The Game Learner

Fuchs, M. (2001) Expositur – A Virtual Knowledge Space (Theory). Retrieved May 25, 2008 from Syl.Eckermann website http://syl-eckermann.net/expositur/theory.html

I came across some additional information written by Mathias Fuchs about this project that raised a few more ideas worth quickly sharing.

Fuchs discusses the power and nature of games and how they approached the purpose of the project.

“Umberto Eco proposed to investigate certain works of literature as ludic machines. These texts would work as structural units, whose purpose is, to get the reader involved in a game of words. The activity of reading would therefore resemble the process of playing a game – as opposed to the more teleological task of understanding a story. It seems that computer games, too, can be understood either as narrative devices or as ludic machines”

“Ludites state that the act of playing the game is an activity which is often driven by joyful improvisation. Especially when the elements of chance and vertigo… are predominant in a game, there is no need for a narration. Throwing the dices or going on a roundabout are such games. New media in general and computer games in particular inherited the twofold nature of games. They contain narrative aspects and ludic aspects at the same time.”

“When we started working on a computer game about Viennese museums we visited many museums and tried to find out what a museum-goer is actually doing. Does he learn about a scientific field? Is he led by a narration? Does he randomly drift through halls and have his eyes wonder around amongst miraculous objects? Does the visitor always want to keep a sense of orientation? What is the potential use of loosing  orientation? Is predictability the death of the marvel?”

A few quick responses – I’d say that narration and play aren’t mutually exclusive and narration offers motivation to progress through the game by bringing greater emotional connection. (Not always of course)
I like the term “joyful improvisation” – it seems to embody the concept of “play”

“Even though the virtual museum “Expositur” tells about objects and processes, even though there is a semantic framework and an underlying logic structure our knowledge space leaves ample room for alternative readings, it encourages the user to define their private paths away from the main roads. It requires the visitor to set up his personal speed, pace and rhythm for the access to information, for contemplation and for sheer surprise”

Contemplation/reflection is also something I haven’t thought much about yet – this I guess slots well into constructivist approaches (as do large chunks of this project even though I choose to associate it more with cognitivist theory given the deliberate designing of information to be more processable. )

On the homepage of this section of this website is a nice summation of the intent of this project:

fuchs-eckermann: ‘We are looking for something which Friedrich Nietzsche labelled “Gay Science”, ["Fröhliche Wissenschaft"] a mode of experiencing knowledge in a joyful as well as thoughtful manner. Nietzsche thought that you can only come across important insights if you discover them when “dancing”. And that’s precisely what the users of our computer game have to do. They have to move in order to find out facts, they have to dive and swim to get deep into certain areas of knowledge and they have to dance around to discover unexpected aspects of a topic.’

Following this methodology, the user of the virtual museum has to jump into a water zone in order to hear about the extinction of an ancient fish once populating the Danube River. The user has to operate triggers and barriers to learn about the dangers of machinery provided by the Technical Museum. Or he/she has to walk to down a spiral staircase to reach the hall of Sigmund Freud’s subconsciousness ["Die Traumdeutung"]

Fuchs, M. & Eckermann, S. (2001) From “First Person Shooter” to Multi-User Knowledge Spaces. In F. Nack (Ed.) Proceedings COSIGN 2001 – 1^st Conference on Computational Semiotics for Games and New Media (pp. 83-87). CWI, Amsterdam.

In 2001, Fuchs and Eckermann developed Expositur – ein virtueller Wissenraum, a game based collaborative project showcasing ten Viennese museums. This first person perspective knowledge space, built using the Unreal FPS game engine, made use of loci, a place based mnemotechnique dating back to the ancient Greeks, to enhance the meaning of its virtual museum exhibits by “connecting seemingly unrelated imagery to gain insight into visual similarities and connotations”(p.84).

They considered “the freedom of the user to go his or her own way in the virtual environment as an important feature that allows for individually shaped relational networks inside a complex field of knowledge”(p.84), which ties in well with Ertmer and Newby’s description of knowledge acquisition under Cognitivism as “a mental activity that entails internal coding and structuring by the learner”. (1993, p.58).

From the abstract:

The content provided by these museums had to be made accessible

and comprehensible to users of different ages, educational

backgrounds and computer literacy. We developed a system of

connotations amongst the objects, which then was translated into

a spatial structure of rooms, corridors and places of different

sizes, shapes, remotenesses or proximities. The viewer/listener

of our knowledge space explores a semantic structure by

navigating virtual spaces with the topics being contained in these

rooms. The connecting architecture between these rooms

resembles staircases, passages, elevators, hidden doors or

portals, each of them referring to the nature of the connotation.

Quite contrary to web-based databases and hypertext structures,

the links therefore possess a quality of their own, carrying much

more information than just “is connected with”.

There’s a lot about this project that I like – the scope, the imagination behind it, the issues that they faced and the fact that covers a number of ideas that I’ve been thinking about. (And also several that I hadn’t thought about but now realise that I should)

This paper discusses the ideas underpinning this project – the notion of using virtual spaces and interaction to add meaning to the experience of viewing objects in a museum. Essentially it is about reimagining and redesigning from scratch 10 museums.

“We developed a system of connotations amongst the objects, which then was translated into a spatial structure of rooms, corridors and places of different sizes, shapes, remotenesses and proximities… The connecting architecture between these rooms resembles staircases, passages, elevators, hidden doors or portals, each of them referring to the nature of the connotation.”

This process was influenced by the Mnemosynic techniques of ancient Greek philosophers and singers in attaching meaning to objects in spaces to assist learning. It also draws from research by Ady Warburg on visual codes in Renaissance art.

“Warburg’s scientific method consisted of connecting seemingly unrelated imagery to gain insight into visual similarities and connotations, which he called Pathosformeln. In our knowledge space, the multiple coding of meanings contained with the exhibited objects is made transparent by the spatial relation superimposed upon the objects. (A technical drawing of a prosthesis, e.g., is positioned close to Freud’s Prosthengott quote and therefore connected to Freud’s theory from “Das Unbehagen in der Kultur”. “

Fuchs and Eckermann go on to consider how the ways that the player actually moves through the virtual space affect their experience with in it.

“To navigate the spaces of different content the users have to keep moving. They can walk, run, climb, jump, crouch, swim or fly according to the spatial situation. The Frankfurt based cultural scientist Manfred Fassler has mentioned in his recent publication that the etymological root of the German word for experience (Erfahrung) stems from fahren, i.e. “to move”. “

I have to admit that part of me thinks that the impact of different kinds of movement through the space would probably be greater in a 3rd Person Perspective or Virtual world game, where a player controls an avatar. Issues of how obvious these differing forms of movement would actually be to the user come to mind. (Swimming and flying would be relatively obvious – though they would necessitate a different control system which extends the 2 dimensional movement patterns generally used in these games)

Freedom of movement also comes back very much to issues of the user/players freedom to choose the content that they are most interested in. (This is probably something I’m less interested in for this particular project, which is focussed more heavily on developing foundation skills and knowledge and thus necessitates learning everything in the space.)

“We also consider the freedom of the user to go his or her own way in the virtual environment an an important feature that allows for individually shaped relational networks inside a complex field of knowledge”.

Fuchs and Eckermann based their design around several questions which either mirror those I have mentioned in the previous post here or which I shamelessly borrowed for that post. They often dig down into semiotics and signs and meaning, which I have a general grasp of but don’t know a lot about. (Might be time to dip into that Roland Barthes book I was given in 92 but have never quite been able to face reading after cursory dippings.)

They also discuss having to work with the limitations of the game development software – in their case they used the Unreal Engine. This is certainly an issue that I have bumped up against before and not one to which there are any easy answers. Bearing these limitations in mind they decided to do what they could to make it work and emphasise game elements from a hypothetical base to begin with.

This included the appearance of the rooms – and they make an interesting point that I’m not entirely sure I support, although I haven’t put it into practice yet.

“It seems of extreme importance for the creation of meaning how the environment the information is contained in looks like and sounds… We recognised that the richness of the architectural forms decreases the stress a person feels confronted with when navigating through this space. Former versions of Unreal allowed for just a few hundred polygons and therefore favoured boxy levels creating a higher aggressiveness and a feeling of discomfort for certain users. On the other hand, we recognised that very complex environments often create a feeling of “being lost” and of nausea”

While they do recognise the contradictions of level design for different players, I wouldn’t have thought that complex levels (i.e visually “busy” levels) would reduce stress. I can also see though that the use of curved surfaces could create more peaceful or soothing spaces. I’d be interested to know whether playing such a level on a large, smart-board type screen would be more comfortable than on a standard computer monitor.

The role of sound is really something I hadn’t given enough weight to in my thinking about game design – which is a little embarrassing as a wannabe film maker who routinely bangs on about the way that sound is treated as a second class citizen in the film production process. Fuchs and Eckermann draw analogies to the use of sound in film and identify 4 different types of use in their “game” space. :

• Emotional Support – “The sounds can deliberately be used to value objects as dangerous, hilarious, important, historically significant or other. We use sound in this respect to add ethical standpoints to objects we have to show, like armour, prostheses and extinct animals”
• Additional information about visible objects – “We use recorded sound material to tell about the material qualities of objects”
• Continuity music – “We recognised that turning off the background music of the rooms in a computer game results often in a much shorter playing time. Also the speed of the investigation, the restlessness and the carefulness of exploring a specific room can be manipulated via music playing in the background:
• Subtext – “This is an important function for content creation of an ambiguous character or for the creation of content which can be interpreted in different ways… For our game we used the method of acoustical subtext in the room showing the collection of technical prostheses… The soundtrack accompanying the prostheses hints that capitalist production and warfare can result in the same sad results for the victims of either. This information when put forward as text would sound quite banal and not lead to an intensive experience for most of the users. However, the soundscapes of heavy machinery mixed with heavy artillery and superimposed with composed rhythmical patterns does”

Sound hey. Got to factor that in better.

They also considered the use of linking sections/structures between topics/museums/objects and what added meaning these might bring.

“…there are “contour” features of visual objects and of acoustic objects, which are connoted with emotions. A rising line is usually considered to be positive or optimistic; a falling line to be negative, disappointing or dangerous.”

This made me think about the use of corridors, stairs, elevators and even having players jump down into pits to progress through a game level and what subtextual messages these convey. Great stuff.

They go on to discuss the use of avatars for the player – something I don’t entirely understand if this is an FPS based game (although it is possible to see another player’s avatar in a multiplayer game I guess) and expand upon the impact different forms and speed of movement have on the players experience of the exhibition. (Which largely comes down to learner choice and learner control – something which is less relevant to the project I’m considering at the moment).

The matter of how multiple players might interact in a game space like this comes up and they identified “the possibility for one knowledge seeker to show others their way by guiding them through the rooms. Another useful features is the possibility to exchange messages via written or spoken word… It is essential however to implement individual sets of voices and not to rely on the default voices provided by the manufacturer”

While I appreciate the intention here, the practicality of using your own voice sets seems a little tricky and understandably skirted over. Developments in the sophistication of game building systems since this project however suggest to me that in game voice communication isn’t so uncommon any more (and text based has been around for a long time) and could be relatively easily achievable. It did make me think about the options for asynchronous communication between players, with the capacity to leave messages (such as “the cake is a lie”? for those who follow. Difficult in this kind of game building environment but more doable in virtual worlds such as Croquet.

I also thought more about other options for learner collaboration in these kinds of spaces and thought that you could create a scenario where different players have to explore different spaces to collect different information about a central topic. Only by collaborating and sharing all of the information would the learners be able to progress through the game. Making some of the information contradictory so the learners had to reason out the truth could add a layer of interest to the experience. You might need to add a time-pressure constraint to the exercise to emphasise that the players need to explore their own spaces before coming together rather than collectively exploring all of the passageways/rooms/whatever.

This paper ends with some general observations which tie it all together and offer an optimistic view of the future of games in learning.

“We think that there games – however simple they still might appear at present – contain possibilities for knowledge spaces of a delicate nature – if they are thoughtfully conceived, carefully designed and joyfully experienced.”

Syl Eckermann has more information about this project on her website at http://syl-eckermann.net/expositur/index.html

This is also where I have taken the pictures in this blog post from.

Yep, it’s this old hobby-horse again but I still believe that FPP/FPS games can prove useful in education. Research into this field is still a little scant but I have found some useful stuff – not just about using these games in military training either.

This is the proposal that I’ve put together for a uni project to investigate these options – now I have a whopping great 21 days to put together the 6400 words I’ve promised to deliver (and 2 game prototypes – or at least designs)

Title:
Creating the First Person Learner: Educational Applications of the First Person Shooter game genre.

1. Abstract
Gameplay in First Person Shooter (FPS) games is generally highly structured with the player given limited options in terms of the paths they can take and the decisions that they can make. They are often taught a specific skill, practise it for a period of time and when they have adequately demonstrated it, they are given progressively more advanced skills.

This often reflects students’ initial experiences of Vocational Education and Training (VET), during which they spend large amounts of time methodically developing foundation skills and knowledge in their chosen discipline.
This proposal describes a study that aims to investigate the potential uses of First Person Shooter style games as learning tools for students in the VET sector. It will centre around identifying the unique characteristics of the FPS genre and examining ways in which varying educational approaches might be applied to the design of FPS style games for these learners.

2. Introduction
While the use of computer games in education has been widely researched in recent years (Prensky, 2006), a significant focus of this research has been on the development of higher level skills such as problem solving and collaboration in third-person perspective games and particularly virtual worlds such as Second Life. (Kay, 2007)

Much less attention has been paid to the first person perspective genre, typified by the highly popular (and sometimes controversial) First Person Shooter. An initial scan of educational and games research however has indicated that this genre possesses a number of relatively unique characteristics that mesh well with behaviourist, cognitivist and even constructivist approaches to education.

Behaviourist.
Robyler and Havriluk (1997) point out that among the “needs addressed by directed instruction” (their term for the Behaviourist approach) are “making learning paths more efficient… especially for instruction in skills that are prerequisite to higher-level skills” and “performing time-consuming and labor intensive tasks (e.g., skill practice), freeing teacher time for other, more complex student needs”.

In 2005, Oliver and Pelletier devised a methodology which permitted a detailed analysis of how people learn from particular instances of game play. They compared a player of an FPS game (Deux Ex) who played a level having previously used a training level with one who had not. Unsurprisingly, the player who had played the heavily structured and repetitive training level first progressed through the level far more quickly than the second player and also mastered a number of essential skills that the second player did not.

Cognitivist
In 2001, Fuchs and Eckermann developed Expositur – ein virtueller Wissenraum, a game based collaborative project showcasing ten Viennese museums. This first person perspective knowledge space, built using the Unreal FPS game engine, made use of loci, a place based mnemotechnique dating back to the ancient Greeks, to enhance the meaning of its virtual museum exhibits by “connecting seemingly unrelated imagery to gain insight into visual similarities and connotations”(p.84).

They considered “the freedom of the user to go his or her own way in the virtual environment as an important feature that allows for individually shaped relational networks inside a complex field of knowledge”(p.84), which ties in well with Ertmer and Newby’s description of knowledge acquisition under Cognitivism as “a mental activity that entails internal coding and structuring by the learner”. (1993, p.58).

Constructivist
Some researchers have also investigated the use of FPS games to develop higher level skills in decision making and problem solving using authentic and immersive scenario based learning approaches commonly found in the constructivist approach to education. (Colvin, Clark & Mayer, 2007). Barlow and Lewis from the Australian Defence Force Academy (ADFA) presented a paper to the SimTecT conference in 2005 discussing their use of a customised FPS game (Operation Flashpoint) to develop and examine the tactical decision making skills of ADFA students in a variety of authentic scenarios.

I believe that elements from all of these approaches can be successfully integrated into an FPS based learning game, whether it be a drill based reinforcement of key concepts, using the arrangement of information in three dimensional space as a cognitive aid or engaging students with an authentic and immersive scenario based learning experience.

3. Methodology
This project will draw on the ADDIE instructional systems design model. This is a five stage process involving Analysis, Design, Development, Implementation and Evaluation and represents “a dynamic, flexible guideline for building effective training and performance support tools”. (Wikipedia, 2008) Given time and resource constraints, the project will focus on the first three stages of the ADDIE process.

In the Analysis phase I will initially seek to answer a number of questions which will give me a better idea of the strengths of the FPS genre, suitable content and activities for the games, evaluation strategies and pedagogical approaches to developing these games. Given my stated aim of examining games suitable for VET students, this will initially involve identifying particular types of structured tasks that would be appropriate to this form however all options will be considered as they arise.

Some of the key questions to be considered are:
What is the anatomy of an FPS game?
How do FPS games differ from third person perspective and virtual world games and what advantages do they offer?
How can FPS games be educational?
What kind of educational approaches lend themselves to this type of games based learning?
What are the factors that might determine the most appropriate target audience for an FPS based learning game?
What impact might game violence or destruction of virtual objects have on the learning experience?
In what circumstances might game violence or destruction of objects be appropriate in a learning activity?
Do single player and multiplayer games support different educational approaches?

A number of game design questions will also be considered including:
To what extent does the level of realistic representation of the learners’ environment affect their engagement with the game?
What makes a game enjoyable and what makes a player want to play a game repeatedly?

In answering these questions I will draw on existing research into the use of games in education in general then focus on the use of FPS games and environments specifically.

I have a growing list of game oriented resources at http://del.icio.us/colsim/edugames
which will be my first port of call. From there I’ll also look into writing from Marc Prensky, James Gee, the Serious Games Initiative, Constance Steinkuehler, Jack Thompson and other games in education writers and theorists as a starting point.

I will also make contact with Barlow and Lewis at ADFA and teachers at the Academy of Interactive Entertainment, a respected game design school in Canberra.

Based on the findings of this research, I will develop design statements for and build prototypes of two small games using FPS Creator, a game development software package. These games will serve to demonstrate some of the possible practical applications of the FPS game genre in education.

5. Results and Discussion
Assessment of this project will centre around a final report which documents and discusses the outcomes of this research. This report will examine the methodology used and outline the answers found to the questions listed earlier. It will consider the success or failure of my attempts to integrate learning strategies into FPS based games and consider approaches for future developments of educational games.

During the course of the project I will regularly discuss the use of games and particularly FPS games in education by posting observations and reflections on my edublog at http://gamelearner.edublogs.org. This reflection process will enable me to formulate my ideas and seek feedback from the wider games in education community. I will include a summary of these posts as an appendix to the report.

I will also include an annotated bibliography of the six most significant publications that I find in my research .

Due date:
June 13, 2008
Final Report – Methodology and findings
4000 words
50%

June 13, 2008
Annotated Bibliography (6 x 200 words)
1200 words
15%

June 13, 2008
Reflections
1200 words
15%

June 13, 2008
Game prototypes x 2
N/A
N/A

Easy right?