BA6 2000 Words Prep & Research

Right, now that I have a strong foothold on my studio project it is time to get started on my CS project.
After reading the brief, I have come to the understanding that I am able to write a plausible argument about the positive influences in video games.

Violence in video games have always been known to be one of the main causes of violent shootings, dangerous driving and crime. This is due to the fact that this particular person or group has been engaged in violent games so long, they forget the rights and wrongs of the virtual game world to the right, lawful real world. That's not a generalization, that's fact. In the past, games have been used as a scapegoat for some peoples disturbed lives and general stupid behavior, being the real reason behind such crimes, that stand out to be the cause from influence in violent video games.

Below are a number of articles I have found regarding the effects violence in video games have had on some people and why it used as a generalization or an excuse. Not an initial reason why the crimes were committed.

http://www.howstuffworks.com/video-game-violence.htm
http://electronics.howstuffworks.com/video-game-violence2.htm

I have taken the quote below from a livescience.com article about video games violence:

http://www.livescience.com/3955-reality-check-video-game-violence.html

'Has the video violence resulted in an increase in violent crime? No; on Oct. 17, 2005, the FBI released figures showing that the U.S. violent crime rate declined again last year. In fact, violent crime has dropped significantly over the past twenty years'

A writer known as Richard Rhodes stated the following statement in an article for the 'New York Times'

http://www.nytimes.com/2000/09/17/opinion/hollow-claims-about-fantasy-violence.html

'In fact, no direct, causal link between exposure to mock violence in the media and subsequent violent behavior has ever been demonstrated, and the few claims of modest correlation have been contradicted by other findings, sometimes in the same studies.'

This particular argument is a pro and con debate about the influences of violence in video games:

http://www.debate.org/debates/Video-Games-do-not-increase-or-perpetuate-juvenile-violence/1/

'A 2004 US Secret Service review of previous school-based attacks found that one-eighth of attackers exhibited an interest in violent video games, less than the rate of interest attackers showed in violent books, movies, and writings. The report did not show any link between video games and school based violence.'

The debate continues on until the voted guest 'con' debater urges people to stand by the 'pros' side of the debate.

Although video games encourage a lot of negativity as I have stated. But, they also create a positive, enjoyable, relaxing environment for many others such as myself.
Video games target a vast audience of any age and gender, be it action/shooters and pick up and play puzzle games.

I aim to focus my 2000 word essay on how games can be used further for educational purpose, and serve a better use for people in the public community, be it a school, community home, youth group and even prisons. The idea is to give people of all ages the opportunity to engage with either one another or on their own to challenge themselves in a virtual, educational environment.

Below are a series of links providing current educational games amongst a variety of different subjects.

http://www.wateraid.org/uk/audience/schools?gclid=CMrJ-obQx7YCFc3HtAodqVUAvA#/fun-and-games

Water Aid is a company trying to change the world, giving people across the world clean, sustainable water. They rely on donations from the general public to sustain their work in suffering countries such as parts of Africa.

The site also includes a couple of mini games targeting young children. The games allow children to be aware of the value of using and saving water.
In the game the player creates a virtual family and is given a number of regular household tasks to complete using as little water as possible. If the player is able to save a certain amount of water and complete a series of small mini puzzles, they can be entitled to win an eco washing machine.

'To transform lives, we deliver taps and toilets, campaign for change and build the skills of local people.' - http://www.wateraid.org/uk/what-we-do/our-approach

http://www.tenement.org/education_lessonplans.html
'We tell the stories of 97 Orchard Street. Built on Manhattan's Lower East Side in 1863, this tenement apartment building was home to nearly 7000 working class immigrants.'

The site represents a museum, which teaches people about immigration. They hold a number of weekly activities and also include some of them online to get people involved. One of the games is playing the role of one of the many immigrants in many countries, emigrating to America. The game follows the challenges they follow, until they made it.

http://www.educationarcade.org/

'The Education Arcade explores games that promote learning through authentic and engaging play'

http://www.theesa.com/games-improving-what-matters/education.asp

'Educators increasingly recognize the impact of entertainment software and utilize games as a teaching device in a growing number of classrooms and business settings.'

This site talks about how games will be part of the future in the world of education. Results have proven that young students learn far more when engaging in educational entertainment software than a regular class room setting.

'Dr. James Paul Gee concluded that video games intermix instruction and demonstration, a more effective learning technique than the style currently found in most classrooms.'

http://www.lumosity.com/landing_pages/188?gclid=CLa1xNiKz7YCFYXMtAodKFsAPQ

This site provides a series of selected exercises to help keep your mind functioning at its maximum capacity. The site gives you a series of options in what areas of your brain you would like to exercise, such as reaction time, decision making, mental arithmetic and multi-tasking skills. It then asks for your email address to send you an exercise program personalised to how you want it.

Games like this are ideal examples of where educational gaming can go. 
'Brain Training' for the 'Nintendo DS' is another similar example to this site. 'Brain Training'  gives players of all ages a series of exercises, similar to the website above, but in the form of a portable video game. Players are able to plug in and play where ever they want. 

http://www.computerandvideogames.com/141413/reviews/dr-kawashimas-brain-training-how-old-is-your-brain-review/

'In fact, that's probably the game's greatest strength - presenting you with tangible goals to reach in terms of self-improvement and giving you enough incentive, through new unlockable games and features, to keep at it.'

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Oo_Pum6a6ko

'Brain Training' was commercialised on a massive scale, including all kinds of celebrities, engaging in the game, making it the ideal promotional campaign. The link above is an example of one of the many adverts that were broadcasted. This particular one is starring Ant and Dec, competing with some taxi drivers in a local networked (see BA5 Blog '2000 word essay') 'Brain Training'  competition. The advert ends by requesting people to visit 'Nintendo's' website, to view more information and find out who won the competition. Such marketing strategies like this is a good way to get people engaged in the game, as they feel that they are a celebrity too if they play 'Brain Training' . Like Judi Dench, Nicole Kidman, Ant, Dec and Steven Fry.

I have made a start on my first draft of my essay. I will be talking about how educational games could become a sustainable tool to teach people over teachers.

I have split my essay up into a series of questions I intend to answer, giving evidence of my findings and giving quotations from articles, which talk about the pros and cons of educational games.

http://wiki.answers.com/Q/Who_invented_the_first_educational_video_game

In 1986, a developer named Johnny Durango made a game called Jumpstart, was the first educational video game.
The only gameplay video I could find for this game was this short youtube video. However, there was another Jumpstart game released in 1994, called Jumpstart kindergarten.

Unfortunately, I couldn't find anymore information on Johnny Durango, but I have some screenshots and gameplay video links of his Jumpstart games.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZHt8hZv6U7E

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XWI2s-2NeAw

Jumpstart kindergarten, introduces the player to a virtual classroom, in which they can engage in all sorts of activities and interact with everything in the classroom. Each item the player can see opens up additional information for them to expand their knowledge. for example. If the player moves the mouse cursor over the alphabet wallpaper a song is activated, singing the alphabet song. This is a great way for children to engage in learning theie ABC, as use of effective music is key to teach children at a young age, as the song creates a rhythmatic background melody. The child then remembers the melody and is able to sing their ABC's in co-ordination with the melody.

Another effective way of learning in this game is matching pictures, which represent key words in a sentence. The teacher gives you a sentence and the player has to select the images displayed, which best match the key words in the sentence to create a mental picture of what the words represent. For example; 'Mum tickles a hairy dog in a tree'. The player then selects a picture of a mother, a feather, a man with a hairy beard, a dog and a tree.

A third example is an activity to learn about numbers. In front of the player is a grid, filled with different numbers of items, such as flowers, teddy bears and pencils. the teacher gives you a number, and you have to select the square that fits the matching number of objects to the number given.

http://massively.joystiq.com/2013/03/26/pax-east-2013-steve-swink-says-video-games-can-save-education/


Release dates for games mentioned in essay:

http://uk.gamespot.com/uncharted-drakes-fortune/ - Uncharted: Drakes fortune
http://uk.gamespot.com/tomb-raider/ - Tomb Raider
http://www.jumpstart.com/ - Jumpstart
http://uk.gamespot.com/portal/ - Portal

I have been frantically searching the web for information on 1986's Jumpstart game, but the only information I could find on it was on Wiki. Sadly it is not recommended to mention Wiki links and references in my essay so I am unable to provide anymore proof than Wiki in my essay.

I found this really interesting essay written about education in games. It is written by Simon Egenfeld T Nelson 

http://egenfeldt.eu/papers/third_generation_JEM_egenfeldt-nielsen.pdf

The link above shows a PDF of the essay

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0_UTgoPUTLQ

TED talk by John Hunter in 2011, about a world peace game he set ups in his classroom to allow 4th grade students to gain personal awareness of the state the world is in today. He leaves them the task to fix the crisis  set up before them on the board.

Hunters aim for this game was to let the children take control of the classroom and solve world issues in their way. He was present in the classroom simply as an advisor.

This plays vital relevance to my essay because I believe that when playing an educational video game, the games setting should be something unique, replacing the boring setting of the classroom. This is so the child feels that they have a sense of freedom, not being surrounded by a school themed environment.

John Hunter however proved that the important thing is the activity the child is partaking in, and not the setting. The World Peace Game was setup in Hunters classroom. Even though this was the case, the children still managed to engage and enjoy taking part in the activity, fully unaware that they were in school and learning at the same time.

I went to a feedback session with a draft of my essay. I was able to pick up some really interesting points in what to include. Sophie also had a read through of my essay and gave me some articles, books and links to check out.

I looked into a number of TED talks relevant to my essay.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iG9CE55wbtY

Sir Ken Robinson does a TED talk back in 2006, about how schools aren't flexible in the learning system to please every child's future aspirations. He talks about how subjects such as art, dance and drama aren't highly known subjects compared to maths and English language. His theory is that public schools simply prepare students to be university professors, and nothing else. Anything aside from becoming a professor after education would have to learn it in their own time.