Just Ask the Avatar in the Front Row
Colleges and universities head into virtual worlds, and student learning and psychology are changed forever.
MITCH GITELMAN’S PRETTY EXCITED ABOUT MICROSOFT’S
SHADOWRUN. It’s a “first-person shooter” game
that’s team-based, he says: It’s played online with friends, using either Windows
Vista or Xbox 360, and transports the players into a virtual future. In
fact, Shadowrun takes place in 2030—when magic returns to the world—and includes elves,
dwarves, orks, trolls, and humans, all sporting a variety of weapons and ammunition. The
game is due out in spring 2007, and Gitelman can’t wait; he is, after all, its lead designer.
Still, being studio manager of FASA Studio (one of the Microsoft game studios) isn’t
what it used to be. For one thing, Gitelman’s previous team was intimate, at 35 people.
Now it’s over 100 strong, including artists, game developers, game designers, program
managers, testers, and audio specialists. For another, the games themselves are becoming
increasingly complex. Gitelman says that the video resolution has tripled in the past several
years, and where it used to take a week to conceptualize and reproduce a character, it
now takes four weeks. The whole process, from beginning to end, takes about three years.
“My assignment,” says the game inventor, “is to produce a triple-A-quality game. This
is a hit-driven business, so each game has to be designed to be a blockbuster. And in order
to create content that looks more and more like a movie, it takes more and more people.”
Consumer expectation has risen accordingly, he notes.
Attracting (and Channeling) the Players
Yet just who are those consumers? Typically, says Gitelman, they’re “hard-core gamers”—
those individuals who buy games at least once a month and who want to move from a game’s
start to finish in about 10 hours. Not surprisingly, many of the consumers are college students
who sometimes have LAN parties (spontaneous gatherings of people and computers, networked
for the purpose of multiplayer computer games) in their dorms.
Mike Allington knows a good deal about LAN parties. He’s the assistant director of student and classroom technology support
at Creighton University (NE), a
Jesuit institution of about 6,700 students.
For the past few years, Creighton has
hosted GameFest, a 12-hour marathon of
high-tech, interactive gaming sessions
among Creighton students, using the
school’s hardware and infrastructure.
Allington says that he had the epiphany
about GameFest while he was in the
shower, and his thought process went
something like this: a) IT needs students
to work for us; b) Gaming appeals to
students even more than drinking does;
c) Maybe we could bring students together
for gaming and, in the process, recruit
them as IT support staff!
It was a eureka moment. About 300
students showed up at the first GameFest;
the most recent event drew 1,000. Allington
and his crew set up about 50 PCs, 24
Macs, 10 plasma TVs,
half a dozen additional TVs, 10 Xboxes,
five projectors, and a few PlayStations. A variety of games
were offered, but since starting out with
first-person shooter and sports games,
says Allington, he and his crew have
added somewhat more pacific activities,
like Dance Dance Revolution (DDR) and RollerCoaster Tycoon. Everything at
the events, including refreshments, is
free, says the support pro: Sponsors such
as Gateway, Apple,
IBM, and Gamers (a
local gaming company) defray the cost.
Contrary to the perception that the
gaming craze may be injurious to college
students, Allington believes the video
gaming “encourages students to build
relationships throughout the campus.” He
adds that the university’s academic curricula
also are becoming infused with the
new gaming technologies. There’s even
an “eFellows” program on campus, he
reports; it’s training “old-school” faculty
members to get up-to-speed on ways to
use gaming tools to engage students.
Creighton U’s Allington believes video
gaming not only encourages students to
build relationships throughout the campus,
but also is an ideal way to recruit students
as IT support staff.
The questions now are progressive:
Can gaming do more than entertain? Can
it facilitate learning? Can it facilitate
learning more effectively than classroom
lecture and discussion?
Gaming as Pedagogy
Interestingly, there’s some evidence that
the answer to all of the above questions
is “Yes.” What’s more, pundits say we
may only be at the genesis of gaming’s
potential as a pedagogical tool in middle
and higher education. At this juncture,
it’s wise to look at gaming-as-teaching
models, wherever they exist.
That brings us to Jerry Bush, a program
manager for Cisco Systems in San Jose, CA. Bush is
responsible for the Cisco Certified Network
Associate program, which has certified
more than half a million people
around the globe. To put it simply, he
develops and manages learning games
that supplement training programs at
Cisco. His games are used mainly at
the Cisco academies,
which comprise 400,000 students annually,
and are affiliated with universities
and high schools. The academies provide
students with IT skills and deliver webbased
content, online assessment, student
performance tracking, hands-on labs,
instructor training and support, and
preparation for industry standard certifications.
Bush’s most recent goal: to get
his students to learn the binary numbering
system—by playing a game. He says
he learned the system himself as he was
designing the game: At some point during
the process, he recalls, he found that
he was “thinking in binary.” He reports
that individuals who then played the
game worked through about 50 problems
in five minutes, and had fun while they
were doing it. The players disclosed that
they recognized patterns they wouldn’t
have discerned the old-fashioned way—
that is, via paper-and-pencil homework
problems. So far, 35,000 Cisco students,
and others in 100 countries, have played
Bush’s game. Is it the best way to learn?
Bush makes a compelling point: “Maybe
it’s not better, but it’s more motivating,”
he asserts.
In contrast to Gitelman’s three-year
odyssey to develop a blockbuster shooter
game for the commercial market, designing
a game for the Cisco academies takes
Bush about two to six months—as long as
he has the three major contributors he
needs: a learning expert, a subject-matter
expert, and a game expert. The concept,
says Bush, is simple: “You have to solve a
problem, and the game is part of the solution.”
The challenge for pedagogy as a
whole, then, is to combine the immersion
of Gitelman’s Shadowrun with the lure
and accessibility of Allington’s Game-
Fest, plus the very real academic benefit
of Bush’s binary game.
Going Virtual
Many believe the answer lies in the virtual
world: a landscape in which the players
exist “inside” of the game, socializing
with others in the same virtual game
environment, expressing themselves and, thus, learning.
Take, for instance, Second Life, a 3D virtual world
entirely built and owned by its residents.
Since opening to the public in 2003, it has
grown explosively and today is inhabited
by (at latest count) 5.2 million individuals
from around the globe, with 60,000 residents
added daily. Anyone who downloads
the software can participate in
Second Life—even a university.
At Ohio University in Athens, OH,
Bill Sams is executive in residence and
project manager for the institution’s outreach
and regional campuses, and that
includes the Second Life campus of
Ohio University Without Boundaries.
Although students can meet fellow
learners there, view art installations, and
take classes, they can’t get there by car,
plane, or boat; only via the virtual world
Second Life. But Sams points out that
those partaking are not merely participants
in the virtual world; the unique
aspect of Second Life is that the users
can “own” their part of the world. Linden Lab may be
the developer of Second Life, but its
members can buy into it, setting up
islands, cities, or even campuses like
Ohio University Without Boundaries.
“It gives you a sense of place,” says
Sams, adding, “The possibilities are literally
limitless right now.” What’s more,
limitless doesn’t entail limitless funds:
OU shelled out a mere $1,500 to set up its
first island, and another $200 for service
fees. Then it was up to the university to
offer whatever it liked, and charge whatever
it wanted for visitors to attend classes
on the boundless campus. Those taking
Second Life courses for credit must be
enrolled as OU students; otherwise, the
courses are free to the public. Sams con-
fides, “There is so much potential! We are
only just discovering what we can do.”
A New Psychology
As director of the Aesthetic Technology
Lab at Ohio University, Katherine Milton
is more than aware of the possibilities.
Milton teaches experimental media to
about a dozen OU seniors and graduate
students. On Wednesdays, they all meet
in class, but on Mondays, they meet in
Second Life—and it is absolutely amazing
what this group can do.
When her students head to their Second
Life campus, they travel there as
“avatars,” or graphic representations of
themselves. They can choose to make
their avatars resemble their real-life
selves, or they can create avatars that
express what they wish they looked
like—a hot movie or rock star, or a politician,
for instance. Once created, the
avatars can traverse the virtual campus
just as they would their actual campus.
But, if they prefer, they can take flight
instead of walk. And when they spy
another avatar, they can communicate
instantly, merely by typing a message—
something this generation of texters has
little trouble doing at the speed of light.
Recently, Milton took her class online
to view an exhibit of artwork by Philip
Mallory Jones. In real life, each paper
image is 13 inches by 20 inches. In Second
Life, though, each image takes up an
entire wall, leaving avatars awed at the
effect. “It’s a whole different way to use
museum space,” says Milton. It’s also a
lot less expensive to set up an exhibition
in a virtual environment, she admits. Not
only that, but the Second Life software
allows users to switch modes so that
things can be viewed as their avatars
would view them: Whereas normally, the
online visitor would be seeing the back of
the avatar’s head as it gazes at the image,
switching modes allows the user to view
whatever the avatar sees, just as if the user
had jumped into the avatar’s shoes. Milton
points out that this kind of virtual
learning is new psychologically, as well
as new pedagogically: All the rituals are
different, she insists. For instance, not
everyone walks into class together, and
not everyone gets ready to leave together.
Virtualizing Ethnography
Nina Caporale, one of Milton’s students,
is acutely aware of both the new artistic
dynamics and the new sociodynamics of
Second Life. A graduate student in fine
arts, she’s been combining her experience
in digital photography and video
with sculpture installations—both real
and virtual. She’s also experimenting
with “scripting” the objects on the site
in order to expand their “behavioral”
repertoires, so the objects can move
about and even respond to commands.
But it’s the nature of the interaction of
the avatars that interests Caporale most.
“When you’re playing a fantasy role,”
she says, “you reveal a lot more about
yourself. Right now, the most interesting
thing to me, personally, is revealing to
myself the variety of ways I socialize.”
For example, because there are fewer reasons
to be inhibited in Second Life, people in their avatar roles are less cautious
about broaching potentially sensitive subjects.
Caporale thinks that some of those
attitudes and behaviors have seeped into
her “first” life; her real life. She’s become
less timid in some of her “real-people”
interactions, she admits, since she
became involved in Second Life.
SECOND LIFE STUDENTS walk through subject matter the way museum-goers move through exhibits.
Paul Shovlin is another Ohio University
educator who holds classes in Second
Life, teaching a required class in junior
composition called “Rhetoric and Writing.”
Shovlin facilitates discussions with
students about their choices for avatars.
He asks them how they might relate to
him as a teacher, were he to appear to
them in a Darth Vader costume; then he
expands the discussion to what it means
to his students to represent themselves in
different ways. They discuss the meaning
of “visual literacy”: being able to think
critically about images and integrate the
images into communication. They discuss
how the Second Life medium
affects discourse and how the “pseudoanonymity”
affects discussions. Shovlin
maintains that Second Life is “a great site
for ethnography,” because students associate
with so many different types of
organizations and people. Beyond that, he
thinks it’s important for his students to be
exposed to these types of virtual environments:
“As students are expected, sooner
or later, to operate in these environments,
it’s our jobs as educators to give them the
experience and analytical tools necessary
to be successful in them.”
There’s More to Life Than Second
Still, not everyone is a fan of Second
Life—at least not yet. John Stinson, the
retired dean of Ohio University’s business
school, has been involved in online
teaching for 15 years and now teaches a
class, “Managing in the Innovation
Age,” during the winter quarter. He
meets with his students in real life and
then in Second Life, trying to determine
whether Second Life is indeed a practical
pedagogical delivery mechanism. He
claims he’s been frustrated by technical
problems and by a lack of enthusiasm on
the part of his students, but he hasn’t
given up on the virtual environment. “It
has a great deal of potential,” he says;
“it’s just not quite ready for prime time.”
There.com (Makena Technologies) may
be a bit better prepared for prime time.
Director of Product Management Betsy
Book says the site, which boasts about
750,000 members worldwide, is “an
immersive 3D environment, so it can take
a little getting used to.” But of all the virtual
worlds, Book claims, There is the
most user-friendly, and even New York
Law School holds classes within it.
Like Second Life, she points out,
There isn’t a fantasy world; it has no set
narrative structure. Unlike Second Life,
however, There utilizes voice-enabling
software, so that users can actually talk
and listen to their fellow avatars. A onetime
charge ($9.95) gives users access to
the voice-chat technology. Membership
is free, but costs are involved if users want
to do things like buy homes, vehicles, or
extra clothing for their avatars. And much
of There is social: Members own and decorate
their homes, participate in community
events, and socialize with their
online friends. But it’s not too social:
There maintains a strict “no nudity/no
violence/no cursing” policy.
Frank Whiting, dean of the University
of There (the site’s learning component),
says that peer pressure and consensus regulate
behaviors: “If you start cursing, people
will just put you on ‘ignore,’ and soon
you’ll have no one to talk to.” There also
uses a profanity filter to screen inappropriate
language from text chat communications;
the site enforces tough PG-13
content standards (penalties range up to
immediate removal from the site and disabling
of the offending user’s account).
The University of There holds classes
throughout the year (Plains Indian lore,
theater arts, design, you-name-it). People
sign up for the classes, and professionals
volunteer to teach them, because “they
‘get’ the visionary nature of having educational
projects in virtual space,” says
Book. “Educators can reach people in different
geographical areas, and it’s a great
way to reach young people.”
JustThinkTink, a student avatar,
agrees: “I find it very motivating because,
once mastered, the virtual learning has
both virtual and real-life applications.”
Whiting, a retired Air Force officer
who now teaches computer science at
Shasta College in northern California,
and who has been involved in the gaming
community for years, brims with
enthusiasm for the site: “You can sit
down in a room, face-to-face with people,
and talk with them; see their
mouths, faces, and bodies move. What
we’re doing now is about as close to
magic as you’re going to get.” Whiting
thinks that this is the beginning of a paradigm
shift that’s going to alter the way
people shop, live, work, and play. “Wait
till someone realizes that you can drop a
2007 car model into a virtual world and
let people drive it around,” he says.
“Then, think about how much companies
pay for a 30-second advertisement
in the Super Bowl…”
Currently, New York Law School cosponsors
an offshoot of There.com: the
State of Play Academy, or SOPA, an entire academy
built in a virtual world. Users can
take courses in patent law, copyright law,
virtual world law, and municipal WiFi
policy, among others. The classes are
scheduled at a wide variety of times; law
professors, journalists, and technologists
line up to teach them.
David Johnson joined the Law
School’s faculty in spring 2004 as a visiting professor. He’s a faculty member of
the school’s Institute for Information
Law and Policy, where he directs the
Certificate of Mastery in Digital Law
Practice Technology program. Johnson
reports that a number of NYLS professors
who teach both online and traditional
courses via various methods all
concur that the level of interactivity and
participation by students in online
courses is noticeably higher than it is for
the very same courses taught in an
offline or real-world setting. That perception
is right in keeping with his experience
at SOPA, he adds, “aided in part
by the availability of both an IM and a
voice channel, so that everyone can talk
at the same time without disrupting the
flow of the main conversation.” What’s
more, he says, those NYLS professors
who have given exams to classes taking
the same course (some online and some
offline) report that the online groups do
better on the exams: same courses, same
exams. “Not surprising, really,” says
Johnson, “given the higher level of interactivity
in class.”
Because there are fewer reasons to be
inhibited in Second Life, people in their
avatar roles are less cautious about
broaching potentially sensitive subjects.
Lauren Gelman, the dean of SOPA, is
also the associate director of Stanford
Law School’s (CA) Center for Internet
and Society. “We’re trying to democratize
legal education,” she explains,
adding that because the SOPA classes are
free, and because they can be accessed by
anyone with the relevant software, there
are very few limits on who can gain
knowledge formerly restricted to curricula
at traditional law schools. And importantly,
the virtual classes have a different
character than their predecessors. “These
classes become conversations, where the
participants are just as involved as the
teacher,” says Gelman. In SOPA, the
classes meet not in a classroom, but, typically,
in a virtual library or coffeehouse,
on a virtual couch, or by a virtual tree.
“Relaxed” and “easy” are the most
common descriptions of There.com,
says Gelman, who relates that the
avatars often reflect at least one revealing
aspect of their owners’ personalities.
One wears a zoot suit, sports an
Afro, and flies in and out of classes;
another appears in khaki pants, a buttondown
shirt, and a goatee. While students
learn, “they have the freedom to
be playful,” she stresses. Maybe that’s
not such a bad thing.
::WEBEXTRA :: Discover a brave new world of advanced teaching technologies :: Learn more about educational games at the Campus Technology 2007 session, “Playing the Course: Gaming in the Curriculum,” in Washington, DC, July 30-Aug. 2.