It has been a while since the last blog post,  sorry!

Many people will know that we have a set up an innovative project with the computer games art degree at Norwich University College of the Arts. In the current academic year we have decided to build on the success of the first year and run a series of student workshops.

In November we held the first workshop called building a game in a day. We are currently developing a series of lone worker protection courses and decided to use a real-life brief with the students. They had to develop the story, narrative, learning objectives and decide upon the audience for their resource before spending the afternoon building a sample module.

At the end of the day each of the student groups has to present their finished game module and also their documentation. I was hugely impressed with the manner in which the students took to the challenge. Some of the game ideas and concepts that were presented were excellent and could easily be used in a commercial project.

To support the students I enlisted the help of Sam, George and Shaun (last year’s work placement students) who provided expert software and also offered a critical eye. Anthony and I provided commercial and project management advice and an insight into what potential clients might be looking for.

The workshop was a great success with 10 excellent game modules being developed, with one group producing 4 example games. From my perspective it was interesting to see how the games design students pushed the software and also came up with new concepts and ideas that we might not have thought of. We are continuing to use computer games designers on our elearning projects and this workshop only helped to re-inforce my belief that they make an excellent addition to our team.

It was interesting to view the different creative processes that each of the groups had. We provided some rough timings and ideas but it was largely left to the students to organise themselves and their time. It was interesting to see how they all started to sketch out design ideas and process flow maps for how the game might work. It is clear to me that game design and instructional design share many principles and once we had introduced the students to the concept of learning objectives they were able to incorporate them into their design.

In December I was able to share my thoughts on the workshop with members of the Association of Learning Technology and the eLearning network during a webinar on serious games that I was presenting.

For more information on the workshop you can read an article that was featured in the Norwich evening news.

Scott

40 apps in 40 minutes

For the latest Norfolk e-learning forum I decided that we should run a session on open source and free software tools. There are so many well known open source and free tools in use such as Moodle and WordPress that setting up the session was a challenge.

I settled on 40 applications in 40 minutes. A whirlwind tour of 40 of our favourite free applications that would hopefully offer something for everyone! I had a list of personal favourites that I needed to add to and spent a few afternoons searching the web for some new additions. After only a few hours I was amazed and the sheer number of free apps and also the quality of the apps. One of the first new apps I found was the awesome highlighter, a brilliant website that lets you mark up and highlight a website – allowing you to copy & paste, save the link and share with colleagues. A really simple idea with so many applications, you can use it in the classroom, presentations theatre or during development meetings.

40 in 40 was pretty fast paced and there wasn’t much time to look at anything in detail other than a couple of videos that I created in xtranormal and animoto to show what was possible.

The response to the session has been great with several people adding their own applications to the list and more commenting that they didn’t realise how many of these apps were available on the internet.

During the session I worked on the basis that if you didn’t like an app or wouldn’t find it useful there was another coming in less than a minute! We published the list on the real projects website alongside our other resources.

My top 3 are

• Awesome highlighter
• Xtranormal
• Animoto

There are so many ways in which you can use the applications and it was great to listen in on some of the discussions afterwards. I’ve seen xtranormal used an an online icebreaker, animation software, for product demonstrations, adverts and for teaching! The awesome highlighter can be used by the web designer and client or the teacher in class.

As I come across more I’ll add them to the list!

In addition to writing the blog, tweeting and providing resources for other websites we follow several blogs. I thought that it would be a good time to share them.

The Rapid e-learning blog

This is the articulate tool blog providing useful tips for using a range of development tools, not just Articulate.

Games Can Teach

We have only recently come across this blog. It is a very interesting resource with lots of links to educational games, ideas and research.

Clive On Learning

Clive Shepherd is the Chairman of the elearning network and a passionate adovate of elearning and learning technology. His presentation at Learning Technologies last year was one of my highlights.

Cakes:Learning Technology Blog

Interesting blog from the Learning Technology Team at Edge Hill University

elearninglearning

The blog with all the elearning blogs from Tony Karrer in the US. Some great blogs and articles on this site.

TechCrunch

Techie blog posts from tech crunch. This link will take you to the top 32 iphone apps from Japan.

Please comment on any good blogs that you have come across.

Interface design, instructional design, usability, interface specialists etc… the list goes on. Everytime I pick up .net, edge or elearning age I’m likely to be reading about a particular job role, all of which are ultimately to do with creating a design that a user or learner will use.

In recent months we’ve been looking at delivery of elearning content on handheld devices and I went to an excellent elearning network presentation where a developer from a large corporate bank presented on how they had created a new set of guidelines for development on the blackberry. When they started out they simply used the same model as they had for traditional content platforms. The user group was quick to respond to user questionaires making it clear how they used their blackberry and how they wanted content to be presented. There was also a really interesting piece of feedback about the length and type of content that they wanted to be presented with. The bank listened, made changes, re-deployed and the project was a success both in terms of learner engagement and test results.

Over recent months some of you may have followed our tweets and blogs posts about the iphone. Today we have had our developer approval through from Apple. There was quite a bit of paperwork but it was a reasonable straightforward process, although I was a bit surprised when asked to fax some documents over to Apple. Find fax, power cable, phone cable, manual, remember how to operate fax, fax, has it gone? Anyway the fax obviously got their and its all been approved. Whilst all this was going on Ed and I have been downloading apps, games, gps devices and really road testing the iphone. We’ve used it overseas, in the country, at festivals, meetings, offices, cities - it’s performed well in all situations (this is starting to read like a car review!. As we downloaded more and more apps we noted how so many of the apps just followed the basic design principles as laid down by Apple, but every now and then we’d come across something that just wasn’t right.

…well, it didn’t seem right. What appears to be happening is that some developers are designing apps that don’t follow the traditional interface model. There are no guidelines or documents that you must follow but the basic model of how things work is now so familar that anything other than this tends to throw you out.

Let me give you an example.

I’ve downloaded several news apps and find them to be really useful and I combine them with mobile sites

such as the guardian. I download the Sky news app. Nice layout, quite similar to lots of other news sites:

You’ll notice at the top right that it says Busi. I’d expected the interface to work in a similar to other apps that I’d used across the iphone and for several days I thought the app had crashed! Many people reading this might think I’ve just been a bit slow or just not got the hand of it but I think differently. There are so many people that I know who just would never ever get to this hidden content. There is content that you just don’t know exists until you work out how the sky news navigation model works. I tried re-starting, clicking on the arrow, clicking around the screen until…one day…I worked out how to get to the hidden content by accident! I just threw my finger across the menu bar and found this!

more content, loads of content! A really good consise news app with lots of hidden content. I know how to use the app although I sometimes get a bit stuck on the slide move!

I think the sky news app is great for news. Its realiable, loads quickly and has a good selection of news for when you are on the move. I just thought that this was a good example of delivering an interface that is not what the user group is used to. Then again I might be the exception and everyone else know’s how to use it.

If you are interested in reading more about this topic then check out this article from Smashing Magazine.

Scott

At the time of writing (15th July 2009, 13:07) we have 99 twitter followers, ok we’re no Stephen Fry! I actually find it quite flattering that 99 people want to listen to what we have to say, we think that some of it quite interesting. There is a lot of debate about twitter and its merits, how to use it, business model etc. I’ve been interested to watch how the online community has used Twitter in so many different ways and shaped it to fit their needs. Already we are seeing Twitter spam, Twitter SEO and Twitter lead finding services all of which have followed the trends of previous online services.

Personally I’ve got a twitter fon on my iphone and have found it be really useful for quickly catching up on news whilst on the move and I’ve been able to communicate with people who normally I would never get the chance to. Bradly Wiggins is an english cyclist currently doing extremely well in the Tour De France who has replied to his following that his messages keep him going. Mark Beaumont is an adventure cyclist who is using twitter to keep in touch with his followers and I’m sure from his perspective its a lot easier than starting up the laptop and typing in a long form email.

From a learning perspective there has been quite a debate about how it can be used and whether it is of any use at all. In the past few days this has been highlighted further by the publication of sections of a report by an Intern at Morgan Stanley about how teenagers use Twitter. The FT and the Guardian both ran the piece as lead articles and its generated quite a buzz on the internet news boards. I’m not sure what it tells us about the use of twitter in learning!

Interestingly there are people using Twitter with young people and with schools how it can be used in education and training. I was preparing for a speaking event on game based learning last week when I came across a research video from UTC Dallas on Twitter in the classroom. I’ve also found that the University of Minnesota are also using social media and twitter in the classroom. Both videos show how they are using twitter and social networks to increase the contributions made within the classroom. As one teacher says in the video “If you are not engaging with the call you might as well hit a brick wall.” They’ll be lots more debate on the merits of twitter, if you are interested then these 2 videos might just provide a starting point.

At the E2BN conference Twitter and Twitterfall was used to great effect to capture questions from the floor during the seminars, ok you needed a mobile device with twitter but it allowed for a much more open question and answer flow. This was an event largely attended by teachers and I was amazed by the sheer numbers who were contributing. I’ll certainly be using twitter fall in future presentations alongside the traditional question and answer sessions.

A question that I’m often asked is what’s your development process? Without getting all techie we follow a simple process that it based on PRINCE 2 and ISO 9000. I can hear the gasps already! When I took my PRINCE 2 exams I was given a great piece of advice that was “Little Project, Little Price, Big Project, Big Prince!”. This is something that has stuck with me and we’ve followed at Real Projects. Although we are an e-learning company we’ve all worked in different industries at some point and draw on that experience. our job code system is based on one I learnt working in the Oil & Gas industry and our wireframes used during development have been used by most of us at some point in a range of industries.

Wireframes
We’ve been using these on website and e-learning projects for a long time. They help map out the structure of a page and we can breakout the individual functions of a page. Critically they help our clients understand what the page purpose is. If you provide a lavishly illustrated graphic this can often be a distraction and the focus turns to colour, font, size and images. We know from our experience that if you get the wireframe right then the design follows much easier.

Sitemaps and Storyboards
We might use one or both. Its a visual reference of where everything is going and how it all interacts. Even on a linear piece of work we create this map, it provides a mental model for everyone on the project about where ‘things’ are going to happen.

Scamps
Simple sketches of what things might look like, these come a long way before final designs and let everyone see a flavour of what’s happening. I’m often heard saying “Everyone is a graphic designer, but not many people want to be a programmer!” There are not many occasions during a project when anyone asks to see the code or has a query about a specific coding technique! Get people involved, share the work - make sure that your e-learning project has as many people as involved as you need!

Agile
Agile development processes. You might be surprised to think that an e-learning company would be thinking of using Agile processes as these are often associated with programming. You might like to think of it as rapid prototyping. We think of it as see things often and make lots of little changes along the way. This does prevent the development process of “Build to the specification, then build what the client actually needs”. It’s so hard to specify exactly what’s needed, especially if you are doing something for the first time. You’d neven dream of taking a product to market without testing or refining it first so why do it with e-learning?

Friends - Often referred to as Stakeholders or clients
You are going to be working on this project for a while, even if its a small piece. You hope to work together for a long time. To get the best outcome for your e-learning project you all need to be involved. Your client is part of the team! We try to make sure that they are kept informed, know what is happening and we ask for their thoughts and opinions. Work together you need to use your collective skills to deliver your project,

So do we have a process - Yes we do! But we are flexible, we are repsonsive and the process needs to change alongside changing technology and the needs of our clients. The thing we like about e-learning is that it allows us to be creative, to look at new technology and deliver solutions that actually make a difference. We are an e-learning company but much of what we do is taken from and shared by other companies from all sectors - from how we manage projects to how they are designed.

Keep the process flexible

During Learning Technologies earlier this year I listened to several seminars on the use of virtual worlds and game devices with the work of the Royal Navy and Imperial College London being of particular interest. Imperial College were using Second Life as part of their medical training and the Royal Navy were using the PSP as a delivery mechanism on submarines. During the 90’s I’d worked on a number of educational cd-rom projects many of which used games and games theory but back then it wasn’t titled game based learning and there wasn’t anything as accessible as Second Life. Worlds were painstakingly created by filming actors against blue screens and creating lavish backgrounds to place them against. The results were fantastic and still look good today (even if they are at 480×640!). Even since then I’ve been interested in Game Development and I think it is fantastic that the Royal Navy have taken the PSP as a learning device. In the past 10 years the growth of game development courses has been rapid and they are providing some interesting opportunities for students. This is also combined with the increased access to getting content onto the game devices, its like a return to the days of the spectrum where people were coding games from their bedroom! This led to several people making their fortune and setting up fantastic companies like the Darling brothers who set up Codemasters. Who doesn’t remember Dizzy!

As well as Second Life there are a number of other Virtual World development tools, some of which are suited for e-learning. We’ve been using the Thinking Worlds tool for several months with our own development team and also students from Norwich University College of the Arts. I’m really impressed with the results from a technical, gaming and learning perspective. There are people who will find the development tools have a steep learning curve when compared to the traditional tools that they have used but in the hands of a games designer we’ve been able to rapidly produce things! I say things because I’m not sure what to call them, learning module, game, serious game, simulation, virtual world? Perhaps its all of these things? There have been challenges along the way as we’ve got to grips with using a new tool and understanding how to get the best from it. The reaction from clients has been really interesting, they can’t believe how quickly they can be developed when they see how it works the depth of the resources. Personally I’ve found the best part of the process has been seeing how the games designers are part of our e-learning development team. There have been numerous press releases and statements about how the skills of games designers are far reaching, including a recent one from NESTA and TIGA. In our experience we know that this can work, interactive design, games design, instructional design - maybe its just design? Design for an audience, design with a purpose and design with an outcome in mind? I know that our team are increasing their skills and are great designers and not just graphic/interactive/instructional/games* (*delete as appropriate).

Kevin Mulryne from NCSL posted on his Twitter page requesting ideas for online icebreakers. Chris George from SAM Learning emailed us this fantastic website where you can make your own movies online using text that you type in. Its fantastic! A great range of features and you can publish your videos to the web. Here are the details of our icebreaker!
http://www.xtranormal.com/watch?e=20090701073604115 - is the little sample we have done for you:

1: Set up an account at xtranormal.com

2: Set up a twitterfall page

3: Get the participants to email their questions to you or use the twitter feed (Take a sample of the questions)

4: Publish a question and answer session to the web using xtranormal.com

Cost: free

Duration: Pre-course

Set-up: Including account set up (45 minutes) …more if you want to do cool camera angles!

Complexity - Basic to medium depending on how hard you much you want to change the movie

Asynchronous activity in advance of course

…on a separate note I think this site is an excellent teaching resource. We’ve come up with loads of ideas this morning for how we could use it in a range of teaching enviroments.

Enjoy.

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