Video modeling Pt2

It's been a while since the last time I posted last, work has been busy. Anyway I found a bunch of articles that I will post at the bottom which are a very interesting read.

So, back to Interactive Video Modeling (IVM).

Social Simulators. A good social simulator puts the user in a environment where they can experiment with social interactions with no real consequence to real life. This doesn't have to simple physical actions either, it can extend to organizing a group of people, leading them. Forming trust and being friendly. All of these are skills that are used every day and there are a few games that do teach these. Eve online and World of Warcraft are each good examples. Even though online games such as these are demonized, in moderation they allow the users to experience many different social interactions in an artificial environment.

In moderation, these environments can be excellent place to practice social interaction. However, these products carry with them the stigma of being a game. So for there to be a successful social interaction program for IVM it needs to be his own entity. Disguising it as something else, such as a industry and trade simulator. Building something that one person could not do alone.

Settlers of Kattan is an excellent example. Each player must construct their civilization via four resources. No single player will have access to all four resources. They must work together by trading resources to build their own towns. It is a game about communication without being directly about communication. It is a byproduct of the mechanics. A industry and trade “game” would do just that. The objective would be to build something but users would have work together to achieve this. By using communication and learning social skills via practice they can experiment and learn how to act in a safe environment.

True video modeling cannot be achieved otherwise. It is that teamwork component that will teach the user how to act in the real world. The consequences of their actions will be kept only to the environment so that they may learn what the consequences are before going out into the real world.

So in the end, interactive video modeling is putting the user in an environment to practice social interactions so that they observe themselves through their own actions.

UW students adapt gaming hardware for robotic surgery.

http://dailyuw.com/2011/1/18/uw-students-adapt-gaming-hardware-robotic-surgery/

How video games can make you smarter

http://articles.cnn.com/2011-01-31/tech/video.games.smarter.steinberg_1_video-games-interactive-simulations-digital-world?_s=PM:TECH

More to come.

Video modeling Pt1

Ok so firstly, yeah I know this isn't Friday, I had better things to do then, that and I was working late. So anyway, I found this article the other day (on Friday I think) http://www.drdouglas.org/drdpdfs/SGAW2010.pdf .

Basically it talks about how TV and video games are the cause of a reduction in attention span. First of all, that statement in general is bad. TV and video games are a medium, they themselves cannot be responsible for anything. Its like saying that all films have artistic merit. I dare you to try and find any in a pornographic film. Second, why is the reduction in an attention span a bad thing? We have email now, no one needs to wait a day to hear from a relative in the country over, so with all these technical advances is it really any wonder that people expect things faster, that they want to always stay in motion? No that doesn't seam bad at all, but its different.

Moving on.

Interactive Video Modeling. First, video modeling is the act of watching a video of someone performing an action so that the viewer will learn said action. Usually the viewer has to watch the tape several times before they get it. That's where he interactive part of it comes in. Right now, video modeling is in its infant stages and interactive video modeling is almost unheard of.

But why interactive? Interactive media have the unique ability that no other media has, which is to put the user in a role. Video on books let us watch but not act. Interactivity lets you stand in someone else's shoes and take control. It forces the user to look at themselves and what they are doing and to learn something from that experience. Artistically and eduction wise this has great potential.

So back to video modeling. Imagine a student watching a video on how to behave when on a play date. No imagine they were given a tool on the iPad to interact instead of watch, to participate in this make believe play date. Would they not learn more on how to act when they are actively engaged? It would allow them to make mistakes and learn from those mistakes without having any negative consequences on the real world. People are always saying that kids are mimicking what they do in video games, that they are “Murder simulators”, so why hasn't there been a social simulator?

I'll finish talking about this next weekend.

Tangential Learning

So, tangential learning. Tangential Learning is is process in which a individual will self educate themselves on a topic they enjoy, often times without really knowing it. I found out about Tangential Learning rather ironically. I heard it being mentioned in a weekly video blog I really enjoy (Extra Credits) and I searched the internet for more information about it. Thus I learned about tangential learning through tangential learning. (Somewhere there is an English teacher cringing)

One example of this type of learning is the movie 300. In it's own right it is in no way educational, but after people watched the movie how many were interested enough that they looked up who the real 300 were? Even if it was a very small percentage of the population that's still thousands of people who now know about an important part of history that was never taught in school.

So why isn't it used more? Well from what I've found it is very hard method to implement because it relies on the individual being interested on the subject. We're not all the same so we aren't always going to enjoy the same stuff. It is also very difficult to fit into a ridged curriculum since it is free form in nature. If you try and guide it then it turns into a research project. A normal research project in a class is strait forward, “learn about X”. Where Tangential Learning doesn’t push the individual in any particular direction. Instead one individual may learn something completely different then another.

A good example of this is that a few days ago a started to look up a substitute for chocolate since my older sister has decided that she can't eat it (among other things.). What I found was the carob seed, a middle eastern plant that tastes like chocolate but doesn’t have the caffeine or theobromine that chocolate does. I have no idea if she can have carob still but one thing I did learn is that back in late Roman times the solid gold coin known as the solidus weighed 24 carob seeds (4.5 grams) and as a result it became a measure of purity of gold. Translating now into 24 carat gold. So through looking for a chocolate substitute I learned why gold is weighed in carats, even though it was not my original research goal.

So how could we use this in a class room? Well first I think it would work best in an English class. I would have the students write a 10 page essay on one topic the choose and everything the learn about that topic. The reason why a chose an English class is that is allows for the marking of the paper in a traditional form while leaving the students to learn something not in the curriculum. The essay should be long and not a short one this assignment is not designed for the student to research a topic, but what they learned about a topic. I would not write an essay on the carob plant but what I learned about it. That it spawned a unit of measurement, that it can be used instead of chocolate, that it is not toxic to animals and why. (Yes I did mention that above, just not with those words)

The other way to use tangential learning is to plant a name or a symbol in a movie, book or game. Such as in a movie if one character has a sword named Excalibur (we all know that one) and the other has a sword named Dojigiri Yasutsuna, logic would dictate that the other sword has some real world presence as well. The viewer might then go look this up and learn something they didn't know before. It's very difficult to do this without being too blunt and heavy handed but with a little practice this is a learning method that can be greater utilized in and out of the classroom to great effect.

That's all for now, I'll get to interactive video modeling next week.

And now for a question,which are the additive primary colors and which are the subtractive primary colors? (Look this one up)

Hello World!

Hi, so this is my first post of my first blog. Does this deserve some special achievement? well, not really. But, here goes...

So I started this blog due to my interest in Technology within eduction, or more specifically my interest in the use of games, or interactive media (which seams to be a better branding), in eduction. This interest started mainly when I was working for Dr. Gail Krivel-Zacks in her class of exceptional needs students. We had put together a very rough video modeling exercise that would span a day, and later a week, using garage band and premiere. We did this in an effort to bring out team work skills in the kids and so that they may watch themselves in these team work exercises. They would be able to see what they did right and wrong.

This exercise had a great success with the students, both in terms of it being fun and the social behavior improvements they exhibited. I had heard before that video modeling has been successful with children on the ASD, but what I noticed is that the videos they used were uninteractive. Children found them boring and out dated. They worked, but barely. They would watch the video over and over until they did what the video told them to do.

This is where, I think, interactive media can do a great amount of good. Instead of having children watch something for hours, why not put them in the situations they are having trouble with in a secure environment. This environment doesn't really have to even be digital, but it should be interactive. By putting them in the situation it forces them to participate instead of watching. They get to look at themselves and what they are doing. From this they learn the why, and the consequences that could proceed a response of a situation.

I remember in math class, especially Grade 11 math, there was always a question of “why?”. Where is the context? Why do I need to know this? That is what I believe interactive media can do for education, give context to what children are being taught and what they are learning. It has the ability to put students in a scenario that mimics real life in which math (or another subject area) is used. And hopefully, if done right kids will have more opportunity to learn in school instead of regurgitating answers for a test.

I've started work on a project in this area,creating a software that will put kids in scenarios for them to learn what is right and socially acceptable. I won't say much else on the software as its in it's early stages but it is something I believe can be extremely useful.

And this is where I will bring this note to its circle. I started this blog as a way of sharing my ideas and thoughts on today’s education and the technology that can help it. Some of my projects will end up on here but only the public parts. But until next Friday... I encourage you to go learn something, and not by reading a textbook. If you need a start... what does the title of this post mean?

Next week, Tangential Learning and, if I have time, Interactive Video Modeling.