Reflection On My Own Understanding

As I begin my journey towards the authorship of learning games, sims, and virtual environments, I am led to reflect on my past experiences.

I grew up playing a moderated amount of video games. I enjoyed my outdoor time, and really enjoyed time with friends. When I joined the Army, I spent more and more time in front of a computer. When I was in the 7th Special Forces Group (Airborne), we trained hard, but it definitely was not seven days a week. Certainly, it was not even one day a week. I had a job to do, much like I do now. I was a technician and operator working in a classified communications center. The job was not very fulfilling, and I did not feel challenged by it. I found myself going home and playing EverQuest until very late into the morning. It was about three years into the military that I checked my play time and realized that I had over a year of play time on my main character; I had alternate characters as well. At the time, I remember thinking how funny it was, but looking back on it, I realized how much time I wasted gaming.

Last summer, I took LTEC 5210, with Dr. Scott Warren, and had my first experience with Second Life. While I must say that Second Life’s graphics and controls are a bit dated and clunky, I was enthralled by the amount of content that could be created. As we explored some learning environments, I was impressed by even the simple, museum-style collection of information. By museum-style, I’m referring to the look but do not touch rules that apply in museums.

As an avid gamer in 3D worlds, I was saddened by the lack of interactivity and engagement in Second Life. I also had hoped for a richer and more aesthetically engaging world. I quickly discovered that the creators of Second Life, Linden Lab had been working on a more modern version of the 3D world: Sansar. I quickly installed and jumped into the world of Sansar to explore. I quickly lost interest due to the lack of interaction.

Both Second Life and Sansar required other players to be nearby to interact with. While Second Life did have some Non-Player Characters (NPC) they were very limited in functionality and few in numbers. One of the things that made EverQuest so engaging was the vast numbers of NPCs that produced story-lines and rich, engaging experiences.

Historically, educational games have been bland and made it difficult to keep young people engaged. How do you keep young people engaged and teach them STEM or non-STEM fields? While not impossible, the more subtle the better.