gamekits: game-making toolkits

‘The program forced the students to take stock of themselves as individuals with specific character traits in order to appreciate their strengths and acknowledge the control they have over their own personalities and thus goals and aspirations ‘ Tom Brunhuber, 5th grader p.s.88

by posing set of questions that forced students to explore their own identity within a community as well as in comparison to other cultures and eras, children developed series of sculpture, drawings, mixed media, sound tracks! and games!. Below are some pictures from the exhibition that is currently held at the Guggenheim Museum.

history game (chuttes and ladders / trivia game mechanics)

garbage music charachters

sculptures about community

Being Me Key Features

In the paragraphs below, outlines will be provided in relation to the Being Me economy and also for specific components within the system such the being me inventory, the studio and the expertise exchange.

Being Me Currency

The being me currency is called nom [placeholder for better name/ i.e. genius/genie/ ?]. Each student starts with a specific amount of noms in his/her account that he can use to ‘buy’ lab time in the game school, or help from a mentor in the expertise markets. Students can also unlock features in their avatar inventory or studio gallery. Students obtain noms by uploading content in their studio space, by visiting other studios and also by providing with feedback their peers and initiating collaborations in the expertise space. Finally, in-class competitions framed as missions could be run monthly. Those may be rewarded with noms distributed analogously to the students depending on their ranking. For example students in a game design class have build a game in a level editor. After designing their levels, students play them in class and fill in evaluations for their peers. Depending on these evaluations, each student gets an amount of num awarded at the end of the class by the teacher.

Being Me Inventory

In the beginning of the 6th grade, students sign up in Being Me and create an account. They start by customizing their avatar through a selection of features. When students first sign up for an account, they can only select from the apprentice features. These features are also divided in subcategories such as Writer, Scientist, Game Designer, Painter, Athlete but also Researcher, Project Leader ,Presenter. As children progress in the Being Me space they can create many avatars each one representing their learning identity at that point. These avatars are stored in the Being Me Inventory and can be selected to be displayed in the main avatar window depending on what the student is focusing within the curriculum in a given time.

So for example, on a students profile page, his Being me avatar could be Master Mathematician because today he is focusing on fulfilling quests that are related to Maths. Next to his profile picture is a status bar that provides (similar to Twitter or Facebook) the students current status. So for example: master mathematician Nick is: lol. Also the features in the avatar inventory are updated with new objects that could be unlocked with Nom Currency. Finally, teachers can also have a Being Me page.

Studio

The Studio is the Game Schools virtual world space. Here students can create rooms to display and store media and other digital materials developed during assessments within the curriculum. When students first log in their account a set of pre existing rooms can be found. These rooms are empty and represent different courses in the curriculum. So for example there is the Science Lab, were students post their physics or math related work. In addition to the above, students can create their own rooms. They can also modify their rooms by making use of Nom Currency.

The studio rooms can also host visitors. These are other students or teachers that post recommendations or give feedback to the projects that the student is working on. The information collected by the visitor’s input can also be chosen to be displayed publicly or be kept in private between the visitor and the host student.

Expertise exchange garden

In relevance to the above, the expertise exchange space can be thought as a big common area that connects each students in a studio space in order to promote collaboration and cross interaction. The space promotes the power of collaboration as well as the idea that as students possess both expertise and weaknesses. In that realm the following options appear in the exchange garden. Firstly there is a display of your skills as displayed in your Being Me Inventory. So for example those could be Master Mathematician, Master Character Designer, Senior Project Manager and Apprentice Inventor. Next to this option another one is displayed with Weird skills that can be added through text and don’t appear in the Being Me inventory. Those could be: basketball player or cook or book collector. Analogously to the above there is the Who do I need option. There students post what skills they need in their team or for their project. So for example a student could need computer assistance, or a master in game design. Additionally a What do my friends have appears and also groups of experts that a child can address for help. In relevance to the above a current teams space declares the pending and also fulfilled collaborations. Finally there is the buy expertise option were children can use Being Me Currency to get advice on a topic from mentors within the school. All the above options are displayed as trees that grow through collaboration in the expertise exchange garden.

Mochi Monsters is created by Mind Candy. Players start by adopting a monster. In completion of that, players are taken to their room. There they have access to their monsters profile, friends and puzzles. The monsters personality develops the more it is played with. Players can nurture their monster pet by solving daily mind puzzle games to earn Rox, the in-game currency. Also they can add their monster to their My Space, Facebook or Bebo space.

Dizzywood, previously known as Zoodaloo is a kid-friendly virtual world / MMO game. Created in flash 3D animation,it allows for players to  firstly customize their avatar. Upon entering the world, they are taken through a short tutorial on how to move and begin their experience by exploring and fulfilling quests. The space alike other mmo’s like Club Penguin, allows for children to chat, add new friends, play games (quests), earn coins, and travel in different parts of Dizzywood. Dizzywood is created and licensed by Rocket Paper Scissors, LLC.

Here are some avatar engines that could be used by students to create their being me avatar.

meez

Users create their own animated avatars and use them in customizable rooms within the meez comunity, play games or use them in social networks like Facebook. After creation, Meez can be exported for download in JPEG or GIF form for use in websites, social networking profiles, blog posts, and forum signatures. Meez can also be used alongside the games in the site, where the gameplay drives the emotions of the Meez.

zwinky

Users can create avatars that can represent them in any social network that supports zwinkies (i.e. my space, facebook etc). They are part of the MyWebSearchbar on computers running Windows. When users change the appearance of said Zwinkies, all sites in which that avatar is currently displayed will update accordingly. Zwinky is created by IAC Search and Media

neopets

Users can create their own Neopets, the virtual pets that inhabit the land of Neopia. Visitors can create an account and take care of up to four virtual pets, buying them food, toys, clothes, and other accessories using a virtual currency called Neopoints. Alike in Gaia Online, in Neopia neopoints can be earned through playing games, investing in the stock market, trading, winning contests and making your own shop. Users can explore the world of Neopia with their Neopets and interact with each other through the NeoBoards, NeoMail, and guilds. 

‘Facebook API enables outside web developers to inject new features and content into the Facebook environment. After signing up for a developer account on Facebook, the developer writes a web application (in the simplest case, a piece of web content; in the most advanced case, a full fledge web application with deep functionality) and hosts it on her own servers. The developer then registers her application with Facebook, and then users can add that application to their Facebook user experience in several different ways, including within their Facebook profile pages.’

Facebook API assumes that you have ccess to a web server running php5. Once you create your own app, you will using a different application name and a different server. We have highlighted these things that will be different for your application.

Also, on order to set up your application you have to use  FTML code, a facebook variation of the HTML.  Other than that the API uses a REST-like interface. This means that our Facebook method calls are made over the internet by sending HTTP GET or POST requests to the Facebook API REST server . Nearly any computer language can be used to communicate over HTTP with the REST server.

Facebook Developers

A step by step tutorial can be found here

Also many of these applications are open source, find more here (footprints)

Check the facebook devellopers wiki

finally play a cool Facebook API such as Scrabulous

01_Schoopy : http://www.schoopy.com/

Schoopy combines a social network structure with a class material organizer and a simple visual layout which makes it easy to use and understand!

Table 1

Messages | Calendar | Answers | Quizzes | Links | Pictures| Files |Pages

Table 2

My School | My community | My Family | My Friends

Table 3

What I have learned - this is an interesting part we could further develop as a

Profile | Preferences

02_The School Tool

This is an open source program already released in Europe and would be interesting to see how we could implement some of their tools as external applications in Being Me.

School Bell

School Tool

School Tool Calendars - for curriculum or to post events

03_Moodle

Moodle is an open source course management system that also allows for community interactions. I will soon post more around this one…

04_Engrade online

this is a grading online tool for teachers and parents to keep track of their students work!

06_Student center

there is too much inappropriate content in this social network that counts surprisingly many student users! Nevertheless, it raises some issues on how we can control content!

Forum content is divided in the following categories: student radio | scn headquarters | Advice and sexuality | Homework help |SCN chat | Science forum | lifestyle (health and fitness, mobile, science and technology, creative writing) |region forums

http://hubpages.com/hub/Education20

01_Pupil page :

(+) easy to use, following the basics of a website with a banner with categories : home|bio|resume| journal

and links to the student’s main curriculum domains.

(-) not so much space for creativity and interaction with other students. e.g. leave comments on the journal page as feedback etc.

05_Osp

The Open Source Portfolio Initiative (OSPI) is a collaborative, open-source, software development project based on the University of Minnesota Enterprise System’s electronic portfolio software. It is part of the Sakai project (see below) Like a web-based file system, users can upload files of any type, organize them in folders, and then reference them in presentations or compositions they design to share with a particular audience or multiple audiences. For individual students and instructors, the portfolio system provides a convenient and accessible space and the tools to represent individual learning and competencies.

Similar to this one is Sophie

02_My Note IT:

provides a fulfilling amount of tools to organize notes and word files!
03_ foliotek

This portfolio toolkit is basically for College applicants or older students.  Watch a demo of how foliotek works here. There seems to be an efficient underlying structure that will allow you to organise any information related to your classes.  Something to think about is the visual language that here fails to make the tool easily understandable. Assesment | Personal | Files

04_DDP

06_R-campus

07_keep toolkit

The KEEP Toolkit is a set of web-based tools that help teachers, students and institutions quickly create compact and engaging knowledge representations on the Web. An example can be seen here…

08_epsilen portfolios

09_Stickam http://www.stickam.com/

10_google docs : http://docs.google.com/

11_google pages :http://pages.google.com/-/about.html

GENERAL GUIDELINES

To begin with, there is an interesting list of considerations collected by the Rhode Island Network for Educational Technology (RINET) related to schools making decisions about the design and structure of an electronic portfolio system. Not that we have to follow these guidelines but i have highlighted some that could be included.

+ Student Introduction-Identity
+ District goals and competencies-goals and interests
+ State goals and competencies
+ Crosswalk to GSE’s and National Standards
+ Rubrics for evaluation
+ Student reflection
+ Teacher evaluation
+ Teacher feedback
+ Summary of student achievement
+ Grade Level appropriate
+ Extensive support for multiple file formats and types including text, audio, video and graphic
+ Need to be able to query the rubrics at multiple levels
+ Ability to disaggregate data at multiple levels
+ Flexibility to have state and local rubrics
+ Web-based, supporting multiple browsers and
+ OS independent
+ Authentication based on LDAP, eRide student data, SIS interface (OR)
+ User self-provisioning - End-user responsible for initial creation and password
+ Security
+ Scalable
+ Centralized
+ Flexible
+ Predefined templates, forms and wizards-choice of templates, forms and wizards
+ Key word searchable index
+ Data collection
+ Ample storage capacity
+ Very little administrative intervention required
+ Data integration with other systems
+ Benchmarks should be available
+ Version tracking
+ Affordable -Free
+ Automated message system for teachers and students
+ Extensive online tutorials and help-‘tutorial’ interface
+ Template/wizard for novice users
+ Ample printable training and reference material available
+ Professional development system
+ Help desk support
+ Ability for student to “backup” data and save to other media and/or formats
+ Ease of “uploading” data
+ Ability for the user to make portions of the electronic portfolio public
+ Access for assistive technology for all users
+ ADA Compliant
+ Compatibility to link to outside servers to accommodate larger

TYPE OF PORTFOLIO ENTRIES-TASKS

Another interesting point to explore is the type of Portfolio entries. As entries can come from any assigment the student fulfills in school, it would be worth looking into classifying entries between those related more with classroom activities (community) and those that having to do more with the students personal interests (linked to the avatar page). RINET makes a first distinction between Classroom tasks and Independent Tasks. To read more about this topic go here…

TABLE OF PORTFOLIO TASKS

This table shows the many differences that separate tasks as they are used for different purposes with different groups of students. As a starting point it could help us work on a schematic of tasks related to curriculum  activities. How do these tasks build their way in the portfolio site? what stays at the classroom page? what stays in the students own page? what makes it to the students ‘friends’ page? what is shown in the ‘public’ page?

EVALUATION

A question to be answered is - what makes a good task? What criteria does an assigment meet to be uploaded to a portfolio page. Some guidelines are found here  related more to graduate student portfolios and definition of scopes and goals.

Another issue to discuss is:  by whom are the portfolio assignments evaluated?Is it only teachers? Should they be ranked by one’s  peers as well as the teacher?  A set of initial specific guidelines that the portfolio should meet, could be discussed in class?

SETTING UP YOUR PORTFOLIO PAGE -DEFINITION OF SCOPE

In relation to the above, I believe it is important for Portfolio Entries especially in a graduate level to relate, among other things:

a) to the requirements for the desired diploma system

b) to the scope of the graduation portfolio.

01_facebook

Obviously one of the most popular social networks, Facebook has an interesting set of features that could inspire us.

•  the wall- probably the most attractive feature, allows ‘friends’ to write on each others ‘public space’. The Wall allows you to leave a message on your friends wall. Your comment can be made public (’write on ‘friends’ wall’, or private, through the wall-to wall application). Additionally ‘ the wall’ allows for multimedia uploads, (application fun wall) where users can upload photos, videos and sound.

• the profile set up. I have noticed among my friends how popular the ‘current status’ feature is. What appears next to your picture as e.g. ‘ Anna is…’

• the extra playful features : poking, booze mail, send a growing gift, turn your friends in zombies, take a quiz, make your aquarium, your garden, your solar system, its a never ending list. Personally, as a user I usually ignore these features, nevertheless the ‘object’ orientated interaction, sending ‘objects’ in addition to leaving messages for your friends could be somehow applied to a class related space. For example your peer could send you a ‘cookie’ to reward you for an essay.

( you can also check out the ‘new yahoo social network called : yahoo mash)

02_Hi-5

Along with Facebook Hi-5 started as a college site. Therefore its set up and list of features ( lifestyle, interests, backround, groups, schools, photo albums, videos, widgets) are following a common path. Nevertheless there are some interesting applications in the widget part that could inspire us.

•  slideshows : Could be used for presentations. this application mashes up with Friendster, Bebo, My Space, Tagged, Slide, photobucket, Flickr and Facebook. If we are going for a school network that reaches out to other socila networks the students might already use then this is a good way to go. If we are aiming to a more closed structure, a simple slideshow application, for in class presentations could be useful!

• guest book: similar to the wall, provides a more concrete interface of a dynamic space that allows uploading multimedia files.

•  games : various casual games can be brought to your account by bigger websites such as shock wave etc.

( similar to this is the social network Friendster )

03_My space.

What is appealing in my space is the emphasis given on the users , literally what the title implies. Thus in ‘their space’ there are a couple of interesting features we could look at.

• Mypage :configuration of your page. add colors

•  Myblog :basically implementing a blog structure in the users space. Fairly simple and easy to use.

04_ Gaia Online, is one of the best examples of both a visual layout as well as dividing through a playful, game related terminology the different domains and activities.

• Arenas : submit artwork | build your avatar | organize your home

• Journals : interesting layout with speech bubbles, as well as integrated design of the users avatar, current status and information.

• Collectibles for your avatar : these remind me the pokemon games and I think could be an interesting feature, especially if they somehow relate to your school activities. Not necessary connected to a rating system, as they do in Gaia but perhaps have to do with a trading set up.

• Mailbox: necessary to build in our system, mailbox could be closely related to

• My stuff: includes the avatar inventory and the locker (to store stuff).

• Guilts and Towns

• Forums : are divided in discussions | announcements | general discussion | question and assistance | lifestyle discussion | introduce your self | extended discussion |site feedback. What I particularly find interesting is the division between discussions ( serious ones- fun ones?) This could be implemented as an underline system for both teachers and students to set up discussions. Another inspiring idea is the word forum. I was thinking of an exquisite corpse mechanic  implemented in the ELA class forum for example.

• World Map: also a very nice visualization of a site map (includes Forum, ArtArena, Guilts, Shopping, flower shop-jewelery shop, Towns)

• Marketplace: even though this is related to ‘gold’ prices within Gaia Towns i was thinking that a diagram feature could be used in our case for teachers to see the progress of their students, throughout the curriculum.

• Cinemas- a space to watch movies- perhaps professors can post you tube videos?

• Mini Comic Archive- potentially to upload storyboards?

similar to Gaia is the skype avatar building engine called weeworld05_ Guild Cafe

In Guild Cafe, you mainly have four different areas on the arena, the ‘About me’, the ‘Invite your friends’, the ‘Shoutbox’ and ‘The personal page’. Subcategories in the Personal page are the ‘Score and Profiles’ as well as the ‘Badges’.

• ‘About me’: avatar setting

• ‘Invite a friend’ : thumbnail that leads you to a find friends page as well as a small network visualization of your friends and the networks they belong to.

• ‘Shoutbox’ : sends you to the home page where you can check up what’s happening around the communities, news and so on.

• ‘Personal page’ : includes information about the following areas

a) attitude: current status

b) admiration: gain the respect of other players

c) respect : give respect points to other players

d) questionnaires : surveys

• Score and Profiles: store information about your characters including attribute and equipment information.

• Badges : collect badges based on the admiration you have gained!

06_care2

Care2 is an environmentally orientated social network that promotes involvement in various green issues through a forum and a donation set up. Despite the dense layout there is an interesting idea behind care2 regarding setting up a guiding system that relies on tagging. e.g. when you go to photos, you can see the categories that are more popular and so on. Technorati, wordpress, flickr, twitter and other sites also use that structure. When it is implemented alongside with other search engine settings it can be confusing, but in care2 it is used as a primary way to find photos posted by the network’s members, which is succesfull. For more about tagging you can look up tagged

07_the experience project

A social network where you connect to people that share the same experience as you. Anonymity is obligatory in this site, which makes it really interesting in terms of defining your identity through an experience. In terms of connecting such a project to Being Me, it would be interesting to see how communities of students are formed based on, e.g. experiences, interests, etc.

(similar idea is the ‘43 things you want to do with life ?’ 43 things )

08_dodgeball : obviously whats interesting about dodgeball is the mobile interface experience. Also they have a well structured site layout. (also see twitter)

09_booklovers http://www.shelfari.com/

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