Sunday, August 16, 2015

2015 EDU: GAME: Gaming as training. Training as gaming. Don't write it, put it in the action!

Gaming as training.  Training as gaming.  
Don't write it, put it in the action!
People learn from experience.  Skilled readers can imagine what they read and thus experience it.  Write instructions and you limit your audience to skilled readers.  You don't have to write instructions in the virtual worlds of computer games or of the Metaverse. Here is how you can build instruction into your virtual world.  This instruction is specifically for getting started in the world, but you don't have to stop there. 

A look into user experience and how by giving our learners subtle clues we can help to move away from traditional text based instructional approaches.
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  • (More after the break)
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News and Notes

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    PURSUE IMPOSSIBLE: UWA 3D Art & Film Challenges 2015,

    The University of Western Australia (UWA) has launched 'PURSUE IMPOSSIBLE, the 6th UWA Grand Art Challenge and MachinimUWA VIII with a starting prize pool in excess of L$560,000.   Deadline: Midnight SLT, 31st October 201

    SciFi Film Festival

    • Deadline for Late Submissions: Midnight – 29 August 2015

    Summer of Arts submissions open on Metropolis

    Scroll down for News, Notes, and Info

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    Discovery learning is a technique of inquiry-based learning and is considered a constructivist based approach to education. It is supported by the work of learning theorists and psychologists Jean PiagetJerome Bruner, and Seymour Papert
      In traditional learning, the learner is given the answer first and expected to remember it.  In discovery learning, the learner is placed in circumstances constructed so that the answer can be discovered there.  
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      Under a superficial examination, the two methods seem to give the same result.  The learner comes out of the experience able to state the answer and probably to carry out the required actions, if any.  And telling students what they are supposed to know is faster and more efficient.  
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      On more careful examination, however the learner is clearly doing different things. Since people learn from experience, different experiences must teach different things.  If you learn by discovery, you learn what you can do.  You learn that you can master a problem yourself, rather than look for an authority to give you the answer.   (This is an element of "learning how to learn.")
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      To take a nearby example, I just offered you conventional instruction by giving you a link to the Wikipedia, along with a short quote from that article.  I did that because it was more efficient and because I figured if you have already reached this part of the article, you already know how to learn for yourself.  But if I had been teaching undergraduates, I would probably have given no more hint than the name discovery learning, as I did when i just mentioned Myst.

      Teaching aids 

       You don't really want anyone to fail on these tasks, so you want to be able to adjust the difficulty down until the learner solves the problem. One way is to provide a model.  If we used the scenario of the knight's apprentice, for example, there might be another apprentice who comes by and solves the problem right in front to the learner.  Or there might be the equivalent of Obiwan Kenbi, the aged mentor who appears and gives the essential clue at the right moment.  These aids would appear only after the learner had a reasonable time to find the answer without assistance.  

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      News and Notes

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        Entertainment on the Hypergrid

        Depending on your interests

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