esteem and self-determination
• knock on benefits in other curricular areas
• excitement for learning

This is the kind of activity that needs to be celebrated, developed, shared and used as an exemplar for other schools.

I believe that contexts such as these have great potential as learning tools because they have cultural resonance with today's learners. These children know know about digital culture; it is part of what they are, they know the language and they know the internal grammar of games. Digital native vs digital immigrant in a nutshell here. We need to ensure that schools are aware of what there is in the games world and that they begin to develop their appreciation of the undoubted benefits that learning the language of the digital native can bring to learning.

To see learners in an every day Scottish school demonstrating the ability to be the creators of digital culture/artefacts as opposed to the consumers was a sight to behold. Inspirational indeed...well done Ancrum Road PS.