My Twisted Brain

Well, it’s over. I’ve seen the light at the end of the tunnel, gotten to within walking distance (thanks, dad, for that one!), seen the cows come home, and put the horses to bed. My M.A. (in Education with a specialization in Instructional Technology, for those who care) is not only within my grasp, it’s IN MY HOT LITTLE HAND!

What a ride. It started two and a half years ago where I learned how to say “Hello” in Korean, and it ended up with me creating an online learning site for learners of the Thai language. Not related to my accomplishment, you say? I say NAY! They are tightly connected.  Let me share my thoughts.

Language is often a barrier to learning, especially in higher education.  My wife, who is an English language learner, is currently pursuing a degree at a Bay Area college, and must demonstrate English proficiency before proceeding on to courses related to her major.  She understands why, since a language barrier may not only affect her learning, but may affect the ability of her classmates to learn as well, as the instructor is forced to spend more time with her.  Understandable, but frustrating and time consuming.  Her need to learn English before starting to take even her basic general requirement classes will delay her graduation by two to three years.

Now, consider services like Google’s Translate.  Copy any text block into the input box, select languages to translate from and to, and BANG, เสียงดัง, חֲבָטָה, 강, you have a fairly accurate translation.  What’s to stop these types of tools from being built into Learning Management Systems (LMS)?  Set the student’s and instructors languages in the LMS learner interface, and suddenly there is two-way synchronous or asynchronous communication between the two, even though neither speaks the other’s language.

There are, no doubt, many difficulties to overcome before something like what I’ve hinted at above can come to be.  However, need it really be that far away?  It seems to me that the pieces are there.  They just need to be assembled in a viable system.  I’m certainly not the one with the skills to do so, at least not yet, but I can’t help but see the huge opportunity that we have to provide inter-lingual, cross-cultural online learning.  From the standpoint of educating those who are educationally challenged, I see the potential as world-changing.

Perhaps my next degree will be taught by someone in Africa who speaks only Swahili…any programmers out there up to the challenge?

I finally got my invitation to join up with Google Voice a couple of weeks ago. For those of you who aren’t aware, Google is now a phone company (well, almost). Essentially, they provide you with a phone number that you can configure to ring any number of telephones when someone calls that number. It also includes voicemail, cheap long distance (including international), and a ton of other bells and whistles. It’s some of these bells and whistles that got me thinking about Web 3.0.

Those of you (all 1 of you…on a good day) that keep an eye on this blog may have noticed a new addition recently. If you look down below the blog roll on the right sidebar, you’ll notice a new “Call Me” widget.

Clicking it gives you a place to enter your phone number and name. When you click “Connect”, Google calls you, then calls me and announces your name, and connects the two of us together. You just called me from my blog! It will ring me on my cellphone, home phone, work phone, and whatever phones I choose to configure Google Voice with. It’s cool, and scary, and very Web 3.0 (I think).

Another feature is the voicemail transcription. When you call my Google Voice number and I don’t answer, Google Voice takes your voice message just as most phone accounts would. However, after you hang up a little magic happens. Google Voice transcribes your message into an email that it sends to my gmail account (or any other account or accounts that I specify) and sends an SMS message to my cellphone, with the text of the voice mail. I can read what you just told me in your voice mail. Very cool, and again, very Web 3.0.

As our voice and text worlds become increasingly intertwined, there are increasing opportunities, I think, for connectivist style education and collaborative experiences. We can connect with our fellow learners however we want to, and they can receive our messages however they want to. We will no longer have to leave a voicemail message because we know that Ludwig doesn’t check email very often. We’ll be able to email him a voice message that he gets as a voicemail on his phone! We will no longer have to email someone who refuses to get a cellphone, but has access to email at their neighborhood WiFi hotspot (I know someone like this, don’t laugh). We’ll be able to send their Google Voice account a voice mail, and they’ll read it within 5 minutes. The lines are blurring day by day, and the ID crowd needs to step up and take advantage of the new “mashups”.

This week’s class (April 30th…a bit late on this post) dealt loosely with interface design, but used more real-world examples to illustrate the importance of design in making things understandable and usable. It was based on a chapter in the book “The Design of Everyday Things” by Donald A. Norman. As the title suggests, the book studies the design of items that we use every day, such as coffee pots, toasters, and doors. In fact, one of Norman’s illustrations is a set of doors that he once became trapped in, due primarily to design that did not afford obvious clues to its operation. They were beautiful doors, but looking at them did not tell you the things that you need to know about doors, such as which way they swing. Most doors have things like doorknobs and hinges that tell you, “Push here, and the door will swing this way.” Norman’s doors had no such clues, which led him to push on the “hinge” side fruitlessly, leaving him trapped. The message here was that you can design the most beautiful of devices, but if you can’t figure out how to use them, how much good are they really?

I shared an example in class of the ticket dispensers used in the parking garage at San Francisco State University. They have little screens, and buttons, and slots covered by plastic doors, but unless you stop and read the (tiny) text on small placards in a darkened garage, there really are very few clues as to how they work. The other day, I stood behind a woman trying to figure it out, and finally had to assist her in feeding her $5 bill into the machine, and pushing the right button (the green one) to get her ticket. Pushing the wrong one would have gotten her a receipt for a refund of her $5 that she would have had to bring back the next day to get her cash, and she still would not have had her valid parking ticket. The controls to these boxes are very compact and clean, but almost impossible to figure out easily (and without losing your money!).

Kim mentioned three fundamental topics of designing functional and pleasing objects:

• Information - How well does the object communicate its operation to you?
• Functionality - How well does the object do what it’s supposed to do?
• Aesthetics - How inviting is the object to use?

These are all important considerations in design, but it’s important to keep in mind that an aesthetically pleasing item that does not communicate its function, or worse is not very functional at all, is fundamentally useless. Norman uses the term “affordance” to indicate how well an object communicates its use. A coffee cup that has a cylindrical cavity and a handle on one side that is the size and shape of your fingers indicates through its design what its function is. An example that Norman uses is a pair of scissors. Looking it the design of the holes on the handle end tell you something about how to hold it so that you can cut paper (or whatever you want to cut). A pair of scissors without holes might confuse the user, and would not do a good job of telling them what they’re for, although they may cut paper just fine.

Designs are also culturally linked.  You have your “Schema” based on your culture.  Some function of design may not be apparent in a different culture. Kim used an example of “chocolate” lipstick. She had taken some lipstick that had been given to her to Africa on one of her many trips. Some of the lipstick was a shade of brown that was very similar to a small, round bar of chocolate. After she handed them out to people who had never seen lipstick before, she turned around and, to her horror I’m sure, saw some of the people taking bites out of the lipstick…they thought it was some new, cool, “twist to feed” chocolate bar!

Instructional design, especially in distance learning using Web 2.0 tools, will rely more and more on good design to help learners figure out how to learn. Tools such as blogs, wikis, and Learning Management Systems (LMSs) will need to be designed with affordances in mind. There won’t always be an instructor there to explain the ins and outs of using learning tools. Designing a killer training program using Web 2.0 technology that your learners can’t figure out won’t teach anyone anything except how to be frustrated. Good design goes beyond making something compelling and beautiful. If a thing is to be useful, it’s got to be usable.

What is ITEC? Click “PLAY” below to find out!

Last week, Rod Dunican spoke to our class about training project management.  I’ve had some formal and some informal training in Project Management, and what Rod had to say was spot on with what my experience has been.  I’ve seen many learning projects derailed due to scope creep, lack of communication with stakeholders, and unreasonable deadlines among other things.  These are all issues that proper Project Management can easily counter.

One thing that piqued my interest was Rod’s discussion about all jobs being project-based.  It’s true for the most part.  There are very few positions above entry-level jobs that are simply do-this-thing-over-and-over-rinse-repeat.  Even many entry level positions are now much more project-based than they used to be.  My wife works in aircraft ground maintenance while going to school.  Essentially, she get the aircraft ready to fly again after arrival.  Each aircraft is a new project for her.  She must communicate with the stakeholders (her scheduler, supervisor, and airline representatives), schedule out the work (cleaning, restocking, reporting completion), etc.  The position requires the same skills as, say, a meeting planner (although relative importance of those skills may vary).  A project manager, according to Rod, is both the grease and the glue.  They are responsible for lubricating the mechanism to keep things smooth, while simultaneously holding it all together.  They’re also the ringleader, keeping everyone jumping through the right hoops at the right times.

This is important to keep in mind in all positions, but is extremely important when designing training programs. A training program is often under several guns at once, being subject to cost constraints (”Training shouldn’t cost much.  After all, we’ve already written the manual, right?” - Typical corporate manager), time constraints (”We need this training ready for this Friday’s product release.  That shouldn’t be a problem should it?  That gives you three whole days!”), and quality constraints (”We need everyone to be able to operate the entire suite of software immediately.”).   It takes exquisite project management skills to pull these off, including explaining to stakeholders why they can’t have all three sides of the triangle in one shot.

Communication - The Key

Communication, I think, is the key to successful project management.  Without it, the most detailed planning falls on its face.  If the Project Manager cannot communicate schedules, priorities, and other important elements of a project to the project participants, no amount of planning will keep things on track.  In my opinion, based on quite a bit of experience, communication is the choke point of a successful project.

One thing that Rod commented on was that his experience with certified PMs is that they come in with their ideas about how things should be and are not fluid and flexible.  In order to be effective at communicating, flexibility is absolutely necessary.  Not all people communicate in the same way.  Flexibility allows a good project manager to communicate with all of the stakeholders in ways that are meaningful to them.  Training development teams may consist of Instructional Designers, Subject Matter Experts (SMEs), Web designers, the clients themselves, and others, all of whom have different communication styles and may have different goals and objectives.

Finally, keep in mind that communication is more than just talking and listening.  It includes writing style, how things are documented (communicating over a temporal barrier), even body language.  If you’ve got your system of managing a project going, but no one else can understand your system, your project is in jeopardy if you’re out for a day or a week.  Use the conventions as appropriate.  It’ll save your butt when someone else has to take over your job!  Regarding body language, you’re more likely to gain cooperation of other project participants if you project a cooperative, collaborative image yourself!  Spare the rod!  Don’t come off as a dictator.  Use your communication skills to gain a collaborative relationship with your participants.

Thanks Rod, for coming and sharing your perspectives on project management with the class.  It’s something that I think gets forgotten in many learning environments, and is something that we all as IDs should keep in mind!

Okay, another project is in my future. Not the “biggie” mind you, but important none-the-less. I need to produce a learning project with Web 2.0 written all over it, and I think that I know what I’m going to do.

My 894 project is slated to be a collaborative learning environment for language learning (for readers who don’t understand the SFSUspeak that is ITEC894, it’s the capstone creative work project that, assuming it passes muster, will usher me into the world of the Masters). My focus will be the Thai language, but it should be adaptable to other languages as well.

Sooooooooo…

I’m thinking about making a supplemental website, based on a Wiki, that will allow learners to collaborate on learning the Thai written language.  I’m still fleshing out the design, but I’m leaning toward a Wiki design because it lends itself quite well to collatorative text learning, and seems like a natural for allowing a large, diverse group to learn a written language together.  It would also allow native speakers (I know a few in Thailand and in the U.S.) to chime in with their input as well.

This would again be a supplemental site to the core learning materials, since a Wiki is not really a full, rich learning tool.  However, given the nature of language, in many cases dynamic, and in all cases unbelievably rich and complex, I think that a dynamic environment like a Wiki would work well for this.  As complicated as the Thai written language is, there will be plenty for contributors to write, and re-write, about!

Comments?  Anyone have any ideas to punch this up a bit?

A while ago I finished up a book that was…*ahem*…”recommended” by my ITEC 830 professor. It was a recommendation in the same way that Don Corleone “recommends” that you “hire” his “security team.” Well, there was no violence involved, except for the violence that would be visited upon my class grade’s head. In any case, in going through this required reading, a remarkable thing happened…I enjoyed it! Really enjoyed it. It’s a great read, and the topic is near to my heart, if in a somewhat obscure way.

Daniel Pink's, "A Whole New Mind"

The book’s title is “A Whole New Mind”, penned by Daniel H. Pink. The premise of the book is that, for the past 40 or 50 years, the Western world (North America and Western Europe mostly) has been stuck in a Left Brain frame of mind. We’ve been obsessed with logic, with numbers and facts, with analysis and details. He posits that what we as a society and individuals need to do is begin to use both halves of our brains. Left-brain thinking, or as he puts it, “L-Directed Thinking”, worked great for us when we were an information society. It was great for programming computers and doing spreadsheets. But, as those types of jobs get shipped off to India and the Philipines and Russia, we need to start using “R-Directed Thinking”. Our position is no longer that of information processing. We are shuffling that offshore. We need to start thinking in a more holistic framework. Our role is now that of the inventor…of the dreamer…of the designer. According to Pink, this change from L-Directed to both L- and R-Directed thinking in the developed world,

“…will dramatically reshape our lives. Left-brain-style thinking used to be the driver and right-brain-style thinking the passenger. Now, R-Directed Thinking is suddenly grabbing the wheel, stepping on the gas, and determining where we’re going and how we’ll get there…R-Directed aptitudes so often disdained and dismissed - artistry, empathy, taking the long view, pursuing the transcendent - will increasingly determine who soars and who stumbles.”

For those of us in a creative industry, such as Instructional Design, this is great news! We’ve been exercising our R-brain for years (at least those who have been working at it for years). If Pink is right, we’ll be at the forefront of the next “Industrial Revolution”, leading the charge into the world of R-Directed Thinking. He calls this the Conceptual Age, and says that the Information Age is moving out, so we’d better prepare for change.

Why the Change?

According to Pink us “developed” folks are facing a triple threat to our old, Left-brained careers. He discusses them in some detail, but I’ll just touch on them here.

Abundance

Western society, especially here in the U.S., is hip deep in…everything! Abundance has changed our way of thinking from basic survival needs such as food, to more abstract thoughts such as perfecting the art of cooking. We would rather throw away a perfectly good meal that wasn’t cooked “just so”, than eat it because we don’t know where our next bite is coming from. This extends to all aspects of our lives as well. How many cellphones have you received for free (or purchased) in the past 5 years just because you could? Did you replace them because they broke, or because it didn’t go with your new Beemer? One of my favorite lines in this book goes:

“As business writer Polly LaBarre notes, ‘The United States spends more on trash bags than ninety other countries spend on everything. In other words, the receptacles of our waste cost more than all of the goods consumed by nearly half of the world’s nations.’”

Asia

Many Asian countries are now taking over the Left-Brained jobs that used to be the “where to be” jobs here. It’s much cheaper to export something like software development to India or Singapore than it is to keep it in Silicon Valley. This type of work often doesn’t require the same level of creativity that it takes to come up with the concept of a software project in the first place. Educational opportunities in developing countries are now such that it is quite easy to find talent offshore that can handle the tasks that used to be reserved for American code-heads. The jobs are moving where the vacuum is.

Automation

Pink uses the time-honored fable of John Henry to illustrate a point about automation. There may be those who will fight hard to prove that they can do things better than the machines (computers now), but in the end they’ll be pushed aside in favor of things that don’t tire, don’t get sick (other than burned-out power supplies), and most of all don’t require hundreds of thousands of dollars in compensation for their time.

The Questions of Survival

Pink suggests that we ask ourselves 3 questions when looking at the survivability of our chosen profession in North America:

1. Can someone overseas do it cheaper?
2. Can a computer do it faster?
3. Is what I’m offering in demand in an age of abundance?

If the answer to any of these questions is “yes”, start thinking about a career change. Of course as an alternative you could always start packing your bags and looking for a house on the other side of the world.

The Six R-Aptitudes

After putting us all in fear of our livelihoods, Pink spends the remainder of the book covering what he calls the Six Senses, or R-Directed Aptitudes. They include:

Design: Things should be created to be engaging and beautiful, not just functional (but they should be designed to be functional! More about that in a later post). These are right brain things.

Story: Regurgitating data and facts alone will not make a compelling and effective argument. Data and facts need to be surrounded by compelling narrative to be persuasive. Story puts facts into perspective, giving the listener a holistic view of what you are trying to communicate. Right brain, anyone?

Symphony: As Pink notes, symphony is, “Putting the pieces together.” The right brain can synthesize facts and figures (things that the left brain thrives on) into a whole that is greater than the sum of its parts. This is where the new Western economy needs to focus. The analysis is moving overseas.

Empathy: Information by itself is wonderful computer fodder. It’s great for analysis. But, what does it mean to a human? Empathy allows a skilled R-Directed individual to take into account how others will perceive that information. Rather than just pouring information into someone’s brain, empathy gives clues about what the proper recipe will be to make the information palatable. It requires understanding how other people think and feel through relationship building.

Play: Pink uses a wonderful example of Dr. Madan Kataria, an Indian physician, to illustrate the value of play. Dr. Kataria started “laughter clubs” to spread the “benevolent virus” of laughter. He believes that laughter can help solve many of today’s ills, both in health and in world events. Play, according to Pink, is essential to expanding our right brain’s aptitudes and bring them into our everyday lives, both at work and away from work. One of my favorite quotes from his book (itself a quote) is, “The opposite of play isn’t work, it’s depression.” - Dr. Brian Sutton-Smith, University of Pennsylvania.

Meaning: In a society where our basic needs, food, shelter, companionship, etc., are generally taken for granted, we start to focus on more abstract needs. Bringing meaning and understanding to the world around us is one of them. The right brain is the one that takes details and formulates overall meaning. This will be the role of a society that no longer focuses on analyzing the details. R-Directed individuals will have the advantage.

Where We’re Going (in the “developed world”)

Pink asserts that these six senses will increasingly direct society in developed countries. What he calls high-concept, the ability to take details, facts, and data and synthesize a larger picture that includes beauty and creative, artistic design, and high-touch, the ability to use empathy and bring understanding to those details, will drive our future. We will no longer thrive on analysis and logic. Those who adapt to this new way of thinking and can activate their right brain will have the advantage.

I agree with him, and it fits my own selfish goals. To be able to take an incomprehensible mush of data and turn it into something beautiful, artistic, and above all understandable is my goal as an instructional designer. I believe that I’ve chosen a golden path, and my future will be, pardon the pun, “in the Pink”.

Last week some friends and I attended the Web 2.0 conference in the Moscone Convention Center in San Francisco. I must confess it was a bit smaller than I expected, but then it is a recession year. It also wasn’t the crazy madhouse that my last major convention experience, the Electronic Entertainment Expo (E3), was. But there was a lot to see, and there were plenty of hungry sales folks to take up your time.

One thing that struck me was the number of social networking startups populating the aisles. Many seemed like new labels on old pants…asking the staff of booth 28b about what differentiated their social networking package from others was met with a very eloquent and verbose spiel that boiled down to, “Ours is cooler!” Having had experience with a couple of social networking mashups (with flashy categorical names like “Social Business Software packages”) sch as S. F. Bay Area based SocialText, I see the value in packaged social networking suites, but how many ways can you put together a package that has “like-Twitter”, “like-Wordpress”, “like-Wiki”, and “like-Confluence” all rolled up? In short, much of this part of our visit was somewhat of a yawn.

There were a few points of interest for me though. nomee is a social networking aggregator that puts all of the your social networking tools such as Twitter, YouTube, Facebook, LinkedIn, etc. into one online “card”. It takes this one step further by organizing it into a push, similar to RSS, which lets your followers grab that card and follow all of your social online activity at one time. All they have to do is look at your nomee card, and they know all of your Facebook, Twitter, and YouTube posting activity at a glance. I like anything that simplifies the job of keeping track of everyone’s social network activity without having to me a member of every friggin’ networking site out there!

Something else that caught my eye was (not surprisingly) another aggregator. Kapow is a company that is starting to market what they call a Mashup Server. Essentially what the server does is to run an Internet “spider” that collects information from sites that you specify, strips out the formatting, and reformats the data into a configuration that you set up. I see something like this as very interesting from more than a Web 2.0 aspect. This could also be a very important development for Web 3.0; with the ability to format a pile of Internet information any way that you please, you can take all of your favorite sites, collate all of the information in “raw” form, and format it to fit your iPhone. In an instant, you have everything that you want to know at your fingertips anywhere that you can get a signal, presorted and organized just the way you want. Between this and nomee, I can keep track of everything that I want, everywhere in the world (just about)! Pretty neat stuff!

There was lots more to see. There were a few high-Wow-factor booths (the MicroSoft Surface booth was way cool!), and some very interesting non-profit booths such as the OER Commons booth. The Open Educational Resources organization is dedicated to bringing free, open source educational resources together under one virtual roof for easy access by educators. It’s a pretty cool place (check out http://www.iskme.org for more info on this). All in all, a very interesting afternoon. I’ll be going again next year!

Okay, here’s the promised textual explosion on video games in the classroom.  My apologies up front for the meandering, but hey, as I’ve noted before, it’s my blog.  Sue me.  But first, read on!

Last Thursday our class was entertained by Dr. Joseph Kahne of Mills College in Oakland, CA.  Dr. Kahne spoke about using video games to further civic involvement by our nation’s youth.

Wow, that sounds dry.  It is also a pale description of the presentation that Dr. Kahne gave.

Dr. Kahne’s presentation was a joy to behold.  He touched on topics ranging from the importance of schools involving their students in civic activities, to the ability of games to the relationship that video games have with learning, to the perception that video games have in current society. I’m kicking myself for not recording the presentation for my own use, just to remember the richness of the information that he delivered.  I’m hoping that at least he makes his PowerPoint presentation available to us.  It would be wonderful to have it to refresh my old memory!

While the figures that he quoted were compelling, what I found refreshing was his common sense approach to video games, and how the players may and may not be affected by playing them.  Of course, as those of you who have not been stuck in the 60s are probably aware, there’s a war on between those who feel that video games are evil incarnate and those who feel that video games are an annoying waste of time at worst, and a powerful tool of instruction and expression at best.  Dr. Kahne’s presentation took this topic head on, and gave some convincing arguments in favor of the latter of the two groups.

It’s time for a little disclosure at this point.  I happen to work for a very large marketer of video game systems and software.  I happen to believe that video games are not the evil that they have been made out to be, and that has been my feeling ever since Pong made its debut on my family’s television in the very early 1970s. With that out of the way, let’s do a little discussin’, shall we?

Why Not Educational Video Games?

So, perhaps due in part to the (so far unfounded) bias against video games, many educators seem to have come to the conclusion that video games have no place in the educational environment.  Dr. Kahne offered a very good argument in favor of video games in the educational world.  However, he also raised a very good point about the development of  “educational” video games…they just don’t get made.  The reason for this seems to be that none of the major game developers are interested in making anything other than games with swords, guns, basketballs, or similar.  They’re just not convinced that they’ll sell.

I think that perhaps the reason for this is that thus far those that know how to create good educational materials are clueless about how to make a game that’s fun to play, and therefore marketable.  Conversely, those who know how to make fun, engaging games know nothing about education and learning.  The answer of course is to get a group together that has a passion for both gameplay and education.  I don’t think that this “perfect storm” of “edutainment” is far from being realized.

All that you have to do is look at the generation of individuals that is now coming to the fore in the educational field.  Our young instructional designers and educators are part of the gaming culture.  They know what’s fun in the video game arena.  They “get it” when it comes to making video games engaging and fun.  Nearly all of them have played video games in their youth, and I will wager that most continue to play them as the move into adulthood.  I think that, once the big publishers can be convinced that educational games really can be financially rewarding, they’ll be scouring resumes for people who have both video game and educational experience.  There will be a snowball effect.  When EA releases a game that actually teaches something and makes money, the rest will be eager to jump on that bandwagon.

The Teacher Component

The other side of the educational video game coin is the education establishment itself.  As I wrote earlier, there just isn’t much support so far for video games in the classroom.  They’re viewed as a distraction at best, and a negative influence at worst.  In order for a video game to really be successful, there has to be a market.  In my opionion, educators are the key.  As an example, you can look at what the computer hardware manufacturers have done to promote their products…they give them to the schools.  Apple was on the forefront on this, giving Macs to graphic design schools, universities, and even grade schools.  As those students graduated and moved into the workforce, guess which brand of hardware they chose?

Now, imagine what would happen to the world of video games if teachers began to introduce them into schools as part of their curriculum.  Once the shock wore off, parents would begin to see the other side of video games (which many actually see now), given the stamp of approval by those who should “know about these things”.  In addition, the parents themselves will have grown up in the video game generation, and will most likely as a whole not harbor the same misconceptions and confusion about video games that we see so much of currently.  Video games will be okay, and publishers will begin to see that they can begin to market video games on their educational merit to a constituency that sees their potential value.

Video Games Cause Violent Behavior, Right?

Video games still have a bad rep, and this stigma is probably going to be the most difficult hurdle to overcome when moving into the educational realm.  There is no end to the number of armchair psychologists who swear that video games cause any number of societal ills.  It seems that not a week goes by when there isn’t some violent tragedy where video games get the blame.  Everything from childhood obesity to divorce rates cause the video game finger pointing to begin.  While in some cases there may be a connection, the issues where video games are the scapegoat are far too complex to pin on a single cause, especially when you consider that most of the issues aren’t new.  One comment that I read recently on a video game oriented website summed it up well…did Hitler play Counterstrike, the board game, as a child?  I doubt it.

At the point of the controversy, in my opinion, is the concept of causation versus correlation.  Many video game critics such as Jack Thompson and the (dubiously) Honorable Keith Vaz love to quote studies that they claim prove that violent video games cause violent behavior.  One of Thompson’s favorite terms is “causal link”.  However, there has yet to be a credible study that proves a causal link between video game (or other media) violence and violent behavior.  All credible studies that have linked violent behavior with violence in video games have done so in a correlative way.

Big deal right?  They’re linked either way.  Well, there is a big difference.  A causal link in one in which an event or action occurs as a direct result of another action; the initial action causes the resulting event to take place.  There is a causal link between swinging a hammer and a nail being driven into a piece of wood.

A correlative link, on the other hand, is a link between two events where there is no established cause between the two.  Usually, a correlative link between events exists when a third event (or set of events) causes both events to occur simultaneously, or at least within the same context.  If you have your television and a table lamp plugged into the same outlet, and that outlet is controlled by a wall switch, then someone who is simply observing when someone else turns on the switch will see the light turn on, and then see the television turn on a few seconds later after it warms up.  While someone could come to the conclusion that there is a causal link between the light glowing and the television coming on since every time they see the television turn on it is immediately preceded by the light turning on, the actual cause is someone else turning on the switch.  The television and lamp have a correlative relationship.  They both always come on at the same time, but there is something else causing both actions.

In the case of violent actions and violent video games, it is very likely that the same emotional or mental issues that drive an individual to commit unspeakable acts also drives them to play violent games.  There are uncounted numbers of people who play violent games every day who never experience the urge to go out and mow down a play yard full of children.  So far, studies have backed this position up.  Some have suggested a correlative relationship between the two, but the only studies that even hint at a causal link have been discredited due primarily to sloppy research.  The bottom line is that the argument that many politicians and overly ambitious lawyers have put forth condemning video games as the cause of all that is bad in our society is as full of holes as Solid Snake on a bad day at the office.

What About the Title?

Okay, so what does the title of this little diatribe mean?  It came about after a conversation that I had in the halls of SFSU with one of my classmates.  We were discussing the resistance that the educational community has to introducing educational video games into the classroom, and he hit on the idea of referring to them as “activities” rather than video games.  I thought that was genius, and wonder to this day why he isn’t making the big bucks working for Capcom as their director of marketing.  There’s a similar issue on the developer end too…calling a game “educational” is the kiss of death.  An “educational” game will never make it past the napkin that it’s first conceived on.

So, how about this…let’s call them “Socially Constructive Games(tm)” to the publishers, and “Hyper-engaging Electronically Enhanced Learning Activities(tm)” to the educators.  Maybe that’ll get the ball rolling!  Or not, but I’m out of ideas, energy, and time, so this ends here.  There’s a lot more to be said on the subject, and I invite you to flesh it out below!

EDIT (3/23/09):  Here’s an interesting opinion piece posted in The Harvard Crimson last week about appropriate reactions to teen violence. Via GamePolitics.com.

For those interested in exploring video games that offer a socially responsible message and activity, check out the Games for Change website and festival.

You might also want to check out the MacArthur Foundation Digital Media and Learning page. There’s one article in particular that may help address some questions about teh effects of video game violence that came up yesterday in Dr. Kahne’s presentation.

Stay tuned here for more on Dr. Kahne and video games in learning!