Learning - Thinking - Playing

2008 Australian Games Study released

In the last week the Interactive Entertainment Association of Australia has released it study on playing games in Australia in 2008. The report is an interesting one from a whole range of perspectives, but for me it is the use and application of games in education or lack there off that is a challenge.

The basic findings of the report state:

• 88% of homes have a device for playing computer or video games.
• 68% of Australians play computer or video games.
• 46% of gamers are female.
• The average adult gamer has been playing for 11 years.
• The average game play session is one hour.
• Half of all gamers play daily or every other day, a quarter play once a week.
• Computer and video games compete with other media leisure time, not with outdoor activities.
• 70% of parents in game households play computer and video games, 80% of these parents play them with their children.
• 92% of parents say they are aware of the games played in their homes.
• 91% of adults (including gamers and non-gamers) say Australia should have an R18+ classification for games.

So as an educator and advocate for game play as a learning tool what do I take from these findings. Well we should be getting our students to make games for other students and people in general - develop project based learning programs around the design, development and management of game building. We should be engaging our students to build games that are both entertaining and educational that fit within our curriculum but provide support for learning ideas, knowledge and/or concepts that are difficult to do in a classroom or need may need ongoing reinforcement.

Our students should be able to make games that can make money "in the real world" that is then put back into the school to help support and develop technological applications, training/professional learning and resources. If students can achieve this whilst at school and put something back into the system imagine what they could do outside of school or when they leave.

We should be developing social networking applications to link together students and teachers with skills in music composition, artistic ability etc and then providing a flexible repository for these students and teachers to deposit resources for others to use.

This findings say that the average game play session is one hour, imagine if we could stimulate our children with an educational based activity at home for one hour just three times a week. They have the consoles, the connectivity is coming, why are we waiting.

"Most attitudes toward computer and video games are positive. They relieve boredom, offer
excitement, are mentally stimulating, reduce stress, are educational and create culture according to adults who use them.

75% of gamers say interactivity in games makes them more educational than other media."

Spore - it's out of the Box

Spore has officially been released here in Oz today and I have been surprised at the number of computer games stores in Sydney that have either sold out or only have the Galactic edition left (possibly some stores are saying this to increase sales of the more expensive Galactic version).

I was lucky enough to get my hands on a copy of Spore 2 days ago - EB Games were selling them early. Since then I have had a few opportunities to play the game at the various level - except Space faring. I have to say it is a little more involved than I first thought - but no less addictive. The game really makes you think about what you are doing and without realising it the decisions you make help shape your civilization - this becomes apparent when you look back on your history. I have only just played the civilization stage a few times and found this to be very interesting and challenging - it could possibly have been due to the fact that it was early in the morning but my creative juices to build my own cars, aircraft, cities, houses and boats was not at it highest and I quickly fell behind the back as an also ran tribe.

The game appears to be very addictive and will have appeal across a wide cross section of people, it is easy to pick and play and will have lots of potential for classroom use and application especially if you choose to be an omnivore and you and your tribe need to eat, do you make the decision to eat the tribe or wild animals next door OR do you eat the fruit available?!?!!? Do want to build relationships or do you just want to conquer everything - what will this mean for your future - all this without even touching on the looks and genetics of your tribe.

More to come...

Spore - Creature Creator nearly here...

I have long talked about the game Spore from EA games that is due for release in September this year - and the potential for it to be used within education. There has been a lot of speculation about the game and what it will bring to the gaming world. I am excited because of the possibility for gamers to develop and build a creature from a microscopic phase to a space faring organism capable of terraforming planets.

Next week we see the first step towards the release of the game, EA will release on Tuesday 17th June the Spore Creature Creator via a trial option or a fully functional option. This application will allow users to develop and explore the creature construction components of the game - this development is an exciting prospect as you will be able to get a feel for the type of options available when constructing a creature and in the long run may help with some of the decisions we make when we play the real game and get DNA credits to advance our creatures from the primordial swamp into the spore universe.

Imagine the possibility for our students to hypotheses and test the movement and actions of creatures they create - the little variations that can be made to change behaviours as well as the colour, look and mood. Imagine the creature creator beng used on large screens, data projectors or IWB's, oh the possibilities - but do we yet as teachers and educators have the capacity to use Spore in our classrooms?

EA have also taken the next step in the gaming environment to look to enable Spore to be as Web 2.0 friendly as possible - spore will enable players of the game (our students) to start to do some of the following simply and easily:

• Take pictures of creatures and send them via e-mail.
• Record video of your creature and game play that you will then be able to uploaded straight to YouTube
• Search and find our creatures, created by others and drag and drop the creature image into your own game software to then be able to play with that very creature.
• Ability to send creature creations to third parties to put into blogs, online comic books, or even print out into a 3D mold
• Creatures will be able to be tagged which will enable them be sorted
• Data from spore will be outputted in RSS or embeddable HTML
• There will even be a user-created wiki environment called SporePedia

The Creature creator is expected to be available online for $10USD and will around 300Mb to download.

The following posts are worth checking out for more detail:

Analysis: The Evolution of Maxis' Spore - http://www.gamesetwatch.com/2008/06/analysis_the_evolution_of_maxi.php#more

'Spore' set to mold the future of Web 2.0-enabled gaming -
http://www.webware.com/8301-1_109-9965497-2.html

Thanks Darren for the links.
 

Successfully Creative - Spore Video

Another update from the crowd at Spore, a new video has been released that goes into creature creation and talks about the creativity players will have in the game. The interesting this about the video is the creature and transport development applications, there is lots here to get people excited about the game. For me as a teacher the excitement comes with the fact students will be able to develop and test creature hypothesis, investigating the growth, communication, socialisation and colonisation aspects and all the decisions that go along with these areas.

Game On Exhibition - Video Review

Recently I went to the Game On exhibition being held at ACMI at Federation Square in Melbourne. I went with two expert game reviewers to help balance the review. The following is the footage we all took and put together as our review of the exhibition. Enjoy.

Footage recorded on my Flip.

Thanks Boys

Crayon physics - bring it on

For a while I have been watching, playing and sharing with as many people as I can about a number of different tools that work on physics engines and the like. I have blogged previously about Armadillo Run and Magic Paper - but today I have come across the closest thing to a great educational application and one that would be sensational on a large screen with many students involved. I will not waste words - watch the clip:

I need to download and have a play and explore - download the first release here - you will love it. Windows only but works on Intel Macs running VM Ware or Parallels.

Official Site: http://www.kloonigames.com/crayon/

Developers blog: http://www.kloonigames.com/blog/

Unofficial game blog: http://crayon-physics.blogspot.com/

Spore Release Date Announced

The first newsletter from Spore arrived in my inbox this morning with news about Spore's release date. I have spoken about Spore before and I am keen to play the game personally and use it educationally. Well the release date is not March but September 7th 2008, not sure if that will be globally and online or just the US.  Short teaser video with very little detail can be found here.

Armadillo Run - an educational game worth playing

Tonight while doing a little bit of research and spending some quality time with my son we had planned to visit a site we found out about the other day. Armadillo Run located at http://www.armadillorun.com/ is a fantastic game that pits players skills around building structures to help an Armadillo to get to a certain location in space. It plays much better than it sounds.

There is a demo to download (only 1Mb in size) that takes you through a really simple and easy tutorial which provides you with everything you need to know. My son enjoyed reading the instructions and then guiding me through the process. The game has realistic physics properties in play that makes it highly addictive.

I liked the game as it was very simple with only a small range of building options, but incorporates budget considerations and allows players to apply tension, timing and a few other settings. It even allows you to create your own challenges for others - my son particularly liked this one as we could build challenges for each other to test our thinking and construction skills. We do need to buy the full version but it is worth it simply for the conversations and fun we had dealing with construction, scientific process and exploring physics concepts - all while have a laugh.

Check out  the video Fun Motion - then download the demo and have a go - sorry PC only.

Spore is coming - to the Mac

I use a wide range of technologies and devices and in the last 6 months have moved across to using my Mac  more than my PC, I personally believe that it is a wise move to understand all technologies on offer and be able to use all operating system. In the last week there was some great news from Mac world, apart from MacBook Air that is. It was released at the event that a number of major games companies would be release major titles for the Mac as well as the PC, the one that really interested me was the story that the game Spore from EA will be released on both the PC and Mac at the same time. I have spoken about games and spore in previous blog entries on Games as well as on the podcast EdTechCrew (Ep 20, Ep 10).

Whilst the PC is still the best device to play the majority of games on, the Mac is starting to change the environment and with Spore this will change it even more. The opportunities that this game offers for learning and use in the educational environment is huge and I hope that teachers and school will look to its use as a learning tool. Spore was slated to be released in March this year but as yet this has not be confirmed by the company.

The following article on CNET News provides a few shots and more detail on the Mac release for the game - Seeing 'Spore' on the Mac for the first time.

2007 eGames Expo - ten pin bowling???

As part as the ongoing need to undertake action research and investigate the world of computer games I went to the eGames Expo over the weekend with my son and my good podcasting friend Darrel (The ICT Guy) from our podcast called the EdTechCrew.

The expo was good to have a look at the new games and developments, although this year was not as exciting as last year as all the major game playing platforms have been released and so the focus was more on extending the current new generation game consoles and games that are coming onto the market. It is good to become immersed into the gaming environment and have a look at all the various games that I would not normally play but have that mysterious alluring quality i.e. Sing Star (always wanted to be a rock star).

I was interested to see the AMF bowling centre's group setting up a stand and getting people to play almost real games of tenpin bowling. An interesting marketing move but one that I think that is required given the Wii's penetration into homes and the fun that bowling provides players of the Wii. My son enjoyed real tenpin - although a lot harder than on the Wii.