based on my reading of Game Usability: Advancing the Player Experience (Chapter 2)

Game development and traditional production software development share various similarities. However, unlike production software, measures such as efficiency, effectiveness and satisfaction are not enough for success. Although this may sound like common sense, when large amounts of money are at stake, there is some convincing that will be necessary with both management and developers. A few of the key points that are mentioned on “Game Usability: Advancing the Player Experience” are, justifying return on investment, formalizing work procedures, and building cross-professional relationships.
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based on my reading of Game Usability: Advancing the Player Experience (Chapter 1)

Why Game Research?
A new generation of gamers has expanded at a rapid pace. The doors have flung open with new consumer demographics that have never had much of an influence in the gaming industry. This being said, game developers and publisher have the opportunity to reach a broader audience and stay competitive in the gaming industry.

Traditionally, the typical gamer’s user profiles shared many commonalities with the designers that created them. This allowed them to rely on gut intuition to make design decision. However, with the introduction of other genres such as social and casual gaming, this is no longer the case.(Isbister, 2008, Chapter 1, Section 1.1, para. 2) To appeal to a larger more diverse audience game designers need to make more informed decision.
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It is that time of year again. Looking through websites for the perfect present for all those people on my Christmas list. For me, the best part of the entire experience is checking out all the wonderful toys that are out, and living vicariously through the kids that i buy them for. Typically i try to put some effort into buying toys that I feel have some productive value and are fun. I also try my best not to buy into the glitzy commercials and Hollywood productions that some toys have.

Reflecting on my own toys from my youth, there are only a handful of toys that really resonate with me. Most of these toys had aspects of construction. For example I loved GI Joe, but my clearest memory of interacting with them where building the vehicles with my dad, not actually playing with them. I loved playing with my Domino Rally Set, and create Rube Goldberg type creations. Then, of course there is the popular Lego construction kit that has withstood the test of time.

The bellow video, is far beyond I ever created with my Domino Rally set, but was very impressed!

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A local teacher asked me a question that immediately took me back to my childhood. “How do you help an eager non-English speaking parent, not feel helpless when their children come home with homework?” According to her, these parents want to do the very best for their kids, however their lack of understanding the English language is not allowing them to be as involved as they would like to be.
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Being a first time dad has been the most amazing experience of my life. Watching my daughter grow, and witnessing her constant exploration of the world around her has been extraordinary. Unfortunately when Mondays roll around, it is time for me and many other parents to drop off our kids at the babysitter.  The amount of time we get to interact with each other is very minimal, and pretty sad.

In a world where we all feel so “connected”, the people that matter most have no method of remotely interacting with us.  My 1 1/2 year has no twitter, or Facebook account to update.  She doesn’t check into fourSquare every time we go to grandma’s house. Even with mobile phones and Skype video conferencing, there is no direct method of me interacting with her without the assistance and supervision of an adult. So basically, we could only interact with each other when another adult has both the time and is willing to put in the effort to set up an environment for us to communicate.

This got me thinking “how can my daughter and I interact during my work hours?”  The first thing I did was identify the main characteristics of my daughter, back when I first started working on this project:

• My daughter was one year old.
• Her vocal communication ability was in the preliminary stages of development
• Her motor skills where still not fully developed, so complex tasks like using a keyboard or mouse where not possible.
• She needs adult assistance to use our everyday communication tools that available to us (moble and land-line phones, computers, etc).

At this young age, children are extremely dependent on their parents and other adults for just about everything.  However, there are also several activities that come as naturally as breathing and eating to a child. Two of those activities that i observed where exploration and play, many times triggered by a common catalyst of curiosity.

Children gradually explore their environment and toys and interacted with them, mastering the new skills that they learn along the way. Quickly they are able to identify all sorts of toy input locations which triggered various types of output, such as audio and visual feedback.
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I have spent the past few month deconstructing the cognitive, emotional and social attributes of children under the age of two. I have been particularly interested in understanding why children are more responsive to some toys, then they are for others. What makes a successful toy, and why? What strategies could be used in the development of a toy to foster learning opportunities, along with several other question regarding this ripe age and this medium.

This age is quite interesting since you are not only designing for the child, but also for the parent, who acts as the gatekeeper. This adds an additional level of complexity, and understanding that needs to be understood. So the first question I asked myself was, “What does a parent look for in a toy?”

According to the book, “The Blockbuster Toys”, parents look for toys that;

• Child’s Safety
• Child’s Continued Enjoyment (play value)
• Child’s Creativity
• Child’s Mental & Physical Development
• Child’s Success
• Child’s Health
• Child’s Love

I added some additional bullets that I’ve noticed parents, including myself look into when purchasing a toy: Read more

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I have always had a fascination with trying to understand how the things around me work. It just so happens that after having a child, most of the thing around me are toys. Large toys, small toy, blinking lights, sounds, singing, haptics, interactivity, it is all pretty darn amazing when you sit back and really look at how much technology my little one year old daughter navigates and interacts with during play. Many time when we think of children and technology we automatically think of desktop computers and video game consoles. Although all of these are examples of technology the only interaction my daughter has with them is me telling her, “don’t touch”, and handing her a toy to distract her attention.

I decided to take a trip to my daughter’s toy collection to examine some of the sensing capabilities that her electronic toys offer. I will specifically focus on the toys input capabilities:

(At the end of the post there is a video of me trying to figure out how the LeapFrog Tag Jr works. Let me know your thoughts.)

Fisher-Price Elmo Live Encore

This is by far one my daughters favorite toys. The toy is modeled after Elmo, a Sesame Street character, which most children a quickly drawn to by his bright red color, large eyes, and youthfully fun voice.

Inputs

• Push Buttons: Typically buttons on toys are visually obvious, however Fisher Price decided to create an exploratory interaction by spreading out four button throughout the plush doll. Three of the buttons are hidden under the fabric, on the toe, chest, and back, and the final button switch is closed by squeezing his nose.
• Tilt Sensor: One of the nice additions that the creators added to the toy was integration of a Tilt Sensor. When Elmo falls on his side, he politely ask for help to stand backup, which is sometime accompanied with a joke.

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This past Saturday, March 6th, I was given the opportunity to attend my first TEDx event. I didn’t really know what to expect, I typically only attend technical conferences filled with pocket protector wearing programmers. Okay we don’t wear pocket protectors, but that doesn’t make it any less of a complete geek fest, me included. Anyhow, to start, I must applaud the group of educators that ran the event. The location was great, the line up of speakers was very good, and overall I had an amazing time. However, there where a couple of suggestions, or maybe some preconceive expectations that I may have had prior to attending.

Although I believe that many of the speakers where amazing, at points I felt like i was at an educators pep rally. Don’t get me wrong, it is always great to get other educators excited about certain topics, however much of what was being talked about is nothing new of innovative. For instance, I think just about everyone knows that standardized testing is probably not the best way to assess students, but how could you successfully implement portfolio based assessments? One speaker touched on it, however I really wanted more examples, more case studies. I basically wanted the speakers ideas, so I could tweak them start putting them into practice. Most of the talks were powerful in there own way, I unfortunately didn’t quite get that “Ah ha!” moment that i was hoping for.
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The Games for Learning Institute was gracious enough to invite Will Wright, the genius behind games such as The Sims and Spore, to speak about “Why Games are Good for Learning”. I’ve watched him speak in the past via youtube videos, and have always been impressed by the insight he brings to the gaming industry. Games such as SimCity, have broken down so many boundaries and have help in redefining several aspects of gaming. He has managed to empower children, though a constructionist approach by giving them the ability to become producers of their worlds, and not merely consumers. These ideologies fall in line with much of Seymour Papert’s work with LEGO and LOGO along with the ideas of Maria Montessori.

The secret of good teaching is to regard the child’s intelligence as a fertile field in which seeds may be sown, to grow under the heat of flaming imagination. Our aim therefore is not merely to make the child understand, and still less to force him to memorize, but so to touch his imagination as to enthuse him to his inner most core. — Maria Montessori

Why Serious Games are not Fun
This was an obvious question to start off the talk. Read more

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As I watched the unveiling of Apple’s new iPad, I noticed many different reactions in the educational community. Some people expressed how the iPad will revolutionize education, and others how it will negatively effect it. In reality however, the answer is quite simple. “Will the iPad be good for education? MAYBE!”.

The reason that I say “maybe”, is due to several factors. Mainly, it is too early to pass any judgment since hardware doesn’t automatically mean good software. If we look at desktop computers there are a slew of educational games and software, yet most are useless and ungrounded with any educational theory. So does this mean that it is bad? No, it means as educators you will have to collaborate with your personal network of fellow educators to identify all the good software available and develop strategies in how to integrate it within a classroom environment. Not exactly a new concept, yet it has been one of the major stumbling blocks in educational technology in general.

With most technology, I like to step back from all the hype and really analyze the hardware for what it is. Although the App Store is not saturated with amazing educational software, that shouldn’t count it out of being a viable platform. So let’s break it down to affordances and Read more

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