This is Serious Game Design!

Take it how you like; high quality game design or designing what's known as serious games. The truth is that it's both. I'll admit to being blinded by the math and science game designs that have come far more easily to mind than this kind of game design, but I know when I find quality work. It makes me want to design. Take a look for yourself at this blog post about Brenda's deep game design. That's something that doesn't just educate, it helps you learn and understand.

These are the kinds of things I look for as an artist. Yes, this is being written as an artist, not an educator, designer or anything else. Just reading about her designs and their results brings back the itch to create. I listen to the group Celtic Woman and I want to play music, sing songs and write poetry. It brings back the desire to learn, grow, push myself and most of all to create something worth the effort of creating and consuming repeatedly.

There is an art to game design and teaching that is easily lost even to the masters if they're not careful. Facts are not enough. Even video isn't enough. Let people live the history, the wonder. Yes there are topics like math and science that seem fairly cut and dry, but why not link that knowledge and those skills into the social and historical situations?

The inspiration for Brenda's design direction was teacher her daughter about the slave trade. The numbers from the school lessons distanced the tragedy from the here and now. "So she did what any game designer worth her salt would do: She made a game out of it." - http://www.escapistmagazine.com/articles/view/conferences/tgc_2009/6021-TGC-2009-How-a-Board-Game-Can-Make-You-Cry

'Brathwaite assembled a collection of tiny wooden figures, then had her daughter group them into "families." After her daughter was finished, she picked them up by the handful and placed them on a makeshift boat. Her daughter was confused: Why would she take the parents but leave the baby? Why wouldn't brothers stay with their sisters? "No one wants to go," Brathwaite explained. That's when it started to click.

Then Brathwaite devised a primitive resource management mechanic. It took 10 turns for the boat to cross the Atlantic. The boat had 30 units of food. Each turn, the player had to roll a d6, and reduce their food stores by that number. By the trip's halfway point, it was clear to her daughter that her "cargo" wouldn't make it. It wasn't a "fun" game by any means, but it served a different purpose: It helped her daughter intuitively understand the emotional experience of the slave trade, a lesson that numbers on a chalkboard couldn't provide.

At that point, Brathwaite was hooked.' - http://www.escapistmagazine.com/articles/view/conferences/tgc_2009/6021-TGC-2009-How-a-Board-Game-Can-Make-You-Cry

For years I've heard people saying why video games are so bad for society. I'll grant that constantly repeating violent behaviors in a way that encourages mindless slaughter is going to desensitize people. After all, look at the news and television. Their content keeps getting worse and worse, like the video games that are following suit, but that's not all video games.

Sometimes we need to be shown atrocities. We need to know they exist. When good becomes commonplace without bad, good looses its meaning. If you don't know its bad, you aren't likely to fix it. If we aren't shown the humanity of those around us, their needs, desires, faults and contributions, it becomes easy to dehumanize them in our minds. Just because somebody is different doesn't mean you are better than they are or that they are a lower form of life.

We also need to be shown hope. How about a follow-up game for the slave trade that covers the Underground Railroad? National Geographic has tried their hands at an Underground Railroad interactive experience. There is a path that leads out of such pits of despair, but usually you have to dig it yourself. That's the truth we need to share, and the fact that it can be done by those with little or nothing to start with except dedication. How about a Sims game that deals with raising public awareness of problems and community organizing?

With a couple simple mechanics Brenda brought the history to life for her daughter, and it's possible to duplicate it. One of the most repeated questions about school topics is when that knowledge will be useful in life, so why not use interactive models to shown them. In military campaigns there are a lot of logistics to be dealt with. I've seriously heard of people having trouble counting change while running a cash register. Make the problem real and interactive. Don't just tell students how it might be useful, show them.

Have fun, spread the word and tell me what you think,
Igen Oukan
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This is Serious Game Design!

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Blogging Carnival

Looking into the phrase that is the title of this post I learned something. ( http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blog_carnival ) It comes pretty close to what I want to do in concept. Yet, there is more to my concept that I'd like to share beyond just what it is. Here's some of the reasons to do it.

Small Projects

This is small project, a concept test and prototype of things to come. Jim Groom and I have been discussing some ideas and this is the first attempt towards those ideas. So, involvement and feedback are important to this event for the sake of improving the concepts, but that's not all.

As a small project, this has several advantages. It is low cost and has high potential ROI (return on investment). Getting involved isn't a big commitment and could result in gaining contacts through doing. (Okay, it's talking, but for this event talking IS doing.) Those kinds of contacts are worth more than most, because they are based on you, not word of mouth, a resume or mere impressions.

Personal Participation

Being a part of this event is about you. There are advantages to participating in activities like this and reasons for helping out. Personally, I wanted to participate so much that when I couldn't find a way to be a part of things to my satisfaction, I decided to create such a way.

Blogging on my own with little feedback seemed like talking to myself. That's not why I blog. Conversations, discussions, ideas, projects and making a difference are the kinds of goals I have when blogging. It's to do my part. Lots of people are trying to find and implement solutions, so it makes sense to try to help more than just myself. That's what this event will hopefully accomplish.

Involving Others

While it is to help others, I want to involve others for a few more reasons too. One is that I can't do this on my own right now. With all the good resources, tools and blogs that can be used, there is little chance I know of more than a tiny fraction. Another is that by working together we can come up with more creative ideas than all of us working separately are likely to come up with in the same time. Plus all those wonderful ideas wouldn't get shared near as much. Openness and co-operation are also key reasons to do this together. It's not about any one person, but rather about all of us working together.

Together we give each other support. Maybe it's technical, maybe it's emotional, but there are times when we all could use the support. Perhaps it's just talking with open minded people. Yet this is not something to keep to those who already have read and learned about these ideas. By posting about good resources, our views and our ideas in this event we will be creating something that others can use.

Generating Resources

This is a central part of an open event like this. Not only is there the discussions and links to other resources, there's also the end result of the whole thing that's available to everybody. From there things like a PDF or e-book can be created that summarizes the discussions, resources, contributors and anything else related that seems like a good idea.

It's a part of helping the whole. Each person does their part to make the event beneficial for other participants and readers. Together we create something that would be a lot harder to create on our own, and has more functionality and lasting usefulness because of the combined effort. That results in the resources that can be shared and reused later. Not only is it helpful and responsible, it's also the same thing we want to see others doing.

Starting Something

So, let's start something interesting. A blog carnival is just the beginning of the plans waiting to be implemented, and they include, nay require, contributions from many people. What's on the way? Well, I'll leave the description at a sharing and discussion mash-up.

A little success and some iteration can create the opportunity for more success. Sometimes that means growing in audience, number of tools and sometimes it means helping smaller versions get going. How far this goes isn't near as important as getting open discussion and co-operation to become more widespread.

Have fun, spread the word and tell me what you think,
Igen Oukan
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Skill Based Grading

While writing my post Understanding in Process an idea for skill based grading came to mind. The inspiration came from comparing the debriefing screens that tell you how well you did something in a game and the normal school grading.

School Grading

In school the grading is fairly familiar to most of us. You do work, take tests and the resulting grades compile into a course/subject grade.

Debriefing Screen

In games the debriefing screen is feedback for that round of play. The results may be compiled in a similar method as school grades, but not always.

Going Back

The big difference I see between these two is the ability to retry. In classes it's normal to not be able to retake tests or redo assignments. While this makes sense from a linear effort and direct comparison with work point of view, I think we could do better.

Skill Grading

Thinking about the way games generally "assess" player performance I realized another big difference. In school you get grades for tasks and compiled grades for a series of tasks. Games will commonly give feedback on skills and sometimes record that. In fact some games focus more on skills than results.

How good you are at a skill is sometimes treated with equal value as over-all results, consistency and effort. This is an interesting direction for assessments.

The odd part I see from that is that some tests become throwaway tests. Basically it's like placement, qualifying and entrance tests/exams. A person takes it, some responses to their results occur and the responses, not the results, are the important part. This kind of down playing for test results could be a good thing.

Have fun, spread the word and tell me what you think,
Igen Oukan
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Understanding in Process

It's one of the areas that Prefessor James Gee and myself find video games to be effective in educational approach. In a way you could say that it matches the idea of both sides coming together to meet in the middle; good education and good learning.

James Gee Interview: http://www.edutopia.org/james-gee-games-learning-video

A funny Anime Music Video I just watched requires understanding to grasp the humor, however many times just hearing the information isn't enough. Yet, at the same time there is the problem of not being able to immediately use "on-demand" information. So, let's have the example and dissect it.

Funny Anime Music Video: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=M1Lhzb2kSxs

The reason for watching the video before the "lecture" is twofold. First, it gives you some reference to make sense of my explanations; a starting point. Second, it shows you the reason for paying attention, the lack of understanding. That's motivation. Motivation and background information is important to the learning process.

While I won't go into detail about where all the video clips came from, there are several things that should be known about the clips and their contents. So, here's the short blurps to get you started.


The video clips came from two different animated shows. This means that somebody took the clips from a source, picked out a set to work with, pieced them together and in some cases actually took elements from both shows to create a single image. There are little touches here and there such as on computer screens. That's time, effort and skill that went into the technical side of this video.

All the characters are accurately portrayed. This accuracy means more depth of knowledge can improve the viewing pleasure. The title of the video fits the content of the video. Where the title makes one wonder, the video answers. It's a quality piece of work from an artistic point of view and a fan point of view. The timing, content and tone of the music and video fit together very well.

The subtitles are a part of the job, not part of the original video clips. That's the scenario to set up the video. Why would two of the most destructive and skilled characters from these two anime fight? One set are bounty hunters, and the guy in red, Vash the Stampede, has a giant bounty on him.

The cat shows up in just about every episode, if not every episode, of Trigun, one of the two anime used to make this AMV. Where it shows up doesn't always make sense. For more such information, you can do some research on the shows or ask questions.

The chase and fight between Vash and Spike is very accurate. Chase scenes are common in both anime and usually have corresponding destruction such as the cars. When the fight starts, Vash is shown to become serious by putting on the orange glasses, as he usually does. Then of course comes the massive destruction during the fight and the ending, both being accurate to the characters and shows.

Now watch the video again: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=M1Lhzb2kSxs

This time the video should be more interesting and amusing. If it didn't seem better, and you're not somebody who already understood the stuff I shared, try watching it while looking for just one thing like how well the music and video work together or the communication of the storyline. Why and how is this? Understanding the quality, content and other information is a big part of how well we "get" it. The interesting part of the example is how this works.

First is having watched the video. As stated this helps by giving some reference and providing a reason to pay attention. Without watching the video the explanations really don't make much sense.

Second, I left room for you to do something. That's participatory learning. By giving directions to start looking and good resources that give you the answers, I gave you what you needed for guided exploration of the topic. This is important to get people actively thinking, rather than passively consuming.

Third, you repeat the first step with an eye for the difference. Here's the positive reinforcement. In game design it is feedback. In education it is a grade. In both cases it could be thought of as a reward, but it's dealt with in different ways. In this case the results are important as communication and conformation, not as a end unto itself.

Fourth, if you didn't "get" it there is a way to go back and try again. Rather than just starting off with the easiest form and increasing, there is an initial attempt without help, a reflection and assistance time, another attempt that shows the results and then more assistance if it is needed. With all the possibilities of how people understand concepts and do things, it's merely a question of what you need to get to the goal, not whether you are good or bad at it. That happens AFTER learning.

Oh, and just for fun, here's a couple more AMVs. The first has no connection with the anime except being a scene from it. Personally, I refuse to watch that Anime it's from do to content. The second is WAY better if you've watched the anime Azumangadaioh, which it comes from. It's a pun on the little girl's name, Chiyo.

No guts, no glory: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XIjlFtcIsgI
The good chihuahua: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=x9NbHXaTY4A

Have fun, spread the word and tell me what you think,
Igen Oukan
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Understanding in Process

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EB Blogging Event Topic Ideas

I'd like to get some feedback on the topics to be discussed, so I'll share the ideas I have and I'd love to get feedback on them. Not much more to say, so here's the list.

1) Multi modal and path learning
2) Redundancy; Good and Bad
3) Personality Types and Learning Styles
4) Effective Digital Communication
5) Social Support Structures
6) Good Resource Design
7) Openness in Engagement
8) Teacher:Student Ratio
9) Motivating Learners
10) Education, Politics & Religion
11) Assessment
12) Creativity, Fear and Critical Thinking

That's the list I have right now in the order the ideas came to me. With what's there and adding in a couple weeks extended discussion, that seems like enough to go for three months. Maybe some could be merged into a single topic. Maybe some should be dropped for the first event. This is to be an open event, so your input is valued.

Okay, I asked for input so I'll inform you about what I think each of these topics cover.

1) Multi Modal and Path Learning

Multi-modal learning is fairly well known so far as I know, but multi-path doesn't seem to be. Multi-modal has to do with tools and form of and for instruction. The path you take to get to the goal is different. For instance in math some people understand geometry better than algebra. For those people it might be better to use geometry to help teach them algebra. That's supporting different paths.

2) Redundancy: Good and Bad

Sometimes redundancy is good, and sometimes bad. Whether it is in teaching, systems, resources, requirements, behaviors or other aspects of education and learning, we should understand where it helps and hinders to improve our contributions to improving the process and results.

3) Personality Types and Learning Styles

Learning styles comes up in discussions and I think we should look a little farther than just preferred ways of learning as learning styles. By looking into personality analysis results like from the MBTI you can help the student to better grasp their strengths and weaknesses in learning. As an INTJ I "get" concepts very quickly, but as a drawback I also get bored with simple ideas quickly. So, if I pay attention to different ways of analyzing behavior and personality, I can improve my results as a student.

However there are problems to be considered as well. Most people look at the results of "tests" as definitive, when in truth these kind of "tests" really just hive a starting point. From there you can start learning about other personality types and identifying similarities and differences. You can also find that sometimes you behave like a different personality "type" than what the "test" results say you are.

4) Effective Digital Communication

Yes, there is a lot to say about effective communication, but as people using digital communications and trying to get those unfamiliar with them to use them, we need to share our experience and wisdom about these channels of communication. This goes hand in hand with the different kinds of media literacy. Learning to effectively use a new medium is learning to apply a new form of literacy.

5) Social Support Structures

Community and social learning have been brought up a lot recently as a big part of a new/older style of education and learning. Supporting the individual, group and institutions in dealing with social learning and supporting social learning is easier if you understand the value of the social support structures evident in social learning solutions.

6) Good Resource Design

This is what I started with in my idea as a response to bad and so-so resource designs. Concerns, ideas and effects of good resource design are all valuable parts of the conversations that help us design better resources. Solutions to prevented option overload while still giving a good variety of resources will be important as we move towards having a massive number of options for almost anything. That's just one example. Compatibility, licenses, formats and availability are all generic possible subtopics to consider.

7) Openness in Engagement

There's been a lot of discussion on open education and learning, but the common problem is that in using the new tools people do the same old things. Even the idea of a walled garden can be used beneficially if you have openness in the garden with options to take things into and out of the garden. Involvement, engagement; learners given the chance to do, and take the opportunity, learn more most of the time. The point is to have the the openness in the options available to those in and outside the walled gardens. Suggesting class activities, co-designing experiments and such may be limited to the class, but they are examples of openness in engagement. While openness in sharing is the usual direction people focus on, this is just as important, if not more so. Why? Well, openness in engagement can lead to openness in sharing, because people like to share cool and interesting things they've seen and/or done.

8) Teacher:Student Ratio

I'm not just talking about the number of students in a class, but rather starting there. How might we help teachers help more students? Better, smarter resources? Peer aided learning? Maybe there are solutions in qualified volunteers and combining different partial solutions. Communities have their breakdown points based on networking, as does the one to many model of teaching. Let's see what can be done.

9) Motivating Learners

Educational games have been claimed as helping to motivate learners, but I don't think that approach will be enough. Even in games there are other motivating factors to be considered, so there is plenty out there to help motivate learners.

10) Education, Politics & Religion

Learning, order and beliefs play a part in all three, and those three influence each other. How they do in different scenarios will affect the educational and learning systems, whether we account for them or not.

11) Assessment

With all these cool new tools and broader view of talent, assessment has plenty of ground to cover. How much and when does effort count? Accuracy, memory, creativity, analysis, skills and more can and should count at times. When and how much are just as important as having ways to assess them.

12) Creativity, Fear and Critical Thinking

These three things are connected. To encourage creativity, fear and critical thinking usually need to be dealt with. How to encourage and deal with these is a part of good teaching.

Some of these may just be a reorganizing of similar content and concepts, but it's the variety of views that makes this valuable. If you can look at the same thing from many points of view, you can get a better understanding of it. That in turn helps you make informed decisions.

Have fun, spread the word and tell me what you think,
Igen Oukan
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Birth Of The EB Blogging Event

I find it interesting to hear how things came to be. The history gives insight into minds and intentions. So, I'm going to share bits and pieces of how this event came to be, as there is a lot that culminated into this and I don't think you want to read pages when a summary should work.

It starts with my frustration in school as a bright student. Along the way there are stops at projects, discussions and other events. I'll try to keep it relatively short. After all, you can always ask questions if you're interested.

School Day Blues

In school I was usually one of the brightest in any given class. That's not to brag. Teachers told me this in different ways all through school and still do. Sometimes it was telling me not to raise my hand, because they knew I knew the answers. Sometimes it was odd special treatment in other ways. The point is that I was known to be highly talented. That's about as far as it went.

Only a couple of times did that talent actually count for much. With one math teacher I could do the last two or three problems of the homework that require being able to do all the rest, because the rest was so easy to me that I pretty much stopped thinking while doing it. It becomes rather difficult to do calculus when you aren't thinking. I wasn't a problem, so I didn't get the teacher's time.

More than that, there were times when high intellect got me in trouble. What do you do when you disprove a teacher and they get irritated? What do you do when the test questions could be taken three different ways and all three corelating answers are options? What do you do when almost every teacher says they love your work, if only you'd do more, and there isn't enough time to do a lot more? What happens when that high intellect gets derailed by the bad design of the system you're in?

Going It Alone

It didn't take long for me to start having problems in school. One of the earliest was my ability to focus, to which I was allowed to use a walkman and natural sound tapes. That was one of the simplest problems I've had. So, I was motivated to look for solutions, and did.

Unfortunately it was only a few years ago that the solutions started coming together in my mind. For more on those ideas you should read some more of my posts, as this blog was made with the sole goal of moving forward towards getting those ideas made into reality.

As I've said before, I started designing without any help. It was a good start, but the progress wouldn't have gone as well if it weren't for the ideas of others in text, audio and video formats.

I've been making progress on my own, but going solo has it's limitations. For one thing, I don't have a lot of resources. For another, I don't have a lot of experience or technical expertise. Contacts are something I'm collecting, but I want to talk with people about interesting ideas and find people who want to do similar projects so we can help each other.

Open Distributed Conference

So a couple months ago the Open Distributed Conference idea popped up and I have been pushing for it since. I've blogged about it, but here's Jim Groom's post in reaction to the idea, http://bavatuesdays.com/bavacon-or-how-blog-branding-ate-my-soul/ . I'll publicly admit to using the Bava to get this to move forward, and that's fine with Jim. As he put it, "But when we get rid of the idea of Bava from this equation, what Steven is talking about really fascinates me". While I added the Bava to get people involved, he wanted to drop the Bava part and keep going. We are both happy with just moving the idea forward and leaving the Bava out of it.

What it actually is might be a question wandering around your mind, so I'll quote my original description. "Might it be possible to arrange a digital conference thing with no physical location? A mash-up of sorts using different digital communication tools? AV chats, chat room discussions, feeds and more through a portalesque webpage to the individual locations?" Yes, those are questions to answer a question, but that digital mash-up of communication technologies and techniques is the idea. With it people can come together, get food for thought and sit around with each other discussing their thoughts.

Back Channel Discussions

Jim and I have been chatting now and then since about possibilities and musing, but the ideas really didn't seem like they would just start out effective. Without a core group of people I didn't think it would go very well, which is why I was into the idea of an event. Draw people for a small event, start some good discussions and maybe people would come back to see what all we brought in for discussion later.

So while the ideas we had fit together seamlessly, content and audience issues kept nagging at me. I wanted to do an event to draw people and start discussions, but I wasn't sure how to do it. Then I came across the Product Launch Formula ( http://www.productlaunchformula.com/2/blog/?p=57 ) and started putting the pieces together for an event. After a little discussion, Jim said he was in.

Admission of Guilt

Yes, I'm using the PLF on you right now. This is the story element in the suggested line up of communications. Whether or not I did it well doesn't really bother me. Mostly I'm using the "sideways sales letter" idea as a way to better share my thoughts on this event and motivate others to participate. I like how Eliane Alhadeff and Frank Hecker referred to this event through e-mails.

"the whole idea is about generating massive weekly blogging around specific - and innovative - educational themes" - Eliane Alhadeff

"a blog carnival approach" - Frank Hecker

I like playing, especially with interesting ideas. It's even more fun to engage in discussion about interesting ideas and topics with creative, intelligent people. While there are serious parts of this event, I want it to be a lot of fun.

Basically, this whole event is designed to fit a list of goals I have. Benefits, questions and more will come later, as per the "formula", but I'm making several alterations. One big one is the offer. Here it is. You pay me nothing. As in, I'm not selling anything. I put on the event and run it. You participate as much as you want. However, I also warn you now that I like the idea of free bonuses and intend on trying to figure out ways of rewarding significant contribution. One of those ways is the link love (Frank and Eliane just responded quickly and positively to e-mails about this.), but another is the potential for an e-book in some format for the masses. The more your contribution to the discussions, the more people are likely to take an interest in you. (Psst. That's part of why I'm putting this thing on. Hosting a cool event is a BIG credit.)

Seriously, Please Participate

As a student of the system, I'm asking people from different backgrouds to come together and help create proof of interest and helpful resources. Since this is a blogging event, the posts and comments will be online. With enough links back and forth, this could catch people looking for resources on open, engaging education and help them get closer to their goals.

Don't blog, not a problem. Text, audio, video, images, slides and anything that I can include I'm willing to include. If nothing else, I'm willing to post it for you, giving you full credits for it. Commenting is just as important to this event as posting, so a bunch of people who read and comment on posts is fine. Want to talk about it on a forum, go for it, but please share a link to the discussion. I for one plan to do this to try to get more people involved.

I'm doing this because I can't participate in normal physical events like conferences. I've posted about opening up conferences and the reasoning to new kind of conference before. Please join me to make this event more meaningful.

Have fun, spread the word and tell me what you think,
Igen Oukan
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Birth Of The EB Blogging Event

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Blog Event Idea

Jim Groom and I have been discussing a project for a while that is in some ways similar to OLDaily, but at the same time very different. Rather than cover blog posts and other internet occurrences related to learning and education, it's to open up the lines of communication and inspire more creative thought through bringing ideas and points of view together. There's a small problem to the idea, it requires people and content.

So, I was thinking about this and heard about something called the Product Launch Formula. The basic idea is to talk about the need and solution over time rather than cram it into one sitting. This is the difference between a single five page document and five one page documents shared with you over a week. You have time to think about it and it's repeatedly shown to you in new ways. From there I jumped to the idea of a blogging/online discussion event about open engaging learning and education.

Some of the people I've come in contact with immediately come to mind for this; such as a Brenda Brathwaite (Game Designer and Instructor), Ignatia (Mobile Learning), James Gee (Professor who has written a few books about games and learning), Jim Groom (Edupunk, UMW Blogs and Syndication orriented design), Gardner Campbell (Worked with Jim Groom and I find him interesting to follow) and several more. I have no idea who would have the time and interest to participate, so I'm asking them all..

Hopefully it will start some interesting conversations. With different technologies, design styles and points of view there should be plenty to consider from games to platforms to approaches.

This isn't about starting people on new projects, just quality discussions. There are a lot of ideas floating around the internet, and a few people attached to them. Bring them together and there is a good chance the ideas will be mixed in different and interesting ways. This increases the odds of really creative thinking.

To give an idea of what I mean, let's consider some of my ideas. In the vein of resources I thought that open collaboration with a few ways of varying every bit of explanation would be a good idea. In the vein of practice, I saw video games as interactive problem sets. In the vein of communication I saw syndication and multiple ways of displaying the same content. Each of these things is from a different perspective and valid. This came of thinking about the potential of syndication and talking with Jim Groom, who has more than the normal fascination with it.

There are three TED talks that jump to mind for this; Spaghetti Sauce ( http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iIiAAhUeR6Y ), Paradox of Choice ( http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VO6XEQIsCoM ) and School Killing creativity ( http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iG9CE55wbtY ), in that order. The sauce tells us that we need to test things out, gather practical data and make choices available to the people. The Paradox of Choice says tells us that too many choices is a bad thing on the whole. School Killing Creativity tells us that the current system will not meet the needs of tomorrow. So, what do we do?

I'd say that the answer is pretty simple, iterate. Iterative design is like a wash, rinse repeat cycle for designing anything. Create a prototype, test it, analyze the data and create another version. To experiment we need interested people with ideas to be tested. That's the point of having such a blog event boiled down to it's core, discussing the ideas that can be used in this process. It's even a bit of iteration to me on how we discuss these things.

You might wonder, "What's the point?" Well, experimentation and learning is the point. Even just a summary post with links to other content related to the week's topic would be helpful. Collecting different points of view in perceived time and space increases the likelihood of creative thought. Discussions including those creative thoughts is the goal, but having the resource created would be amazing. Maybe an e-book could be made of a lot of the posts and discussions.

Have fun, spread the word and tell me what you think,
Igen Oukan
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Blog Event Idea

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Metalearning: Learning How You Learn

Metacognition might come to mind as what this is, and that is right and wrong at the same time. While it does have to do with knowing about how you think and understand things, it's also an action with tangible results.

That brings up several questions I would like to answer. Maybe I'll be right, or at least close. Mostly the questions are about the differences and practical usage of learning how you learn vs the generally considered intangible metacognition.

What is it?

"The idea of metalearning was originally used by John Biggs (1985) to describe the state of ‘being aware of and taking control of one’s own learning’." - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Meta_learning

This is pretty close to what I mean. Taking control of your learning is done after you observe and learn about your learning. This is something that we don't really take into account when it comes to designing education, but I've seen it in games.

When playing a game, players will commonly try several different paths to improve their skill and observe the results. From there they apply the knowledge gained. When one doesn't work, another is tried.

I think taking control of one's learning is a matter of being empowered to do so. Being aware of your learning helps you know what should be done. Having the tools, resources, opportunities and/or resourcefulness makes it possible to to implement that knowledge.

What's the point?

"A student who has a high level of metalearning awareness is able to assess the effectiveness of her/his learning approach and regulate it according to the demands of the learning task. Conversely, a student who is low in metalearning awareness will not be able to reflect on her/his learning approach or the nature of the learning task set. In consequence, s/he will be unable to adapt successfully when studying becomes more difficult and demanding." - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Meta_learning

It's obvious how knowing what works best can help improve results. Each person has their own sets of patterns that kick in while learning. For instance I'm one who sometimes needs an increase in difficulty rather than a decrease to get desired results. Knowing this I know that I should try pushing myself harder sometimes to improve myself. I also know that I do better with a lot of information, such as all the rules to a game before playing. With that information I can identify opportunities and resources that would normally work well for me. That however is only part of the point.

The other piece is that the number of students scales perfectly with the number of students. That means that is the students are able to identify good resources for them out of approved resources can help teachers and educational institutions.

How's it tangible?

Like other behavior patterns, data analysis usually helps. With a set of resources, learning paths and approaches that are known you can identify patterns based on results and reactions.

Take algebra and geometry for example. Generally most people are one of three types of people. Algebra people do better with equations, numbers and graphs. Geometry people do better with shapes. Some people deal with both equally well, to the point that some see them as the same thing expressed in different ways.

Which approach a person has is usually easy to figure out. Give them a math problem in both geometry and algebra style and ask which they prefer. Equations, shapes or neither/both tells you which type they are for that problem. Do it for a few different types of math problems and you can build a profile for how they currently prefer to handle those kinds of math problems.

How's it done?

It could be done in a test format, but I think there is a better way to do this. A learning profile that has the information that a test might give over time, because it changes with what you know. That would give a better picture of the learner's learning preferences.

Data analysis is fairly standard for profiling. This kind of profiling could be done based on several types of measurements. Raw results is one possibility, but hard to keep the variables under control. Reactions to resources and paths that are tagged for the style could be compiled and analyzed. Tests could be done and added to the mix, but they should be considered indicators rather than definitive evaluations.

With this kind of approach it should be noted that the results of tests and analysis HAS to be verified with the reality of the person's learning. That's why it's an indicator rather than a diagnosis. It could be right, close or totally off. If the learner says it's totally wrong, more needs to be done to verify and analyze the learning preferences. It's and indicator, a general guide.

Where could this lead?

Each individual could adapt their resource selections based on the results. As stated before, this could help people become more informed users.

Teachers could use it for each of their classes. One thing I've read a few times is how the curriculum standards make it so every class, every student is handle in much the same way. Using the learning profiles of the students could help teachers adapt the curriculum to their classes and help each student.

Resource providers and creators can learn from mass data to see which styles, paths and approaches could use more and/or better resources.

Hmmm... sounds like what should have been the case all along. Makes me think of the old assumption problem. Because it is assumed that everybody knows about the assumption and will follow it, it's neither discussed not remembered. Once forgotten it becomes missing and the system has problems.

What about Games?

Better resources is a logical build out. With a better understanding of how people learn there will be people making better resources for gamers and game creators alike.

Better game designs is always possible. With the common ways people learn nicely understood and plenty of examples to copy ... er, learn from, several types of game mechanics could be improved and expanded. In game resources and skill improvement methods makes a good place to start, but is nowhere near the limit.

Have fun, spread the word and tell me what you think,
Igen Oukan
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Metalearning: Learning How You Learn

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Why Should We?

Why should we put together something that may not amount to anything? Why should we do it when others could do it better? Why should we put effort into this when there are other directions we'd be better at?

Because we can!

This is the explanation form of, "Do what you can." If all you think you can do is talk and share, than do so. Start a blog and see what you can do. You'll probably be surprised what you can do once you start experimenting.

As a child I went to the zoo a couple times and enjoyed it quite a lot. However there was this one time I'm not likely to forget. A little over a hundred feet from the lion's enclosure. My mother was about a hundred feet ahead of me around a corner, when an idea came to mind. Could I get a lion to roar back?

Normally roaring, yelling, would get a kid in trouble. This would be no exception, but maybe my mom wouldn't hear that time went through my head. If the lion roared back it would be worth it.

Normally we wouldn't think a child of five or six years could get a lion to respond to a roar. It's just a little kid. Yet, if I didn't try I'd never know if I could.

Normally a child would get in trouble for disrupting others in a public place. With nobody closer than my mother, it seemed like that wouldn't be a problem.

It seems like a once in a lifetime set-up when I really think about it. How often does the opportunity, awareness, idea, boldness and ability come together? ow often does that lead to something lasting?

When I think about that, it makes sense how few efforts are actually started. Getting people together to talk about delicate information is hard. Finding possible partners is about as hard. Finding quality partners is even harder. Everybody is asking "Why should we?"

Paying attention to possible risk is good, but that shouldn't make you shackled by fear. If only the best are to do something, we'd be way understaffed and experience would be near impossible to obtain.

If you don't do it, who will?

Does it need to be done? Do it, or do your part to make it happen. Just because your efforts might not do much directly doesn't make it not worth doing. Just because others could do it better doesn't mean they will be enough, or even try. Just because you might do better at something else doesn't mean the task before you is any less needed.

Yet there is more to this than just doing what is needed, because there will always be those things and people standing in your way. There is no end to the obstacles that will stand in front of you; defying your goals and dreams. They will say it's impossible.

It would be a few years before people started saying that to my face. I don't boast about the victory I'm about to have. I don't insult them, or tell them about what they are doing. Instead I tell them, "Just watch." If I fail, I fail. If I succeed, I succeed. Had I been confronted before letting rip with a roar, that phrase might have entered my life earlier.

Experiment to learn, and learn you shall.

Just because you aren't good at something isn't a reason not to do it. The fact that you can do it okay is more of a reason to do it than not. When you're not good at something there is usually plenty of room to learn. It can motivate others who are more skilled/talented/whatever than you to help out. If you haven't done it before, there is a ton to learn about the activity and your reaction to it.

The point of the phrase "just watch" is that they don't know for sure what will happen, same as me. Even 1% chance of victory is enough if you're that 1%. Somebody has to be it. It could be me. I won't know till I try. You won't know till you try. They won't know till we try.

Standing there alone I roared with all I had to get a response from those lions. No real reason to believe I could, except that I believed. In response to a little child's effort, a lion roared back a challenge. If something needs doing, do your part, because you might be that person nobody has reason to expect something from, but still gets a reaction.

Have fun, spread the word and tell me what you think,
Igen Oukan
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Why Should We?

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Designing Systems For Sharing

Recently I came across somebody voicing a view I've held for a while; systems and features help shape community behavior. Normally that is called emergent behavior (indirect results) and social engineering (direct act to get results). I find it interesting as a topic of game design. Thus, I find it interesting as a topic for designing learning environments and communities.

So, sharing is a behavior that can be designed into systems and features. Attribution, citation and quotation all go hand-in-hand for this. All three are preferred behaviors in a sharing culture and correspond to rewards, open connections and actions. Put them together with some technology and you might get what I'll refer to as an ODSCS ( Open Distributed Social Content System ). Please note the lack of management in that acronym. Applied to learning it could be called a Social LCMS.

I've been working on a similar post and decided this should be it's own post after reading Jim Groom's response to a comment of mine. Those are in the comment's of Articulating the Bus post at Bavatuesdays, related to the Mozilla Open Education Course.

Attribution

Attribution works as a built-in, self-balancing reward system. You did it, so you should get credit for it, be it good or bad. Being an open system, I do expect people to lie, cheat and steal, but some call me cynical. Fortunately there are ways to counteract those less desirable behaviors.

Basicly, it's a matter of digital identity and branding. While you should be on the look out, you can make it obvious which things are official via an official website. If it links back to a copy on the official website it's official.

Citation

Citation is how the attribution actually counts. By linking back to the official version and giving the correct information about the authors, the readers have plenty of information to work with. They can find out how authentic and new the resource is. They can find out who writes materials they like and don't like.

You can become known for creating resources, finding resources and/or sharing resources. All these need citation to really take off. After all, somebody needs to tell others about your greatness. That's verbal citation.

Quotation

Quotation is how your resources are shared. Attribution is the rewards and citation the connections, but neither is worth much if nobody talks about the resources. That's where quotation comes in. Even paraphrasing with links is a form of quotation with citation. Another name would be sharing, the act of sharing.

If you can make quotation with accurate citation easy, you've accomplished something great. That's how you get people into sharing. Better than that it's sharing and creating connections with a built-in, self regulating reward system. There are rewards for sharing and creating resources, and the tools to share them, but not much in the line of compatibility and ease.

Ease

Yes, I just said that those tools out there are not easy to use. Why? Most don't give growth paths. Tutorials are talk that will be forgotten. Videos aren't much good either. You need action. For instance, it would be cool to have a quotation add-on or plug-in for browsers and programs. Highlight, quote and have all the citation information, meta-data, there for easy use. Unknown works as an answer.

What kind of growth path was that? It's a sharing growth path. A button at the bottom of a blog post or wiki page that reads, "Quote Me!" or something would be a good start. It's done in BBforums to get people to make quoting within the system easier, but what about a web-quote button?

SODT

Standardized Open Distributed Technologies could be the answer. It's possible to use things like YAML and XML for quotes and cross-platform compatibility. That's the kind of thing that would make a syndication based design possible and easy to use. That's an option for creating systems and programs that are designed to help people share.

Syndication is a beautiful tool for these efforts, because it is a way for different technologies, programs and platforms to communicate in an automated fashion. The same discussion becomes visible in multiple locations on the web for multiple communities. It could also be possible to create a program, browser expansion, service and/or webpage that is just for the conversations on the web that you're interested in and those that you're a part of. Hopefully you're interested in the conversations you're a part of. More on this later.

ODSCS

This is the type of technology an ODSCS would have to be to really work the way I'd like it to. Personally, I have three details to the concept I'd like to have in the design; an open distributed wiki behavior, a file and file system organization scheme and a small & open back-end implementation. Here's why.

I want an open distributed wiki behavior. First this is for collaboration, cooperation and sharing. Each source of resources in the system then can point to each other and pull from each other. Second, this allows for branding and quality assurance. Identity and integrity can be maintained while still giving access to a greater collection of resources. Third, there isn't a dependence on a single, central repository of knowledge. If Wikipedia went down, it'd be bad. This idea is naturally redundant and creates back-ups of itself through emergent social behaviors, kinda like Lenix.

I want to use files and file system organization rather than a "program". First, this doesn't require downloading a program, because the tools can be online. Second, all your data is easily navigable in it's natural format. Third, if YAML, or something similarly easy to read is used, the content could just be saved and used as is without a special viewing software. Fourth, people could create an organized set of notes, lists, resources etc for themselves using the same tools. Fifth, a file system design is compatible with the internet, because the internet uses the files systems of servers. I know this because of my studies and helping set up sites.

I want it to be a small, open back-end thing. This is the KISS ( Keep It Stupid Simple ) version of the things that will come of it. ( Just to reiterate, it's "Stupid Simple", not "simple, Stupid". The first is very simple, while the other is simple and insulting. ) Many people have made variants on Lenix from the basic version years ago that came from Unix. That's the kind of community development I would like to see.

The point of the Open Distributed Social Content System is to make the resource collections interoperable and able to cooperate with each other for the benefit of all. Companies want to share how their products can be used. Consumers want to find solutions to their needs and wants. Others try to bring those people together. That's in the business world. Then there are things like education, communities and other directions such a content system could be helpful in.

The why is pretty obvious to me, but that's because I've been looking at this stuff for a while.

Blog/Wiki/Forum

Here are some interesting and related things I've found:

http://onepresscommunity.com/
http://bavatuesdays.com/new-digs-for-umw-blogs-or-an-anatomy-of-a-redesign/
http://wordpress.org/extend/plugins/wiki-page-links/
http://www.cynapse.com/products/cynin/editions/open-source-community-edition
http://bodington.org/

At the moment it seems like mixing OnePress with WordPress Wiki functionality would give the best of the Blog/Wiki/Forum capabilities at the least effort. I used to think it would be a forum base that would be the easiest, but I haven't seen the progression towwards the merger in forum design that I've seen in Blog design. I've posted about this idea a few times ( Forum Wiki Concept and Open Communication Platform ) and still think it is the big direction to go when it comes to this stuff. Only now I've got another thing to add to the picture, distributed. I'll get to why this is so cool after going over the blog/wiki/forum concept.

If you think about it, the blog and forum match almost perfectly. Starting a thread is the same as posting a blog post. In the comments, discussions happen in response to the initial post. Tags and subforums are very similar, though tags are more flexible. Well, what if you could have a blog post and it's comment feed in an organized forum structure for you're own access to the discussions going on? Maybe create a redirection and syndication based interaction format?

Then there is the wiki to mix into the idea. Each "comment" and "thread post" could be compared to a version of a wiki page. Then there is the category way of organizing wiki pages, which is very similar to what I would consider a combination of subfuroms and tags.

So, what does the distributed concept add to this? First is the multiple views of communication being realized in functional design. The individual only looks at certain parts of the whole set of communication. Some of it they just look at, while other parts are continually watched. The group view is the combination of the actions and views of the many individuals, which you normally see on the social sites. Simply put, that's a built-in personalized interface that works the same as subscribing to forum threads and being e-mailed when new comments are made on a blog post.

Second, distributed structures are not dependent on the central structure, but work together like a community, or team, of structures. So, if any particular structure goes down the rest are still stable and functional.

Third, distributed structures encourage smaller groups to participate. Creating your own version of resources and resources for your own use are ways that the individual and small group might use a structure that allows such behavior. Now think about sites like W3Schools.com. They have a lot of materials that could be useful for walkthroughs and tutorials, but how do you access the information right now? The answer is links. That's nice for a blog post with quotes, but it could be easier to use. As one of many resources with it's pieces nicely quotable, and repurposible, those making the guides and tutorials can quote W3Schools and create a public resource with their name(s) on it. It then isn't just a webpage, but also usable in a webpage or service.

Fourth, this might be easily done using syndication-based architecture. Here are some posts on that interesting direction.
http://bavatuesdays.com/syndication-oriented-architecture-or-a-feed-frenzied-framework/
http://bavatuesdays.com/achilles-heel-of-the-syndication-bus/
http://ericschnell.blogspot.com/2008/01/syndication-oriented-architecture-synoa.html
http://etutorials.org/Misc/rss/Chapter+2.+Content-Syndication+Architecture/
http://blog.jonudell.net/2007/09/11/a-conversation-with-rohit-khare-about-syndication-oriented-architecture/

More

Here are a few links that might be interesting to those who have read this far.

http://www.downes.ca/cgi-bin/page.cgi?post=48531
http://architectures.danlockton.co.uk/2009/04/06/the-design-with-intent-toolkit/
http://blog.igenoukan.com/2008/12/designing-classroom-game-support-system.html
http://blog.igenoukan.com/2008/11/sharing-inside-and-outside-classroom.html
http://blog.igenoukan.com/2008/11/loosely-connected-to-who.html

Have fun, spread the word and tell me what you think,
Igen Oukan
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Designing Systems For Sharing

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Feedback Please

So, I have probably twenty or more posts in different states of completion on different topics. While this blog is in part for myself, it's also for others. That's why I'm asking my readers to tell me what they think. If you have topics you'd like to see posts dealing with, you should just ask. I've made a post or two in response to comments that were just asking simple questions. If asked for a post on a topic, it's very likely I'll post about that topic within the week.

The other thing is I'm curious about who is reading this blog. I know a few of my readers, and that's it. With 30 - 35 people following this blog and 20 people following me on Twitter, I'm curious about the audience I've attracted. Who are you, and why do you find me so interesting?

I'm serious. While I may be fairly introverted, I do like to socialize. Knowing that people find my writing interesting is a motivating factor for me. Getting mentioned on OLDaily got me stoked. It's become a goal of mine to create posts that get mentioned in Stephen Downes' newsletter.

Better than just talking, I love intelligent discussions. When introduced to new topics I'll do hours of research on the topic just to learn more about it. Have an interesting design challenge, question or just like to discuss as much as I do? Be great to hear from you.

In my post Keeping People Involved I covered a few points. In conflict resolution I said to ask before you explode and to be nice to everybody. Well, I'm asking for your feedback on this blog and have tried to be nice to everybody I've come across. In things to do I said to sweat the small stuff, not the big stuff. This blog was created in the hopes of sharing my thoughts and showing that I know something on the topics I claim to know about. That's the big picture stuff, not the small scale stuff that leads to those grand goals. My readers and the responses to my efforts are the small matters that are vitally important to achieving the big goals. The show and tell points cover the fact that I share these thoughts on a blog that is not likely to have much down time and doesn't require any subscriptions or registration to gain access.

Suggestions, questions, critiques and any other form of feedback would be nice. Sharing is something I work at for ideas like I blog about. With about fifty people who are following me in some way, I'd like to hear back from those I haven't heard from before.

If I'm the only voice here, this quickly becomes a lonely and boring task for me. I'm not a journal writer or a research paper writer. Poems and fiction are what I like to write and draw. Of those, only a few do I really put effort into recording on paper. Fewer yet do I share publicly. That's why I'd like to hear from those who have decided to follow me. I like the idea of socializing and discussing what comes up in the posts, or seems relevant to this blog. So, like I said, "Who are you, and why do you find me so interesting?"

Have fun, spread the word and tell me what you think,
Igen Oukan
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Feedback Please

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