In this I will also be explaining some of my reasoning and direction for things like the content module and the bigger initiative I have in mind. Hopefully this will clear some things up.
Basic Idea
If we take a moment to think about the references used by gamers we will see a rather redundant and scattered set of materials made by different sources. FAQs, guides and other gamers are the a good place to start. Then there are the booklets, box text and in-game help that come with games, depending on the medium and condition of the game.
Besides all the great learning and teaching principles involved, the resources are easily expanded to contain relevant education references. Easy and effective sounds good to me for educational resources. Scattered, semi-redundant and user generated sounds a lot like Web 2.0 to me.
More Depth
There are sites with discussion boards, wikis and other similar resources to those available to the gamers, only for learners. These are all natural efforts that live and die by Darwinian rules. The strong resources survive, but the measure of strength is not just the quality of the materials. It also includes the community of people who support the site from webmasters to repeat viewers and those who guide others to the resource.
The reason is that those resources are social educational resources. This is in stark contrast to the standard view of techs, designers, artists and many other creative views of what should and should not survive. The success by which these resources are measured is partially social, such as acceptance and effective use.
That view is also very different from normal resources that students are to use. Textbooks are NOT social, thought they can be used in a social way. This natural growth of the resource and support designs shows us a good view of what to optimize our designs for.
Applying Concepts
I'm not going to say I know the best way to do this, but I can share my thoughts and processes. Reverse engineering of the optimal idea (to me) was my start. Many, low cost, high quality educational games is what seemed like the optimal idea. That requires many things.
To accomplish that first requires somebody equally comfortable with teaching as game design, and near unstoppable in both, if not brilliant. This person, or people, would be the catalyst required to keep the general populace following nicely. That's needed to give people direction and a social glue to keep people together. (Yes I am trying to be one of these people, if not THE person. Somebody has to do it.)
Several communities, interconnected by individuals multiple memberships. These communities are a singal way to organize and view the social networks, based on skills and interests such as programming, teaching and game design. These are not to be the only or biggest communities, but rather give the overall network quality and quantity of contacts into related fields. Games, learning, technology and education are just some general ideas of related fields.
Many teams of people from different skill fields are needed to create the content that gives value to the network to the participants. This is a big deal. It gives cross field contacts, hands-on experience and accomplishments, content for other teams to use and even more.
Then there are all the resources; references, art, audio, tools, code and more needed by developers to implement the many great ideas out there for interactive,engaging education.
Content Module
To me this is the first step, a completely open content module that is compatible with most computers and platforms. That's because the bits of content made by many need to be easily, legally usable by others. References for designers, developers and different kinds of users is also needed in a remixable way.
The idea came from the resources used in, and outside, a game. For a learning game to be effective, players need to have access to really good references. For efficiency, these shouldn't have to be redone each and every time a game includes curricular content.
So a library of open educational resources formatted in a single standard XML schema would be logical for this effort. Using AJAX the content module would be able to pull XML from a plethora of resource libraries. That gives everybody the potential to contribute. Even a single really cool piece of content or remix of content would be a help. Personal collections of resources, with proper citations, would then be a simple matter. Well, if my plans stay generally intact.
Conclusion
This is just the start of the concept I started designing spring/summer 2007. To go into the full scope would take me a long time, being that it is a design made to grow and adapt as needed. Designed with the game industry, educational institutions and individuals in mind, I'm hoping this is good enough to succeed in social, intellectual and financial ways.
So Chris, does my idea make more sense now?
Have fun, spread the word and tell me what you think,
Igen Oukan
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