IT16 Conference and Exhibition- Ashford, Kent

Today I was lucky enough to attend the EiS IT 16 Conference which had keynote speakers, hands-on workshops and a choice of electives. I had been fortunate enough to attend the BETT Show earlier this year but this was a chance for a more relaxed and calmer approach to computing rather than the rush to see everything in the intensity of the BETT weekend.

The Conference started off with a brief introductory message from the event organiser which was followed by a keynote speech by Tim Rylands, who went through a myriad of ways to engage pupils through the use of many (free) tools, apps and resources to engage them in the topic of animals , although any topic could use the resources shown. I came away full of ideas and inspired. 

The next session I went to was my favourite; a hands-on session with the BBC Micro:Bit, the small easily programmable device which is being provided, free of charge, to every year 7 school pupil in England. The session only lasted 40 or so minutes but in that time I was able to easily programme the LED lights, create a simple animation and scroll a message to playfully insult a colleague.... wonderful!

After a short break I attended a session about coding and how to show progression in coding through the use of tools such as Kodable, Scratch Jr and Tickle on the iPad. This was an excellent session as it allowed me to think about our current practice at school and think about how we could use programmable robots and drones to help show pupils how coding works with real world examples

The second keynote looked at the strategies and practices of a variety of case-study schools in their implementation of mobile digital devices. It threw up a lot of questions but mostly spoke about how ownership of the object was important for the pupils to get out of it and also how mobile device use should be integrated into daily practice instead of sporadically.

The final elective I chose was with Tim Rylands again and concerned using video games to inspire games based learning. I found it interesting and satisfying going into this quick 30 minute session as I had been par of the Redbridge Gaming Network for several years and in that time we had used numerous games as a contextual hub for learning. On this website I have discussed and shown how I have used Endless Ocean, Limbo and numerous other games to get the children inspired to write. It was great to see one of the originators of the idea speak.

Overall the conference was a great event and even though I could be more verbose and thorough of my review, it is late and I am fasting tomorrow so I have kept this brief. If you get a chance to go, please do as it is well worth it... even just to network and share good practise.

Storytelling With Games- by Anjum Razaq

The ability to create stories is an innate human trait. It is this evolutionary predisposition that has allowed humanity to have shared experiences, be it for education, entertainment or for self-preservation. Storytelling includes many aspects including religious and secular teaching, philosophy, gossip, poetry, myths, traditions, propaganda, scientific writings, speeches, news, articles, advertisements, plays, movies, television stories, songs, and also sadly lying. We consume stories voraciously through various forms and media.

Storytellers, especially the good ones, can enter into our imagination and interact with our deepest human emotions. They can inspire us to strive for greatness or motivate us to do great evil. They can make us happy, angry or sad. They can make us laugh or cry. Storytelling and human emotion are closely linked, starting at infancy, they strongly influence every aspect of our life.

Computer games are a relatively new media and there are storytelling elements contained within. Using computer games we can immerse ourselves in these stories and worlds, interacting with the storytelling. We can become active participants rather than passive observers. However whilst it is possible to tell stories in computer games, the nature of interactivity raises the question of whether they do so effectively. As games have grown increasingly sophisticated, so too has the methodology and purpose of their narrative. However computer games are set by rules; your character has a limited set of behaviours he can follow due to the nature of programming. The restrictions are in place due to computational powers but also due to the need to drive the story forward. Often the story in computer games is superfluous, often based around the game play mechanics and characters; a branching database of options and permutations on the decisions made within the game. This is in contrast to something like Dungeons and Dragons, where the Games Master (using the rulebook) can create scenarios ad infinitum.

To truly tell a good story in games the games mechanics have to be built in conjunction with the scenarios; a marriage of narrative and gameplay. Stories are fixed designed experiences whilst computer games let players change things, even when it’s simply walking across an island like in Dear Esther. Eschewing traditional gameplay mechanics this interactive world immerses and engages the player through the use of amazing visuals, beautiful audio and wonderful prose. What I have learnt through game based learning is that neither the game nor the story contained within, are that important but rather it is how you use the game.

As a teacher we can use games to provide children with a deep emotional and exciting experience. We do not have to use the whole game but sections. Whilst the narrative contained within the game itself may not be that exciting, children with their innate skills to weave stories may make an infinitely more nuanced story. Computer games allow the pupils to become stimulated in the same way text and film can, but have a benefit over these other media in that they can interact with these worlds. If we want to go left we can, the world is literally our oyster, full of endless possibilities and the children know this. It taps into their innate ability to tell stories but provides a rich context for doing so. This is not new, games have been used as a contextual hub for learning in many schools I know across the UK and there are many individuals who have done sterling work in the area, including Consolarium, Tim Rylands, Ollie Bray and the Redbridge Games Network, and many many others. However in Cambodia, where much of the educated people were wiped out in Year Zero by the Khmer Rouge this is a revelation. Computer games are still seen as a childish tool or as quick timewasters but I have used many games as a stimulus for writing. Here are the lists of games we have used and how we have used them:

Ico is one of my favourite games of all time. The art style is amazing and the storyline, whilst kept to a minimum deals with loneliness, companionship, hope and loss. The lead characters speak in a made up language but through their actions and behaviour you can elicit the emotions.

Format: PS2 and PS3  

Another masterpiece from the creators of Ico. SOTC was one of the only games to make me deeply sad about the tragic journey of a character. This is a great game to use for teaching myths and legends and deals with true love, hope, fear, death and salvation.

Format: PS2 and PS3 

An atmospheric and simple looking game which has mystery at its core. It has a sense of wonder, fear and sadness as you guide a young boy through a variety of dark landscapes including a forest, industrial town and factories. The game is a not appropriate for younger children but can be used (at least the first few minutes) as a story starter or stimulus.

Format: Xbox 360

 Journey is a stunning looking game which was many people’s Game of the Year in 2012 (mine as well). The sense of wonder is kept up through the mystery of the pilgrimage. It deals with a personal journey, companionship, death and beyond. 

Format: PS3

Dear Esther is a stunning game with beautiful graphics and a sense of wonder at its core. It sets you as a man on a journey from one side of the island to the other, towards the bright light of the lighthouse. How and why you are on the island is a mystery.

Format: PC 

 

There are many other games I have used as writing stimulus and I will present the work here. Are there any games you use which lend themselves to being a stimulus for writing?

Gaming and Me- by Anjum Razaq

Why do I play games? Why is it so important to me? Speak to people in the gaming community and you’ll hear a variety of reasons but for older gamers like me you’ll probably hear them say that games are ‘art’ and like other art forms it can be appreciated. Maybe this is a response against feeling judged to have, what is traditionally thought of as ‘a childish hobby’, I don’t know. It doesn’t help when the media constantly speak about gaming in negative terms, a form of entertainment which encourages violence and depravity. Whether games are an art or not can be discussed at another time but to be honest when I started gaming I didn’t sit there thinking ‘Wow, this is art… look how cultured I am’.

So why my interest in gaming? Well to understand we have to go back a little to when I first experienced ‘games’. I first played on arcade machines in classics like Pacman and Donkey Kong but my first home experience was on the ZX Spectrum when I was 6 years old.  However my first deep game experience was with my oldest and best friend who was given a NES with Mario Bros. 1 for his 9th birthday. I went to his house and ate lots of junk food and we played the game for over 8 hours straight. When I got home that evening I promptly vomited, but my eyes were truly opened to the world of gaming.

This was the cassette I had for my Amstrad... epicness was contained inside!​

I got my own first computer for my 10th birthday, getting a second hand Amstrad CPC 464 (this was in 1991 when the Amstrad was already well into obsolescence and the Megadrive and NES were in ascendency). I played that computer for many years and still have it now in storage, but the game that truly immersed me and engaged me was ‘Fantasy World Dizzy’. It is now considered a classic and rightly so. It featured state of the art graphics for the time and a simple story of rescuing your family, a bunch of eggs called ‘Yolkfolk’, from the evil King Troll. I remember loving the fact that it had an inventory system where you could hold only 3 items at a time, so each new discovery of an item felt truly wonderful yet at the same time offered a dilemma. My brother and I played that game for months on end and I remember vividly the moment we became stuck (this was a time before walkthroughs and guides) and my brother discovered that the rope could be used on the crocodile to close his mouth, so we could jump across to another part of the world.

This part of the game had my brother and I stumped for months

I think this was the first time that this joy of discovery really hit me in computer games, the fact that there was an immersive world which you could explore and by using your wits and guile could slowly unravel. A lot of other games at the time were very simple quick game fixes but this; this world was another thing all-together.

In recent years Dizzy has had a little revival due to iOS gaming (Prince of the Yolkfolk has been released on the app store) and frequent mentions in the many Zero Punctuation review videos, where he refers to it as “the best game ever” but clearly taking a well aimed snipe at those who look back through the rose-tinted eyes of nostalgia.

​Old skool game design... I love this hands on approach

In recent years ‘Geek-chic’ has become a part of popular culture, with celebrities purposely seeking to present this image but back when I was a kid being a ‘geek’ was not a trend, it was just a way of being. I loved the ‘Fighting Fantasy’ novels, watched ‘Knightmare’ on TV and my favourite series was ‘Mysterious Cities of Gold’ (it still is). I wasn’t bullied and didn’t feel like an outsider, gaming wasn’t the world I went to shut out the world. Instead it immersed me and engaged me and brought me and my friends together. I felt a real sense of community in gaming and even now, when I meet a fellow gamer there is an instant connection of something shared.

Gaming is a deeply personal experience for me and as I have grown older I have definitely become more discerning and particular with the games I play. Due to time constraints of work and marriage gaming isn’t as big in my life as it used to be but it is just as important, for me it is a big point of identity. That is why when thinking about creating an educational ICT and Games Based Learning blog, Simon and I wanted to look at the various aspects of gaming. Rather than just being a ‘this is what we are doing using computer games’ we wanted to create a forum of ideas and discussion, not just about educational aspects of gaming but gaming as a whole. I saw this poster on the internet and don’t know who created it (if you know who created this please let me know and I will credit them here) but would like to use it here as for me in encapsulates what gaming is. I hope you will join us for this journey and contribute.