Euan’s Blog

It’s with a great deal of sadness to hear of the winding down of the Connect network in Scotland.  The team has for the last 12 years tried to create a bridge between young technology companies, university spinouts and investors.  In their early days their conferences and sessions were a must attend for any tech entrepreneurs, advisors, angels or VCs interested in the Scottish sector.   Over the last few years there have been a plethora of other groups, journals, organisations and networks which have sprung up or specialised in key areas which over-lapped with Connect’s broader approach.   That said Connect were one of the pioneers in Scotland and they have contributed an amazing amount to the Scottish tech sector and I wish all the team well.

 www.connectonthenet.com

Having spent a very enjoyable week delivering a fairly generic talk about games in learning and assessment to FE college lecturers last week at the SFEU I was delighted to have been the focus of my first letter of complaint (as far as I am aware) to the organisers  from one of the more vocal members of one of the audiences.  

The woman was adamant that games would be the harbinger of mass repetitive strain injury and that our youth were destined to a lifetime of long term illness.  (she had suffered herself from RSI).  Offering my somewhat restrained sympathy, I pointed out it is really is a question of the amount of time one spends on an activity.    I argued, somewhat reasonably, that parental responsibility and balance is necessary as in any other situation.  When she laboured her point, I carefully explained that everything in life has both positives and negatives depending on its application, indeed I pointed out that heroin in the form of morphine was  ’a great drug’ and prescribed by many doctors and appreciated by patients as a pain reliever but not so good when mixed with some dubious substitutes and sold on the street, that cars are not banned because people are killed in road traffic accidents and that in my day, many teenage boys found other ways to give themselves reptitive strain injury (this point being illustrated by the SQA speaker as also a cause of blindness in our generation).   But it seems she was not a happy person at all.

But why am I pleased…..the complainant sent in a reference from a recent medical report she had just read quoting that a high percentage of children had sore knees becasue they played computer games….and the august medical report cited? …..wait for it ….

….the Daily Mail medical columnist…..

I know I shouldn’t be but I really am quite proud.   :-) 

I was asked by the Scottish Further Education Unit to write an article for their magazine Broadcast about games and assessment in colleges.  Unfortunately as I wrote,  it turned into an article about what the education establishment could do to get good educational games…..

You can download the article here

 or read it here (without the cool images)

I am never quite sure how much of the research on ‘serious games’ is read outside the small coterie of academics and companies that play in the field but I need a starting point, so my comments are based on the assumption that there is a growing body of empirical evidence to prove that games-based learning is immensely effective when applied in a variety of educational scenarios.

If games are good learning tools are they also useful as assessment tools?

There are many forms of video games; strategic, role playing, quiz/ puzzle, first person shooter, sports, action and simulation. They all have one thing in common: they are based on a cycle of learning, and in most types of game there is an element of on-going summative and/or formative assessment required to progress to the next level.

Whether it be the simple wrong/right answer in a quiz or the questioning and reasoned decision making in a strategic team role playing environment, by playing video games the players are motivated to subject themselves to a continual self-assessment, peer assessment or ‘teacher’ assessment, where the ‘teacher’ is the ‘game’ itself.

There is not a huge amount of research on why gamers do this, but cognitive theory explains some of the psychological motivations as to why we play. What makes a great game is not necessarily a good story, or great graphics, although these are always nice to have; the fundamental of a good game is ‘game play’, the magic ingredient that means you can’t put it down.

Video games developers use intrinsic motivational techniques to addict gamers and keep them immersed in the experience. Game designers plug into the fact that most humans are self-motivated learners and explicitly deploy cognitive disequilibrium as a motivational device.

As designers we introduce players to an environment with which they are familiar and then add in an unknown, an unfamiliar or unexpected element to the scenario, ie. we create a state of disequilibrium. The player needs to adjust to the new element, initially by applying current knowledge and when this proves ineffectual by widening the extent of their enquiry and applying reason to solve the problem. (The technique is based on Piaget’s cognitive theory of child development and used, I suspect, inadvertently by most developers.)

Great game play is ensuring the problem solving is tough enough to engage the player, but not too hard to de-motivate, the reward for resolution exciting and the desire to continue enhanced. So the designer is seeking to put the player in a state of repeated cognitive disequilibrium and the player is in a perpetual quest to re-establish their equilibrium.

This reasoning can be applied pretty much across the board from complex 3D immersive multi-player online games to space invaders, flight simulators or Gran Turisimo. For example in space invaders when a new alien craft first appears, the player is unaware of what its power, effect or value is until it is engaged and destroyed. Armed with this new knowledge equilibrium is restored. It is a simplistic example but one that can be extrapolated into the sophistication and complexity of strategic multiplayer games like Eve Online, where continual, multilayered decision making, on trading, stock, armaments, strategic alliances are necessary to retain equilibrium in a constantly evolving environment.

So if we can accept that the fundamental game play of video games is based on learning and assessment how can they be used, and should they be used in mainstream education?

Grand Theft Auto IV launched at the end of April and was estimated to take over $400 million dollars in its first week, out performing even the biggest

So to me, the question ‘should we use them?’ is a no brainer. The how is the challenge. Already, Learning and Teaching

There is one key ingredient needed to get these superb technologies into the classrooms of our high schools and colleges but for far too long the discussion has been hijacked by the harbingers of doom and pedagogic and technical naysayers. Extended conferences, discussions and meetings are held to explore the dangers of video games, the technical challenges of how to integrate ‘proper’ assessment into gaming engines, the correct application of pedagogical and higher learning objectives, the methodology of extrapolating performance data from games, the conformance to shared learning objects and other educational digital ‘standards’. Most of it goes nowhere, and so much of it is utter guff.

Most teachers have never considered using nor want games in their classrooms. Many fear the unfamiliar and ignorance of what games are and could do is widespread.

The key to getting gaming into mainstream education is simply demand. The gaming industry is full of the most creative, inventive, technically gifted and talented individuals who could build the most incredible, compelling learning games, but if you don’t want their product they aren’t going to build it for you. Until educators show interest in their wares, games designers will happily peddle their genius to those who do appreciate them.

So lecturers, teachers, principals and support staff need to start playing computer games, just like they watch TV or go to the cinema or use a mobile phone. They need to start experiencing the only one of these four technologies which is intrinsically based on learning and assessment to achieve an outcome. Once educators start playing video games they might start to find uses for them in their classrooms, and once the games industry recognises that there is demand they will build to meet it.

Its been a few months but we’ve got round to releasing lots of new products and software including InQuzitor for kids to use at home.   What I find tough to work out is how do I get the message out there that some of the best games designers in the world (part of the original Grand Theft Auto team) have created an inexpensive tool which gets children excited about study and helps them improve their scores. 

Its strange for many years I’ve run an environmental site for bike commuters which measures the carbon emissions one saves.  Over several years I’ve hardly touched it but I still get major news programs calling me up to do interviews about it and I put them off because the site wouldnt be able to cope with the traffic.  

Here at 3MRT we release a product like InQuizitor which we know can help change the lives of children and can we get coverage?  I don’t know …..but my phone isn’t exactly buzzing with journo’s looking for my scoop.

We released the story today. 

http://www.inquizitor.com/news/article/42

 If you’ve got kids aged 10 or over

www.inquizitor.com/solo

..and I do have a bunch of stuff nearly ready to post….

It’s a shame the BETT awards have made the headlines or all the wrong reasons.   

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/education/7204635.stm

I love awards ……when I win….they are not so good when you come second and I hate them when I don’t even make the  shortlist.   Not unlike the woman who was upset at coming second in the bake off when she was the only entry …..I am feeling slighted (on behalf of the InQuizitor team …of course).   

In November InQuizitor won its first award, recognised for it’s innovation by the industry’s leading magazine e-Learning Age.    Winning an award in the ‘Most Innovative New Product in e-Learning’ category, the judges commented;  

“This product was highly engaging and almost addictive - even we had a go – but that was its purpose!  The product was developed based on a very clear understanding of their target learners, and its purpose was to re-engage them with learning.  From an independent evaluation this has been well and truly achieved.  3MRT have developed InQuizitor using an intriquing mix of overt and hidden methods and the product is highly entertaining with ‘stealth’ learning as a lasting outcome.”

E learning age  represents the best in the industry, the judging panels and the process seemed transparant and well defined.     It was not surprising after this accolade we thought we would have a good chance at winning a BETT award.   To our surprise InQuizitor didn’t even make the BETT shortlist.  No-one in the category we submitted it to did as no entry was deemed good enough by the judges.  Not that we know who these judges are.   When I saw the judges remarks  I got pretty annoyed;  

“We were disappointed that publishers are still producing this kind of resource, which does not appear to have moved on in seven or eight years.” 

Having researched the gaps in the market before building InQuizitor, having used technologies and techniques unknown 7 years ago, we know we are answering a demand from teachers and kids for a personalisable revision aid which would feel compelling and addictive.   There was no comparable resource in the market!!!  Teachers, kids and parents in our focus groups told us that.  

InQuizitor’s underlying purpose is to engage (which it does) and encourage study (which it does) in a compelling games based engine (which it is) to be deployed without the need for training (which it can).  I just don’t think the anonymous judges took the time to look at InQuizitor at all which means they may not have taken the time to look at any of the products entered for the awards properly.   

Or maybe they had an agenda, who knows?  And that is the problem with awards; what is the underlying motivation of the awarder and judges? 

In BETT’s case the judges remain anonymous, although we do know that Ray Barker Director of BESA is the Joint Chair of Judges and despite his admirable mission in life* to bring literacy and technology together, we do know that attention to literacy within his own organisation isn’t his strong point.   I give you BESA’s Booth (unmanned on every visit I made to it) at the 2006 USA education showcase at the NECC in San Diego (The US equivalent of BETT) .  

from a very snowy Edinburgh

I love on-line educa.  It is an eclectic mix of the sublime to the ridiculous, from the innovative to the truly truly dreadful.  I just chaired a session on Serious Online Games in the Workplace.  So you would think from the title that the speakers of which there were 8 (for 6 sessions 20 minutes each) would present the latest cutting edge examples of the deployment of serious games in the workplace.  

 We saw only one game.  That from Chris Brannigan from Caspian Learning ably accompanied by Sara Bingham from Ufi Learndirect giving an overview of a Thinking Worlds deployment with Ufi learners.  Great stuff…relevant, creative and great outcomes.

 Sara Protopapa from IBM did try and show us a game but the technology didnt work….

 The others ably presented what they presented but they werent presenting anything about games, which as Chair of the session I was slightly puzzled by as I suspect the audience were as well.    But ever it is at Educa. 

 Tomorrow I get to do my 20 minutes on a wee bit of research I’ve being doing on corporate games in the US.   May the hecklers be loud and the audience boistrous and contentious.

What is it about assessment that every piece of software remotely associated with learning needs to have some form of ‘assessment’ built in.  

Before building InQuizitor we spent a lot of time in secondary schools trying (somewhat unsuccessfully) to train kids in some well intentioned but somewhat clunky software.  It was a vast piece of software which was so complex and accurate it could probably assess the circumference of a fleas rear from 50 metres.   Did purchasers ask if the software did assessment? Yes!  Did anyone ever find the time to use it? Nope.  

At this time, we realised that the market was inundated with fantastic and easy to use assessment software, built by great companies.  We also came to the conclusion that there was very little software built to re-engage and motivate the kids doing poorly at assessments and  examinations that the UK school system requires.   Despite being a terrible waste of bright kids the need to re-engage and motivate these kids is paramount for schools to increase the schools’ overall success and performance. 

So why oh why oh why when we build a piece of software designed to get kids excited about study…..so much that they spend hours revising physics, biology and maths….when in the past they havn’t picked up a book…..why do people require reporting to ’show it works’.  If you want to assess a child…use the myriad of great assessment software already available and purchased 7 times over by your LEA…..after you’ve let them play with InQuizitor.

Let InQuzitor do its job as a study buddy and motivator.   If a child who has shown no interest in studying spends 80 minutes playing InQuizitor to get a high score by memorising a bunch of French verbs….you dont need to measure that to prove it works.   The trouble is, if we build an assessment engine for InQuizitor, it becomes a tool for the teacher not the child and my fear is many kids will say ’ oh its just another test’. 

 However, despite all that we built InQuizitor around the QTI standard, knowing reasoned argument was often unlikely to sway many educators hamstrung by a purchasing policy which has a tick box saying ’Does the software have reporting functions to measure it’s effectiveness?’,  so we launch our reporting module in January. ….  but I really hope you never need to use it.  

Let a child  tell you they scored 4.2 milllion on Physics GCSE…..that should be all the asessment you need..