Storytelling game - adaptation

When reading over one of the postings on storytelling, I read the familiar opening "Once upon a time." This was not a terribly surprising phrase to stumble upon, but it reminded me of a card game with the same title. The game is now more than ten years old, but the methodology is timeless. And my remembering it is, perhaps, timely for a discussion of group storytelling as a mode of learning. From the Atlas website:

Once Upon a Time
The Storytelling Card Game

Named to GAMES Magazine's Best Family Card Game section in 1997, Once Upon a Time is a game the entire family will enjoy. The players create a story together, using cards that show typical elements from fairy tales. One player is the Storyteller, and creates a story using the ingredients on her cards. She tries to guide the plot towards her own ending. The other players try to use cards to interrupt her and become the new Storyteller. The winner is the first player to play out all her cards and end with her Happy Ever After card!

I have played this game and it is great fun. This concept of storytelling is, of course, not at all new. To make it relevant to e-learning I have been kicking around ideas for possibly making digital "cards" that would have story elements pertaining to whatever the subject matter is for a given lesson. Any suggestions?

And yes, last name is D, but I apparently was mixed up. Besides I wanted to post this anyway!

UEN (Utah's Education online)

In writing a piece for my wiki project, I cam across a unique and interesting site for K-12 learning. The Utah Education Network (UEN), has an area on their website, which is dedicated to various grades. The initial portion of the site is broken into 3 general grade levels (K-2, 3-6, and 7-12). As you select the grade level, you are presented with the subject topics for that grade level, such as Math, Science, Technology etc. After selecting the subject the student is then presented with a tabled format list of games that could be categorized further (i.e. Science might be broken into Earth, Chemistry, etc.).

Each of the games is in one of three formats; flash, shockwave, or java. They load pretty quickly and can be fun. Yes, I've played several and was quite addicted. I'm from the gamer 1.0 generation and if I had this type of learning back in my day (did I just say that), I would have done much better in school. All kidding aside, this site really has their curriculim layed out well. I've book marked it because I found several brain teasers (soduku, tower of hanoi, cryptograms, etc.). I think as long as the site is maintained, students will find it engaging and enjoy their learning. Go ahead and try it, go to the site and see if you don't get addicted in a good way! Their site is located at http://www.uen.org/News/article.cgi?category_id=2&article_id=1352.

*gasp* It's gwap!

Many learning games can claim to help an individual become more adept at learning a concept or task, but "gwap" is one of the few games that claim "You're helping the world become a better place" just by playing it. Gwap is actually an acronym for "Games with a purpose." Gwap claims that "By playing our games, you're training computers to solve problems for humans all over the world."

"Let's take the ESP Game for example. You and a partner see the same image and are asked to type in a tag for it. When you agree on a tag, you move on and are awarded points. After just a minute of play, you've agreed on six or seven tags. We record those six or seven tags and associate them with the images. Everyone benefits! Now a search engine will have a better idea of what's in those images."

Therse games were created by Carnegie Mellon’s School of Computer Science, whose aim is to entice humans into playing simple games that will help computers get smarter. It is the brainchild of computer scientist Luis von Ahn.

“We have games that can help improve Internet image and audio searches, enhance artificial intelligence and teach computers to see,” he explains. “But that shouldn’t matter to the players because it turns out these games are super fun.”

The reason for this? Humans can still solve many problems that computers haven’t yet figured out. The thinking is that Gwap may help bridge that gap.

You play most of the games in teams of two and you and your partner choose which picture is better and you’ve both got to agree. You can’t talk to each other during the game which makes it hard. This game, although seemingly just for fun and giggles, garners a lot of useful data which can then be used to improve search, security, or simply problem solving.

Play Gwap!

Games to Introduce Concepts

When I worked for a pharmaceutical company, part of the orientation included a game to introduce us to the overall concepts of manufacturing. The group was divided into teams, and each team had to don safety glasses, protective covering, and establish a clean work surface (a plastic tarp). Play-doh in a few different colors was given out, and each team had a limited amount of time to create an amalgamated compound, then "manufacture" the product. Cards would be given to each team- site inspections, delays or mistakes that put people behind, or good manufacturing processes that resulted in more efficiency.

When time was up, our product was measured, quantified and counted- play-doh "pills" that had the active compound sandwiched in a capsule of sorts. The team with the most pills and the least wasted compound won the game (my team won, in case you were wondering- we could cookie cut play-doh with seriously minimal waste and our work area was enviously clean).

Tuesday, in Instructional Game Design, we played "Diner Dash," to explore the concepts of the game in terms of what sort of system it was, and its formal, experiential and cultural factors. All of us have eaten in restaurants, and some of us have worked in them, and we were impressed with how simple rules, simple graphics, and user interaction gave a good feel for multi-tasking, and organizing task sequence in order to gain rewards. The game is simple, and fairly easy to learn, but despite its simplicity, it does a good job of illustrating a facet of the complicated and hectic food service industry.

I think a lot of people hesitate to implement games, because if it's a "game," it's not "work," or not "learning." Hence the terms "serious games" and "instructional games," which make them sound weightier and more legitimate. However, both these games were engaging, and did a really good job of introducing a concept. Plus, game playing might be the only time that learners are laughing, collaborating, and enjoying the content- it certainly made for a good class discussion on Tuesday night.

I'm curious what sort of eLearning games others have found that engaged the audience and provoked collaboration and discussion.

Spore! Science eLearning.

Spore will be released tomorrow, September 7th, for the PC and the MAC. What is Spore you ask? It is a Will Wright (the creator of the Sim series) creation that includes multiple gaming genres. The player starts as a single cellular organism. As time progresses, the player's organism becomes more complex through player made decisions, such as making the creature an omnivore, herbivore, or carnivore and other decisions like removing creature's fins or upgrading the creature's vision. The game requires players to plan for the long term in order to advance the creature and its culture with the ultimate goal of conquering space. The implications for educational usage of Spore seems almost unlimited. Will it take off as an educational tool? Only time will tell.