I’ve been using Twitter for a number of weeks now, and that, combined with several recent social networking activities prompted this reflection.  There’s lots more for me to learn, of course, but there are powerful reasons to blog about it along the way as well. I’ve talked before about the reasons to blog, including it causing you to think about a lot of things, which can then be useful when they come up, and in general that you need to be using the ... I guess, haven’t been back in a while.  There are some others I’m signed on to as well: serious games ...

A number of sources have recently been discussing the virtues and vices associated with creating games that raise social consciousness. One great resource are some postings by Jeff Cobb over at Mission to Learn . He has created two lists of games for change. One is called 26 Learning Games to Change the World and the other is 7 More Learning Games for Change . Check out the two lists. Great links to some thought provoking games (some of which are really fun to play and others are a just a social message disguised as a game. Thanks to Jeff for taking the time to assemble ...

... teaches English and Social Studies to English Language Learners at Luther Burbank High School in Sacramento, California is to use free online games to help his students learn English as a Second Language. He finds free, online games that include English text and speaking and has his students play the game and try to win. He gives them guides that can help them through the game--the catch? The guides are in English and he teams the learners together to take advantage of the exchange of language and discussions that naturally occur as two people try to work their way through a game. Here is ...

It's SATs time in the UK for primary school kids and I'm sitting writing this post while Question Time is discussing the value of testing kids at the age of 11 in this way (my own daughter being one of them). The emphasis on testing in artificial environments that are abstracted from a real world context seems to create a lot of heated debate. The issue of stress and pressure placed on kids ...

Hey, it's Monday...it's stressful...YOU need a stress reliever! Video Games to the Rescue (of course). Researchers have discovered that a video simple game asking the player to find the smiling face on the computer screen helps to reduce ... video game will help reduce stress and boost confidence in about 10 minutes. (A mini-game stress reliever.) The McGill research team has developed the MindHabits Trainer game, in which one exercise shows a grid of faces, with 15 of them frowning and one smiling. The player must find the smiling face as quickly as possible. As the Reuters'article, Online game ...

... novelty, complexity, curiosity, humor, inquiry arousal, and variability. Not coincidentally, simulations and games use many of these same characteristics . It is not actually simulations and educational games that increase learning and motivation; rather, it is the characteristics inherent to simulations and educational games that cause the effect. I've summarized some different author's analysis of game characteristics: Belanich et al. (2004) Challenge, Realism, Control ... design and educational games and simulation include: fun, learner control, relevance/importance, challenge, curiosity, ...

Here is an online adventure game developed by the Indiana University School of Education supported by grants from the National Science Foundation, MacArthur Foundation, NASA, and Food Lion. As the game explains "Your help is urgently ... air are polluted, fish are dying, cities are decaying, people are sick." The game Quest Atlantis is "an international ... game. Here are the core elements of the game from the web site: The core elements of QA are 1) a 3-D multi-user ... comic book, that involves a mythical Council and a set of social commitments, and 4) a globally-distributed community ...

... wonderful insights and ideas they have concerning the "Gamers" and the influence video games will have on the future. And ... became nostalgic about games they had played while growing up. All of this reminiscing reminded me of a game I loved to play in the late 1990's (1997 to be exact). The game was Acrophobia...the fear of acronyms. Here is a brief description of the game.(lifted from Wikipedia ) Acrophobia is a multi-round, multiplayer online Internet Relay Chat game. The game ... ) in 1995. Players enter a channel hosted by a bot which runs the game. In each round, the bot generates a random ...

Sneak preview of the Arabic Version of 3DLanguage an immersive learning environment. The folks who created 3D Language Spain which I have blogged about before in Learning Spanish in a Game have now created a couple more interesting and highly entertaining products (not to mention Educational.) The goal of the company is to make "language ... they are doing is starting a new Social Network for language learners, which will bring the 3dlanguage community ... impressed. __ Catalog of Recommended Books, Games and Gadgets Recommended Games and Gadgets Recommended ...

... spend on video games, the less time they will have socializing (Hamilton Note: this is debatable as many of today's games encourage socialization within the game and discussions outside of the game), the less time they will have with their ... games can help people socialize across the virtual landscape, which is something Boomers 1) may not understand, or 2) may ... CNN had an interesting article called, " Experts: Video games not an addiction ". The article highlights the debate involving doctors and experts regarding the excessive use of video games. The article states that about 10% of players ...

... result, there is a greater social factor to participation than in Fantasy Golf. Draft Day - we went to a bar with our ... look at the individual matchups for practically every game that week. Of course - if you are fortunate enough to ...

First the tech: What???s Powering the Next-Generation : A review of the current and up-and-coming game engines Top 10 Game Technologies of the Next-Generation : Tech beyond just engines (like physics engines) that will create next-gen capabilities The best gaming laptop money can buy : Categories include budget, performance and extreme - also has a link to the Best gaming Desktop Money can Buy Now the terror: Pentagon Researcher Conjures Warcraft Terror ... ! Turns out video games are actually good for kids: A study by the Pew Internet & American Life Project found ...

When many in our field speak on the topic of Learning2.0, or eLearning2.0, it is focused specifically on Social ... BE whatever we want to be. The book title How Computer Games Help Children Learn makes similar points about the act of BEING something, or someone else, in a "game" as a powerful learning experience. To the non-gamer parents this is ... our youth. But it falls on deaf ears at best. Why is Monopoly held up as such a great achievement in gaming? Or, maybe I should ask it differently...why do parents think it's such a great game? What about chess? In Chess , each piece ...

We often talk about designing games and simulations for instruction, but NPR had an interesting story today on doing social research within a multiplayer game . A bug in World of Warcraft unleashed a deadly virtual "plague", and epidimologists and sociologists noted how game-player's reactions closely mimiced reactions to real-world disasters. There may be a planned illness outbreak in World of Warcraft so that sociologists can study and document player's reactions from the start. This is the converse of how we often use games and simulations: instead of creating an environment to ...

... social networking platforms such as MySpace, Flikr, YouTube, Twitter, Bebo and Facebook. They are almost household names. This is not so of a new generation of social networking technology, which is being used to provide software services ... Not playing around: Army to invest $50M in combat training games - Stars & Stripes The Army has created a video game unit and will invest $50 million over five years on games and gaming systems designed to prepare soldiers for combat. KM Asia: keynote on social computing - Dave Snowden of Cognitive Edge Includes podcast and slides (pdf).

Organizations". Accept they call it Facebook, and/or LinkedIn or any of the other social networking tools available today ... to do. [Read: The 4-hour Workweek to better understand] Corporate life can be "gamed" and I've seen it take on ...

Gaming industry guru Raph Koster responds to MTV comments. read more  |  digg ...

Too Many Social Networks? : eLearning Technology I just read David Warlicks post - I Just Donâ??t Get it Yet â?? Social Networks where he discusses his recent experience with several Ning generated social networks including: Iâ??ve joined Library 2.0 , School 2.0 , and Classroom ... head, but Iâ??m to dull to know it. So please explain. Ive tried out several social network tools and have had a ... something around social networks that will take off, but any network that is a closed system needs something as a hook ...

... was on "Games" and how they could contribute as a tool for social and organizational modeling. Specifically, they were ... the Department of Defense Modeling and Simulation community), the chapter on games was interesting. The council considered the application of games in three distinct roles: Games as an Interaction Medium Games as a Set of Engaging and Immersive Models Games as an Interactive Laboratory Overall, there were some good points and there were some sketchy ... respect to the modeling, display, and input of human emotion into the interactive game. They go on to say that games ...

Chart shows percentage of teens and tweens and what social networking/Web 2.0 activities they do weekly online ... social networking is now so deeply embedded in the lifestyles of tweens and teens that it rivals television for their attention...Nine- to 17-year-olds report spending almost as much time using social networking services and Web sites as they spend watching television. Among teens, that amounts to about 9 hours a week on social networking activities ... , many students engage in highly creative activities on social networking sites...Overall, an astonishing 96 percent ...

... lt; insert shameless plug here > Just wanted to let everyone know, so you can all run out and sign up now! now! now! - that Brent Schlenker and I are doing an e Learning Guild Summer Seminar Series that is focused on all things "2.0" and how they can be used to create powerful ,collaborative, learning environments. An outline for our session is available here - but I should also point out that Clark Quinn and Jeff Johannigman are doing their session on serious games aka Immersive Learning Simulations, immediately following ours - so stay for both!

... social networking and dating sites. However, applications like massively multiplayer online games and internet messaging ... they would like to continue the game later. This is not yet social software , however as the phone becomes more ... ; Resources > Publications, reports & articles > Opening Education reports > Social software and ... Social software and learning July 2006 Martin Owen ... it for free from www.adobe.com Social software and ...

William Sims Bainbridge wrote an article recently for Science on the new potential that virtual worlds hold for scientific research. Specifically, he looks at the research potential that Second Life and World of Warcraft have in the fields of social, behavioral, and economic sciences . He notes that the two virtual worlds hold different opportunities for research: Second Life is especially well designed to mount formal experiments in social psychology or cognitive ... subjects. World of Warcraft may be better for non-intrusive statistical methodologies examining social networks and ...

REGISTER NOW! Did you get the email this morning? If you didn't then you also need to get to the Guild Web site and sign up for a FREE associate membership . This is going to be GREAT FUN!!! Chicago is a great city to connect with a small group of learning professionals around these cutting edge topics. If you feel the current wave of technologies beginning to rock your career boat a little...as you should...then you owe it to yourself and your team to get a handle on it. These are going to fill FAST! So if you need any sort of approval I would encourage you to get on it NOW! Got ...

... this: It has its place, but by itself blended learning is not complete. Being a big proponent of learning using social ... not lose its significance) but the funnel, for the most part, is gone.  Formal learning intersects with social ... organizations where formal courses of all kinds, social interactions using all mediums and all types of informal learning blend ... measurement.  The game changes because the goal and the path to get to the goal changed. Done correctly, the ecosystem ... , “ The Bionic Brain: Learning, Technology, and Social Networks ” at DevLearn, he asked, “How many of ...

Here are the handouts and the slides for the presentation that I did on Wikis, Blogs and Social Networks. It was a fun, hands on presentation where many of the attendees had a chance to create a blog and a wiki. This session esd conducted at the Training 2007 Conference in Salt Lake City, Utah. I enjoyed the audience and had a lot of really great ... presentation on Gadgets, Games and Gizmos: Tools for Tranferring Knowledge from the Boomers to the Gamers. __ Recommended Games and Gadgets Recommended Books Content ...

... game world. Seventy percent of the players of the social interaction game, The Sims , are women under 25. The computer game that held the number one position in the Children's PC chart from May 2004 until July 2006 was designed ... Over at Learning Visions , Cammy Bean posted an entry titled Games for Girls... there she discusses the fact that ... upcoming book Gadgets, Games and Gizmos for Learning that specifically addresses that issue. Here is an excerpt: Unfortunately, female involvement in video games tends to go unnoticed-even among themselves. As Kirsten Kearney, a video game ...

Fist, I want to reveal my bias in this area. I believe the gaming world is way ahead of the corporate world in all aspects of collaboration, social, behavioral, technical, etc. So I am looking to see what is transferable from the gaming ... of the game social and management skills learned are transferable to work situations Byron's group has applied a game ... activation when game players are faced with certain tasks and situations. He found that: - People were more excited ... environment - The story for the game had a big effect on excitement What he found from his research that can be applied ...

... www.mors.org/ Social Gaming Summit June 13, 2008 http://www.socialgamingsummit.com 2008 Training & Simulation Industry ... OK...here is a HUGE list of conferences, primarily developed with a focus on games, simulations etc. I am in the ... and will get back with the link to that as soon as we get that created. Thanks!! Game Developers Conference 2009 ... ; ADL sponsored Games + Mobile Forum @ LA Games Conference 2008 May 21-22, 2008 Army DL & Gaming Working Group at Fort Eustis May 28-29, 2008 Rob Bowen, Chief TCM Gaming, NSC, Futures Division Medical Technology, Training ...

My post this week at the TrainingDay blog is a little late since I was stuck (and still am) in San Diego since the East Coast got the huge storm which shut down teh airport I was to fly into. As I play with 3D worlds more and more I think that they are going to be standard software in organizations in 5-7 years. One that breaking some ground is ProtoSphere. Read my post Social Learning in 3D to learn more. __ Recommended Games and Gadgets Recommended Books Content ...