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dhex
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Joined: 13 Dec 2004
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Location: brooklyn, Nev Yiork
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 Posted: Tue Sep 05, 2006 2:27 pm Post subject: edutainment - or social edutainmentneering? |
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http://www.gamasutra.com/php-bin/news_index.php?story=10736
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Edinburgh University Developing Anti-Bully Title
A consortium of nine universities, led by Edinburgh's Heriot-Watt University, have announced the development of a new game that hopes to teach children how to counter and control real world bullying situations.
Standing curiously aside Rockstar's own upcoming tormenting title, the universities' game, created with input from both teachers and students, will look at various bullying scenarios and help children learn how various actions can create various subsequent outcomes between the bully and their victims.
Led by Heriot-Watt computer science professor Ruth Aylett, and supported by a research team of experts in computer science, education and sychology fields from the UK, Portugal, Italy and Germany, the group hopes to first test the software in early 2007 in the UK and Germany for children between the ages of 10 and 12.
In the university's release, Aylett said that she expected children to take away more from the interactive experience than what they might from a book, adding:
"If you’re a young person facing some sort of bullying on a regular basis the problem can seem too big, too overwhelming, to tackle. What we will be developing is a virtual world where the user can interface directly with a synthetic character who is also a bullying victim. That bullying scenario is played out on the screen then the user can interface with the synthetic character, discuss what has happened and make choices about how the character might like to react in future."
He continued: "They can then watch the next scenario and see what sort of impact that advice has in how things turn out. That way, instead of what feels like a huge problem in their own lives the decisions are broken down into bite-sized chunks affecting a virtual character." |
how does one judge the efficacy of edutainment? did we learn any trail skills from oregon trail? fuck, i still can't find oregon on the map.
call me cynical - or downright mean - but this sort of thing almost seems like a sick joke.
"here timmy, learn effective non-violent verbal solutions to your social power disorder from this video game."
edit: i should clarify that i don't take efforts like these very seriously in terms of the "social engineering" angle (which should be reserved for coercive actions, not lame shit like this) and besides, everyone is trying to socially engineer everyone else anyway, except the people with the good sense not to get involved in the first place. and even they, in their inaction, are contributing action, and so there is no blame, we are all guilty.
social edutainmentneering just makes me laugh, is all.
besides, efforts like these are more or less an attempt to find an immortality pill or a perpetual motion machine, so i wish them luck but hold not much breath.
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ryan
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Joined: 20 Feb 2005
Posts: 999
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| Posted: Tue Sep 05, 2006 3:04 pm Post subject: |
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I continue to regularly hunt buffalo, but now I can make the meat last longer and I don't lose my items while crossing rivers.
As young Timmy spits out a small amount of blood from his mouth and brushes off his clothing, his only thought is, "That game was wrong."
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Lockeownzj00
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Joined: 16 Aug 2005
Posts: 214
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| Posted: Tue Sep 05, 2006 5:39 pm Post subject: |
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Is this going to be Golden Sun with a face lift?
"C'mon, Tmmy, fight me!
-Yes *click*"
-No
"Fight me!
-Yes *click*"
-No
"Fight me!
-Yes
-No .......*click*"
"Good job, Timmy! You avoided conflict!"
I can only seeing any real lesson being derived from some kind of indirect method, through story--the children admiring the main character who is somehow a pacifist, or some shit. |
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Lackey
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Joined: 11 Jul 2005
Posts: 1107
Location: Canada
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| Posted: Tue Sep 05, 2006 6:19 pm Post subject: |
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I'm noticing a pattern where words like "synthetic" and "virtual" are used pretty frequently outside the game-aware segment of the population but not within.
| Quote: | | I can only seeing any real lesson being derived from some kind of indirect method, through story--the children admiring the main character who is somehow a pacifist, or some shit. |
| Quote: | | What we will be developing is a virtual world where the user can interface directly with a synthetic character who is also a bullying victim. That bullying scenario is played out on the screen then the user can interface with the synthetic character, discuss what has happened and make choices about how the character might like to react in future. |
This sounds like it's going to be some kind of second person thing.
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Scratchmonkey
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Joined: 02 Mar 2005
Posts: 1439
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| Posted: Wed Sep 06, 2006 1:10 am Post subject: |
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One thing that's mentioned off-handedly in this article and that has seemingly gone un-noticed by everybody short of the Jack Thompsons of the world, is that Rockstar's Bully game is played from the perspective of the bullied, which was a fun little switcheroo.
10 bucks says that their preferred method of conflict resolution is not passive resistance. |
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Dracko
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Joined: 10 Oct 2005
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| Posted: Wed Sep 06, 2006 4:00 am Post subject: |
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Because that typically gets people nowhere.
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dhex
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Joined: 13 Dec 2004
Posts: 6319
Location: brooklyn, Nev Yiork
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| Posted: Wed Sep 06, 2006 8:27 am Post subject: |
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| Quote: | | One thing that's mentioned off-handedly in this article and that has seemingly gone un-noticed by everybody short of the Jack Thompsons of the world, is that Rockstar's Bully game is played from the perspective of the bullied, which was a fun little switcheroo. |
it's also why they're going to get so much shit for it. though i've heard through various grapevines that rockstar is backing off on a lot of content because they're worried about hillarity clinton looking over their shoulder. which is totally the wrong move, of course.
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OtakupunkX
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Joined: 23 Mar 2006
Posts: 730
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| Posted: Wed Sep 06, 2006 8:32 am Post subject: |
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| Edutainment games work. Without Mario Teaches Typing (and Typing of the Dead), I wouldn't be a good typerer, and years of silly Learning Company games taughted me to avoid words like "typerer" and "taughted". |
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