Archive for March, 2008

No? Then I’m sure this post is preaching to the choir, but even so Nicholas Kristof’’s op-ed piece With a Few More Brains… in the Sunday New York Times today is a must-read for anyone concerned about the relentless dumbing-down of political discourse and the dismal state of education in this country — two issues that are intertwined (IMHO) and among the most urgent problems of our times. In Kristoff’s own words:

A Ohio University poll in 2006 found that 36 percent of Americans believed that federal officials assisted in the attacks on the twin towers or knowingly let them happen so that the U.S. could go to war in the Middle East. Then there’s this embarrassing fact about the United States in the 21st century: Americans are as likely to believe in flying saucers as in evolution. Depending on how the questions are asked, roughly 30 to 40 percent of Americans believe in each.

A 34-nation study found Americans less likely to believe in evolution than citizens of any of the countries polled except Turkey. President Bush is also the only Western leader I know of who doesn’t believe in evolution, saying “the jury is still out.” No word on whether he believes in little green men.

Only one American in 10 understands radiation, and only one in three has an idea of what DNA does. One in five does know that the Sun orbits the Earth …oh, oops.

I urge you to read the whole article and forward this to anyone you know who’s on the fence or doesn’t get it. For although Al Gore may be working hard to raise awareness about global warming, insisting that if we “put our minds to it” we can find a solution, that assumes — and requires — there are minds to apply to the problem in the first place. And that’s where the importance of enlightened politicians and press, educators and technologists come in to play.

Can a video game evoke human emotions more subtle than the adrenaline rush of offing gun-toting zombies and other digital miscreants? After playing a demo of The Graveyard, produced in an expressionist film noir like black and white by Belgium-based Tale-of-Tales, I’m that sure they can. From Tale-of-Tales’ press release:

The Graveyard is an experiment with what makes video games appealing beyond traditional game experiences. Auriea Harvey and Michael Samyn are determined to explore the potential of interactive media. They believe that for the medium to grow (up), designers need to have the courage to abandon the game format and dare to explore other types of interaction, other types of emotions, stories, etc.

“We know that The Graveyard is not really a game. We could have easily added some form of gameplay. But The Graveyard wasn’t designed just for the players to have fun. While it doesn’t make a clear statement about anything, we hope that playing the game gives people the opportunity to contemplate the various topics that the experience touches upon. Not even to come to some kind of personal conclusion (though it’s ok if you do). Just to think about death, and life, for a moment. It’s good for the heart.”

The Graveyard can be downloaded from http://Tale-of-Tales.com/TheGraveyard

Ever wonder your website or blog wold look like if all the links out were traced five or ten hops to their ultimate destination?

David Polinchock at BrandExperience found this applet by Salathe Marcel where you “…put in your web address and it turns it into this very cool, visual graph.” Very cool indeed.

The illustration here is a visualization of this site. What does yours look like? Enter your URL here and find out.

Today when most of us think about the potential of serious games in the classroom, computer-based games come to mind. With all the attendant issues about the ratio of students to computers, software trouble shooting, not to mention tightly prescribed lesson plans and class periods, however, it’s not surprising the original enthusiasm fades quickly. A story out of Idaho, where chess is being taught in 2nd and 3rd grade classrooms, shows there’s another way — with no batteries required — that can be equally effective. The New York Times reports that:

Once a week, Deborah McCoy, a third-grade teacher in Donnelly, Idaho, unpacks chessboards and pieces and spends an hour teaching her 20 students how to play the game. [...] Mrs. McCoy does not do this because she is passionate about chess; she barely knew how to play before this school year. But she began teaching it as part of an unusual pilot program under way in more than 100 second- and third-grade classrooms across Idaho. [...] “One of the things that we hear is that too much of what we do is based on rote memorization,” Mr. Luna said. “The part I really like about this program is that kids are thinking ahead.”

Mrs. McCoy said she has been pleased with the results.

“So many kids spend their time plugged into video games, iPods, television and so they are more isolated,” she said. “They learn give and take in chess. There are courtesies that you follow. It has been really beneficial for them.”>>> story continues here

The program in Idaho was developed by America’s Foundation for Chess, who have created a standards-based curriculum, First Move™, utilizing the game of chess as a learning tool for 2nd and 3rd grade students. It promises “students have fun learning, while the requirements set forth by the No Child Left Behind Act, and state standards are being met.” More information is available here.

Tonight was the second public stress test of Raph Koster’s Metaplace virtual world and being there over the course of a half-hour gave up some hints of what’s to come. The local client runs in Flash and logged-in users arrive in the lobby where they can invoke help, learn about the rules, or play the game — a simple space shooter for the purpose of this test. There’s also a chat window and a count of how many users are online. Once in the play space there’s another chat window that can be turned on or off, the stage itself, and unexpectedly rich audio effects to accompany all the shoot-em-up action (click images to see full size). The stage is about the same size as on other sites that rely on a Flash or Java plug-in rather than an installed client-side application, and while one might wish for larger it was adequate, made to feel larger perhaps by the bright, seemingly dynamic sound track.

After the test was over (in the 30 min. I was online no more than 85 users at one time, no server crashes, but some wonkiness in how user actions were articulated) I was browsing the Metaplace forums to see what people had to say and found Raph’s notice from last week that Metachat — the first public instance of a Metaspace world — had been launched on MySpace. I clicked over and logged in to my normally dormant MyPlace account so I could check out what was going on. As soon as I had Metachat installed and loaded, I found that Raph and some of the other testers had gathered on a soccer field to kick around the results and a few virtual soccer balls too. Cool. Clearly hanging out there gives a good idea of what’s in store from the Areae crew as Metaplace comes to life in other iterations. Raph adds more detail in his blog post announcing Metachat’s release:

I know you’re tired of hearing it by now, but Metaplace is a platform for virtual worlds. There are a lot of kinds of virtual worlds – we’ve shown you a puzzle game, a multiplayer arcade game, and a chat world with avatars. Our testers are busily creating more sorts of worlds, ranging from RPGs to experimental collaborative music systems, and we look forward to showcasing some of those for you in the next few weeks.

We’re still many weeks away from letting everyone into the full tools, but the time has come to start releasing some of the individual worlds that we have made and leaving them up permanently as a “sneak preview” so that people can see the breadth of what can be done with the Metaplace platform. So today we’ve released the very first Metaplace world on MySpace: Metachat.

It’s just a simple chat app, with movie playing, soccer balls to kick around, and some other features. It only uses a fraction of what Metaplace can do, but it’s a start. We invite all of you with MySpace profiles to add the app and check it out. >>> post continues…

So what’s it all mean? First of all log on to your MySpace page, load Metachat, and get someone to join you. Got that? Now imagine that you were in a private virtual world or were playing a card, strategy game or shooter game you had made or modded, and embeded on your blog 0r MySpace page. Add a crowd of friends, co-workers, classmates or the general public, and you begin to see the potential for deploying custom, private-yet-public virtual spaces.

Of course Metacafe (and soon, Metaplace proper) are only two of a surge in social media mashups that are giving users tools and license to create their own games, movies and animations; the tools to share them privately or publicly; and the communications framework to grow a full-fleged online community.

So far these services are all good fun. If, however, you allow that the growth in virtual world subscriptions I talked about last week is more than a bubble and reflects public acceptance of the MMOG form. And if you trust that the authoring tools these services are developing really are fun and easy for noobies to learn. Then this surge may point the way to an ecosystem of purpose-built virtual worlds. In the serious games space, they will give professors, teachers and instructors new tools to teach, and provide students new opportunities to meet, practice and work together outside the classroom. At least that’s my theory, something we’ll debate further at the SIIA EdTech Summit in May.

More people are connecting through social media every day, creating, personalizing, and sharing user-made content on the web, often called Web 2.0. There are a handful of emerging companies and products taking Web 2.0 to the next level with user generated games, animation and other rich media.

I’ve been making it my business to track them and will be moderating a panel discussion on the subject at the SIIA EdTech Summit in May, with several executives who have skin in the game from either the product development or product marketing perspective: Dave McCool of Muzzy Lane, Krista Marks of Kerpoof, Lee Wilson of Headway Strategies, and a surprise guest to be announced.

I hope you’ll be able to join us. Until then, keep an eye out for part two of this post which will cover companies in this emerging space that are on my radar.

Ahead of this year’s Game Developers Conference, analyst and virtual world fan Bruce Sterling Woodcock updated his MMOG Chart website. Compiled and published since 2002 using stats from 1997 to date, it provides as unbiased a snapshot of growth in the MMOG space as you’re likely to find. And in an year when subscriptions to World of Warcraft alone topped 10 million it should be no surprise that Woodcock’s research shows continued extreme growth in memberships and subscriptions to virtual worlds.

Though WoW may account for a disproportionate share of that growth, when you take that away the growth curve is still significant — a clear indication of the sheer numbers of MMOG-trained Millennials to whom virtual worlds are just another neighborhood to explore. From radio and movies to music, television, the Internet and online realms, the progression is real and so are the evolving needs of students and other audiences. So whether you’re applying game and simulation technology for teaching, training, selling or entertaining, the medium is the message and it’s continuing to change. Where virtual words may have been science fiction to boomers and busters, to the new generation they’re an expected part of the media landscape.