Joao Fernandes

This article describes the design and development  of a 3D virtual game environment intended to make learning more effective promoting several level of collaboration between the players.

Collaborative learning combine individual and social process where people construct new ideas using different perspective, commitment to joint goal and shared evaluation of group activities. With this goal the authors developed a game call eScape, this game was a  set of puzzles design to maximize the need for collaboration between player, none of the puzzles could be solved individually. The puzzle include actions like: organising objects in space, exploiting individual resources, reaching the correct solution through planning and coordinated procedures.

Using this environment the authors conducted a test to evaluate how collaboration emerged from the game, they use several method to collect data like: background information questionnaires, video feed from each player, combined views from all players, video feed from the virtual camera, audio recording of the spoken dialog, demo recording within the game platform, observation notes, stimulated recall interviews and player’s personal notes.

The results indicate that in order to obtain collaboration is crucial to design  task that compelled player to work together, must of the times in iScape player tend to try to resolved the puzzles by they own when they realized that solving individually the task was impossible they all  resorted to collaboration. Only on if the six teams made, in the early stage, a joint decision that they would work as a team to get through the game.

Other interesting fact was that players assume roles inside the groups although many of them were clearly not themselves aware of these, as was revealed in the post-.game interviews.

The authors also defend that in this kind of collaborative environment is essential to provide the user spoken dialog and non-verbal communication inside the game.

The article is available in:

http://linkinghub.elsevier.com/retrieve/pii/S1096751605000813

BibTeX:

Given the interactive media characteristics and intrinsically motivation appeal, computer games are often praised for their potential and value in education. However there is a lack of comparative studies between traditional media and games regarding the transfer of knowledge, in this article the authors carried out a study involving 100 usesr trying to understand the impact of interaction and media richness in the learning process.

Since the 1980′s, entertainment-education represents  the effort to optimize socially desirable outcomes, such as learning, through the use of entertainment media. Nowadays there are already several serious games being designed for education, government, health, military and science sectors. However the way that games transfer knowledge is somehow different from the way that books or other traditional methods do, generally in a game players are not only presented with information, but experiences from which information can be extracted, therefore is important to understand the impact of interaction on this process.

With that goal the authors conducted a study where the invited player to experience the some content in different platforms using different levels for interactivity and media richness and analyzing factors like: usability, interest in the topic, presence, enjoyment and learning.

The results were quite interesting , in contrast to the wide spread belief, interactivity is not a crucial factor in media based learning, although the test with low media richness and non-interactive content being the one that demonstrated to have worse outcome.

Was also concluded that interactivity can have a negative impact because it can distract the playing from the content processing.

The article is available in:

http://portal.acm.org/citation.cfm?id=1255057

BibTeX:

@inproceedings{1255057,
 author = {Wong, Wee Ling and Shen, Cuihua and Nocera, Luciano and Carriazo, Eduardo and Tang, Fei and Bugga, Shiyamvar and Narayanan, Harishkumar and Wang, Hua and Ritterfeld, Ute},
 title = {Serious video game effectiveness},
 booktitle = {ACE '07: Proceedings of the international conference on Advances in computer entertainment technology},
 year = {2007},
 isbn = {978-1-59593-640-0},
 pages = {49--55},
 location = {Salzburg, Austria},
 doi = {http://doi.acm.org/10.1145/1255047.1255057},
 publisher = {ACM},
 address = {New York, NY, USA},
 }

This article describes a study conducted by the Open University in UK regarding the relationship between the learning and the involvement of the player in a digital game, this topic has caught the interest of the academic community in the last years since games are extremely motivating and offer an engaging way to learn new topics.

Although digital games are a motivating platform for leaning it’s important to evaluate if an excessive engagement can detract the player from the learning experience, with the goal of analyzing this relationship between  involvement and learning the author proposes the use for Digital Game Experience Model (DGEM), DGEM is primarily a descriptive framework that allow for qualitative comparisons between different instances of play.

These case study involved 4 players that were frequent players, each one of them chose a game that was used to evaluate it’s own progress and learning inside it, using video recordings and think-aloud protocols.

The author concludes that  in general there is a very close relationship between learning and involvement. Further, it seems that it is now so much that involvement is necessary for learning, but that a certain amount of learning is required before being able to experience deeper levels of involvement.

The article is available in:

http://portal.acm.org/citation.cfm?id=1671015

BibTeX:

@inproceedings{1671015,
 author = {Iacovides, Ioanna},
 title = {Exploring the link between player involvement and learning within digital games},
 booktitle = {BCS-HCI '09: Proceedings of the 23rd British HCI Group Annual Conference on People and Computers},
 year = {2009},
 pages = {29--34},
 location = {Cambridge, United Kingdom},
 publisher = {British Computer Society},
 address = {Swinton, UK, UK},
 }

This week I started to research about my new thesis topic, knowledge transfer using serious games, I ended up reading an article called Societal impact of a Serious Game on raising public awareness, the paper describes a case study using a game called FloodSim.

FloodSim is a serious game that was developed by PlayGen, in FloodSim the player is invited to take actions with the goal of preventing or minimizing the damage of floods in UK. The game was played by more than 25.000 on-line players inside and outside UK, using this data the authors conducted several analysis to check if the game was effective to raising public awareness in that topic.

The evaluation was based on three sources of data:

• The demographic information left on the side.
• The feedback left on the site.
• Telephone interviews.

Although most of the feedback collected indicate that the vast majority of players liked the game and found out that FloodSim contributed to is own awareness of the problem, some percentage of the players found the game to simple to get a profound understanding of this topic, as the authors indicate this percentage of players were people that have a solid knowledge about flood and it’s impact on UK.

An interesting fact was that 10% of the players were over 45 years of age and also 22% were under 18 years old, these percentage provide an indication of the potential offered by Serious Games to reach out people from all strata of society.

The author also points out that the awareness gained by the novice player is some how superficial, despite of the fact of those players agree that the simulation provide them reliable information about the topic.

In my opinion the article makes a superficial analysis about the contribute of serious game on raising public awareness, it is strange that although 25,000 people have played the game, the analysis only focused on a very small percentage of that universe nevertheless it is a interesting study.

The article is available in:

http://portal.acm.org/citation.cfm?id=1581073.1581076

BibTeX:

@inproceedings{1581076,
 author = {Rebolledo-Mendez, Genaro and Avramides, Katerina and de Freitas, Sara and Memarzia, Kam},
 title = {Societal impact of a serious game on raising public awareness: the case of FloodSim},
 booktitle = {Sandbox '09: Proceedings of the 2009 ACM SIGGRAPH Symposium on Video Games},
 year = {2009},
 isbn = {978-1-60558-514-7},
 pages = {15--22},
 location = {New Orleans, Louisiana},
 doi = {http://doi.acm.org/10.1145/1581073.1581076},
 publisher = {ACM},
 address = {New York, NY, USA},
 }

Gostei bastante desta analise por isso partilho:

Destaco sem duvida este quadro:

Some experience with HDR:

As you all know I changed my thesis topic, I’m currently working in Knowledge transfer through Serious Games and Interactive Storytelling. This is a great research topic strongly connected with e-learning and new learning methodologies using virtual world and serious games.

I started reading some books about experiences that combined simulation with  learning and I end up reading a book called “Simulation and the future of learning” written by Clack Aldrich, it was an enriching experience the book gives an unique and new perspective about the learning experience comparing old and new methods.

The author outlines several important gaps in today learning process in the majors companies, criticizing the use of linear content like power points or even videos, since they can not offer a dynamic experience like the one that we all have in real life. The author concludes that all the organizations that care about training use computer simulation because they have no margin of error. I’m talking about the army sector or even for example NASA where an error of an employee can lead to the death of many people.

In many of today lead companies they don’t care about the quality of the training given to their employees, they only care about the the amount of topics or courses offered and their costs. Since real life is dynamic how can a person have a good training using only linear and static content? How can we evaluate the effectiveness of such teaching?

Today’s computer games can provide a new and refreshing way of learning with a high degree of immersiveness and dynamism, providing a way to test and simulate several scenarios putting to test the user acquired knowledge.

The book also talks about the experience of building a new simulator called Virtual Leader and ways to create a new computer model for leadership and human interactions in the context of a business meeting.

Undoubtedly one of the best books I ever read, I strongly recommend this book to all the IT and HR managers it will change your view about the learning process in your company.

Here are some reviews about the book:

“A compelling and deeply informative book that should be read by anyone who cares about the future of learning, and for those who seek to build a sustainable model.”
—Jonathon D. Levy, vice president, Online Learning Solutions, Harvard Business School Publishing

“Insightful and instructive. Any organization that is serious about developing human capital must become serious about simulation. If you are serious about embarking on a simulation project within your firm, you should not do a single thing until you have read this book.”
—Tony O’Driscoll, IBM Center for Advanced Learning

“Read this book, take the journey. Clark Aldrich takes us to learning in the 21st century. In this world managers and employees will have the dynamic skills needed to succeed in this dynamically changing workplace.”
—Gerry Lang, Worldwide Learning Platform and Services Director, Microsoft Corporation

“Essential reading. The tools are in place to provide everyone the ability to augment their own innate capabilities. This text will be considered one of the early beacons to shed light on how and when simulations will shape the learning revolution.”
— Dylan Schmorrow, Ph.D., program manager, Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA)

“I read through the entire book in one sitting. Clark Aldrich has achieved a similar effect to Tracy Kidder’s Pulitzer Prize-winning, The Soul of a New Machine. Clark compels us to the conclusion that there is truly no other way to learn than through simulations. His analysis of how an entire world of game players will probably learn little in traditional environments results in the realization that we are on a collision path with the current generation when we attempt to teach them with lectures and trivial interactions and exercises. Believe it or not, the book also made me laugh out loud. In addition, I learned more about leadership by reading about the simulation than I have in thrity-five years of management training programs and book reading. These are serious accomplishments for what I expected to be a technical book.”
—Gloria Gery, from the Introduction

No decorrer dos últimos meses e a pretexto da tão afamada crise, temos vindo todos a assistir a uma acusação constante por parte do PS aos partidos à sua direita, configurando estes como partidos de ideias e programas neo-liberais. Defendendo muitas vezes que estes partidos e mais concretamente o PSD deseja acabar com o estado social, privatizar todas as empresas publicas, cortando assim importantes apoios sociais que o estado sustenta neste momento.

Ora é claro que tais acusações demonstram um completo e absurdo desvio da realidade por parte do Governo e do PS, que ao invés de trabalhar no seu programa e nas suas medidas gasta o seu tempo auto classificando-se como a única hipótese de governação, sendo esta boa ou má não interessa, já que à sua esquerda estão os partidos de EXTREMA esquerda e à sua direita os perigosos neo-liberais da EXTREMA direita.

Esta situação choca-me profundamente pois qualquer pessoa percebe que se a crise tem origens externas, tem igualmente origens e profundas origens internas, na forma como a nossa economia está organizada, na dependência do endividamento externo, na falta de produtividade, no excessivo peso e intervenção do estado, no estado a que chegou o nosso aparelho judicial entre muitos e muitos outros factores sobejamente conhecidos por todos. Ora após os governos de Cavaco Silva Portugal foi praticamente governado pelo PS com diversos governos de maioria absoluta é portante simples perceber que é da sua responsabilidade muitos dos factores críticos na fraca prestação da nossa economia.

Centremos-nos então é coisas concretas e simples, o chamado estado social, o estado estado social é um conceito base de praticamente todos os países europeus e é visto por todos como uma plataforma de garantias a todos os cidadãos, no seu acesso à saúde, à educação, à justiça etc… O problema é que sobre o lema desse estado social tem se vindo a criar a noção do estado subsidiador, ou seja ao invés de um fomento claro ao empreendedorismo o estado apoia através de inúmeros e variados subsídios que tornam cada vez mais pessoas dependentes do estado, o ex-libris deste tipo de medidas sociais talvez tenha sido e famoso rendimento mínimo garantido que tanta tinta fez correr na altura.

Se por um lado o apoio social é importante este deve ser um meio transitório de por exemplo, encontrar um novo emprego, deve ser encarado neste caso por cada cidadão como uma oportunidade de se qualificarem, de investirem esse tempo no seu auto-desenvolvimento já que o estado o suporta por um tempo limitado. O desemprego é um flagelo económico importante mas pode ser visto como uma oportunidade, primeiro de formar e qualificar as pessoas que se encontram sem emprego e depois porque não de fomentar junto delas o trabalho voluntário se possível nas áreas onde estas trabalhavam…

Vejamos o seguinte exemplo de uma professor de inglês que se encontra desempregada, não seria interessante essa pessoa ter a oportunidade de leccionar aulas de inglês a um grupo de idosos na sua freguesia, ou mesmo leccionar explicações a alunos desfavorecidos ou com dificuldades escolares? Assim se criava uma responsabilidade social junto das pessoas e limitava-se o imobilismo típico de muitas das pessoas que usufruem de subsídios sociais já que muitas vezes  estes  possibilitam um rendimento em muito superiores ao que eles usufruíam nos seus empregos.

Ora isto é que é o neo-liberalismo do PSD? isto é que são as medidas que irão acabar com o estado social? será a responsabilização das pessoas pelo que usufruem do estado errado? será o tornar claro que qualquer subsidio do estado deve ser uma plataforma para essa pessoa não necessitar dele errado?

Será por certo uma posição que custará votos mas por quanto mais tempo aguentaremos esta mascara de mentira e esta subsidio dependência sem qualquer retorno?

Estes foi um dos tópicos abordados com imensa clareza pelo Pedro Passos Coelho no seu discurso nas jornadas parlamentares do PSD, um discurso de verdade e muito alinhado com a minha visão, pelo que sugiro fortemente consultarem o mesmo em www.psd.pt

Desde que a Nintendo lançou o Wii, os usuários de videogames vêm interagindo com personagens e se exercitando com a ajuda de treinadores virtuais em títulos como “EA Sports Active”, da Electronic Arts, e “Your Shape”, da Ubisoft.

A Nintendo, inclusive, está encorajando as famílias a se exercitarem juntas, com o “Wii Games: Summer 2010,” uma campanha que estreia em 16 de julho em Nova Jersey, e que tem a ginasta olímpica Shawn Johnson como embaixadora.

Agora, pesquisadores, cientistas e criadores de jogos estão usando o console da Nintendo para outras aplicações relacionadas à saúde e, em alguns casos, recebendo verbas de milhões de dólares para criar novas tecnologias.

Uma recente reunião entre 400 pesquisadores, durante a sexta edição da Games for Health Conference, em Boston, mostrou novas maneiras de utilização de videogames com controles dotados de sensores de movimentos para ajudar médicos e pacientes.

Com verba do National Institute of Health, a Red Hill Games e a escola de enfermagem da Universidade da Califórnia, em San Francisco, estão usando a tecnologia do Wii para criar jogos que ajudem pacientes com Mal de Parkinson a melhorar seu equilíbrio. Um deles, o “Rail Runner,” exige que os pacientes se sentem e levantem a fim de operar um antiquado carrinho de mão ferroviário.

“A maioria dos pacientes está na casa dos 70 ou 80 anos, e realmente adora esses jogos,” disse Bob Hone, diretor de criação da Red Hill. “Querem algo que os ajude a enfrentar a doença, e a diferença é que esses jogos foram criados especificamente para eles.”

A Red Hill também está incorporando a tecnologia do Wii a jogos que ajudam a melhorar o equilíbrio de crianças com paralisia cerebral.

“Essas crianças muitas vezes sofrem limitações físicas e, assim, levamos esse fator em conta ao desenvolver jogos que as fazem sentir como se caminhassem e conseguissem chegar com sucesso à linha de chegada,” disse Hone.

In: REUTERS

O jornal espanhol ABC escreve hoje que a Telefónica vai pedir a dissolução da Brasilcel, ‘holding’ que controla 60% da Vivo, se não chegar a acordo com a PT.

A Telefónica irá recorrer a um tribunal arbitral holandês para tentar dissolver a Brasilcel, que é detida em partes iguais pelos espanhóis e pela Portugal Telecom (PT), se não chegar a um acordo com a empresa portuguesa para comprar a sua posição na Vivo, avança o diário espanhol, citado pela Reuters.

A operadora espanhola acredita que o dia 16 de Julho, o fim do prazo para a PT aceitar vender a sua posição na Vivo, é a última oportunidade para chegar a um acordo com a empresa portuguesa, sem ter que dissolver a Brasilcel, diz o jornal, citando fontes próximas do conselho de administração da Telefónica.

Diz ainda o ABC que, num cenário de dissolução da Brasilcel, a Telefónica vai tentar comprar acções da Vivo na bolsa até conseguir obter o controlo da operadora brasileira.

in: http://economico.sapo.pt/