And as you'd have figured out by now, I'm at lovely Berlin (I just luv this city!!), ready to figure out whether this conference (15th International Conference on Technology Supported Learning and Training taking place at December 2 - 4, 2009 @Hotel InterContinental Berlin), is willing and able to do some gaming.I have to tell you that this is a BiG conference and you have to move in the speed of light with your GPS On if you dont want to miss everything.
I am -finally- at the most relevant session called "Gaming, Informal Learning & MUVEs" and I just found out that the presentation by Simon Egenfeldt-Nielsen was canseled. Nevermind, moving forward... The house is not just full, there are actually people sitting on the floor! I hope this will be taken into account by the people who organized EDUCA to have only one gaming session to a 2day conference. We are growing in numbers, yes we do...
The extremely amusing chairperson (Euan Mackenzie, 3MRT Ltd, UK) hared with us that the guys who built Larry (meaning Al Lowe?!) were able to charge the FBI a huge amount of dollars in order to create a simulation/game in order to teach FBI agents how to interrogate "terrorists" and guess where they based the AI of the game.... yes sir the intelligence is Lary's intelligence... "Hey scum, my name is Larry; Larry Laffer and I will use my sweet manners to make you talk... you sexy terrorist you..."
However most of the audience are from corporate training background, same as the direction of the entire conference I might say. Plus Nintendo (did you know it was established at 1889?!) is here (Silja Gülicher) and she is going to speak about the Scottish Experience with Nintendo DS and this is just briliant because Scotland is a great place for GBL. And this study was all about collaboration, focus and motivation on behalf of the student and structure and design of the experience on behalf of the educator. It was also mentioned that students with difficulties were more benefited and that a new Nintendo DS project will begin in Bavaria in order to support learners with difficulties in mathematics.
The second speaker, Koen DePryck is from Antwerp and will give a presentation on gaming as a tool for changing attitudes and I am eager to see where this will lead us... Everyone involved in GBL realises in one point that its all about the attitude of the learner and the educator towards not only GBL, but towards the training/learning subject as well. While he presented his opinion on understanding the importance of the learner's attitude towards the subject and formating it through SeRiOuS Games - e.g. Re-Mission for cancer patients, people kept entering the room till there was no room left. He also mentioned "rapid game development" as a solution in order to add GBL to the educators' toolbox. I would add "rapid game development by the specialist" and involve the educator.
Last but not least he mentioned that it might be essential to create game like environments to the RL educational environment ("Assassin I - First in the theatres, now in a classroom near you..."). Hhowever I do agree, It seems that over the last years when I do role play in the classroom I have to create a digital game ambience if I want to involve the students especially more mature game-wise students.
Next speaker, Norbert Fritz will try to refer to Simulation, Digital Worlds and GBL (terms usually mixed up both in meaning and in overlapping boundaries). In his extremely fast presentation he was the only one to refer to usability factor apart from content/attitude issues when integrating learning in a gaming environment.
The last speaker was a lovely finish educator called Hannele Virtanen-Vaaranmaa, from Helsinki Metropolia University of Applied Sciences, who discussed with us her experience in Second Life (@ Metropolia sl as hannele halostar) and how students can be benefited from virtual words. She mentioned how pedagogical content can be applied in a virtual world and she also reffered to the differend kind of studies that can occure in the virtual world. It was great to listen to a highly motivated educator who actually has a good VW experience.
Next day will be all about integrating Serious Gaming and Digital Storytteling in the educational experience of the students but I am quite worried that the presentations are going to have a much more corporate training content that I'd prefer.
However check this Serious Games Project called e-Vita Project
Küsse von Berlin
