Re: EduTainment Titles
I want to thank everyone who has responded off lines with eduTainment ware. Keep it coming! Of course we all know there's lots of things done in Flash, but I think this was really cool http://www.vam.ac.uk/vastatic/microsites/1414_jain/snakesandladders/ ___ use-revolution mailing list use-revolution@lists.runrev.com Please visit this url to subscribe, unsubscribe and manage your subscription preferences: http://lists.runrev.com/mailman/listinfo/use-revolution
Re: EduTainment Titles
A reply plus a request... I think this was really cool http://www.vam.ac.uk/vastatic/microsites/1414_jain/snakesandladders/ The Flashgame was cool (egads, what a word!), and I see myself being able to recreate it over a weekend with Rev. But the true excellence of that game lay with the cloth-board itself (how beautiful!) and the use of shells instead of a dice (so tactile and fun!). Which begs two questions: ... if one had the actual cloth and shells, why bother creating an online version, especially for young learners? ... and if one hadn't the cloth, does anybody know where similar ones can be ordered online? :-) Thanks for the post... and any replies. -- Nicolas Cueto ___ use-revolution mailing list use-revolution@lists.runrev.com Please visit this url to subscribe, unsubscribe and manage your subscription preferences: http://lists.runrev.com/mailman/listinfo/use-revolution
Re: EduTainment Titles
We are doing a feature story in Hinduism Today on the Snakes and Ladders game, stay tuned. There are numerous versions in existence. We just got an incredible book on Indian board games. A marvelous resourcethe chapter on Snakes and ladders is huge. I'll see if I can find addresses where you can buy these. Why bother creating an online version? Because you are tired of coding back end production publication production tools/web apps and want to do something more interesting, fun and useful for the end user... just kidding (not really) Many reasons: 1) kids are addicted to the screen. You may not be able to get them purchase a the physical game, but you can certainly get them to play it on online, better this than shoot 'em dead, drag her by the hair games... 2) You can build a very rich version of teachings which are a bit more in the language of today's youth. I think with a slight challenge addition, it could be even more enticing. Right now all you do is roll dice and then you land on a square that has something useful to learn... but an additional step could be added to require that the player make a choice of fill in a response to a question etc. (Lots of what was sent to me has examples of this in the language learning category) 3) If the kid is begging mom to let her/him use the computer, and mom has control over access, here is something she can offer, while she does the laundry. I actually had another marvelous coloring application, Mystic Mouse that was delivered in the computer via the net... I will resurrect that thing once the plug-in is settled down... I had one 9 year old girl register saying This is the only thing my mother will let me do on the computer, I like coloring the pictures, the colors stay inside the lines (btw, a b/w outline GIF.. if you use the paint tools the fill tool will automatically stay inside closed paths... so making coloring books is easy) You can be sure this little girl had lots of coloring books and crayons in her room, those cost money, my app was free. 4) We know Dr. Stevanne Auerbach, Institute For Childhood Resources... popularly known as Dr. Toy because she believed that learning should be fun and that children can learn thru play...her books and products are very, very popular. She visits us here from time to time. 10 years ago she was rather adamant about the importance of hands on play-learning and frowned on computers... 2 years ago she reluctantly admitted, Young people are in front of their screens... we may not like it, but that's the reality. We have no choice now but to make good use of this new channel. OK everyone, don't keep the titles coming I appreciate all the input so far. Sivakatirswami (Nicolas Cueto wrote: A reply plus a request... I think this was really cool http://www.vam.ac.uk/vastatic/microsites/1414_jain/snakesandladders/ The Flashgame was cool (egads, what a word!), and I see myself being able to recreate it over a weekend with Rev. But the true excellence of that game lay with the cloth-board itself (how beautiful!) and the use of shells instead of a dice (so tactile and fun!). Which begs two questions: ... if one had the actual cloth and shells, why bother creating an online version, especially for young learners? ... and if one hadn't the cloth, does anybody know where similar ones can be ordered online? :-) Thanks for the post... and any replies. -- Nicolas Cueto ___ use-revolution mailing list use-revolution@lists.runrev.com Please visit this url to subscribe, unsubscribe and manage your subscription preferences: http://lists.runrev.com/mailman/listinfo/use-revolution ___ use-revolution mailing list use-revolution@lists.runrev.com Please visit this url to subscribe, unsubscribe and manage your subscription preferences: http://lists.runrev.com/mailman/listinfo/use-revolution
Re: EduTainment Titles
Sivakatirswami wrote: Judy: I second your motion that it is possible to make something fascinating enough to encourage young people to go swimming in the knowledge pool, and then want dive in again tomorrow. Richmond: It is perfectly possible to present educational materials in an interesting and absorbing fashion without cheapening it all with tainment By what logic is entertainment necessarily cheap ? In fact the best entertainment is very expensive! N'est ce pas? Here at the monastery we watch TV and have EDU nights. That makes me radically readjust my concept of what the word 'monastic' means. :) I find most TED talks extremely entertaining. (Not everyone does, but I do) ( Every Revolution programmer should run (not walk) to view the TED talk Hole in the Wall . BBC Documentaries by brave anthropologists trekking into rain forests talking with indigenous peoples, are both, educational and entertaining, but cost 100's of thousand of pounds to produce-- not cheap. Aha! Then my 'attack' was launched on the basis of an understanding (yes, I , too, love Bear Grylls!): what I understood (and understand) by 'edutainment' consists of computer games, that, while purporting to be educational, have their educational content (if there is any) so buried under the cutesy animated characters and multimedia effects that the user/pupil is almost completely unaware of it and is led down the garden path by the rest. http://www.ted.com/index.php/talks/sugata_mitra_shows_how_kids_teach_themselves.html) We have RunRev 10 Thumbs typing program here and young Potriyan from Malaysia spent his summer vacation in Hawaii and he loved that program. It's very well designed. he found it entertaining and got up to 50words a minute error free typing, so... tainment does not necessarily mean it has to be silly song and dance show... intellectually challenging can be very entertaining -- beautiful graphics (theoretically our forte) are entertaining The original Snakes and Ladders games was designed in India. We have a copy of the original game, it is *incredibly* sophisticated and pedagogical at the same time... A sanskrit scholar was visiting from India recently, we had him translate for us all 280 squares... It could take you days and days playing this thing, all you do is roll dice but you learn a lot. But very entertaining (and even humorous... if you roll the dice and you are on a particular square you may slide off the board and end up on Jaina territory... very in joke... but educational, Jainism is not Hinduism... i.e. off the board. Entertaining. In this case, something that fits Lynns model: technological bells and whistles are minimal (roll dice: up a ladder or down a snake) but the content is super rich. Jainism is not Hinduism; no I suppose it isn't, but you will have to admit that Hinduism has what cognitive linguists term 'fuzzy boundaries'. And Jainism, like Buddhism, does share certain characteristics (such as Karma, Ahimsa and reincarnation) with Hinduism. Um, sorry, badly OT there. This would suggest that a given eduTainment software title, is only as cheap as it's content and design. Richard: Thank you for the wonderful analysis: You are quite right, our little ebooks are really just that: print matter repurposed onto cards... I have a few much cooler things in the hopper. In delivering educational materials, it adds value to deliver it in an application to the degree that the material is dependent on interaction. well said... Back on my original point here: Send me examples! so far I have off list some excellent things: Sona Vocabulary; Learn Japanese Sllabaries, Randal's excellent little tutor's Baseball Math, Word Racer, State Capitals SE. Randals pieces are marvelous examples of reducing a learning task to very small modular units, that are digestible by very young and fit the kind of delivery context I thinking of. They are focused on the learning with just a tad of gaming edge, enough to pull the students along... State Capitals SE I found quite entertaining. good job... Richmond and Judy! Send me some of your titles (smile) (or point me to where I can buy them) Dear Sivakatirswami, I will never sell you anything; although if you can give me the address of a suitable (private) FTP site I will gladly send you the original stacks of several of my 'things' (probably the more 'tainment' ones . . . ) for you to look at, use, flush away, or modify to suit your needs. Sivakatirswami ___ use-revolution mailing list use-revolution@lists.runrev.com Please visit this url to subscribe, unsubscribe and manage your subscription preferences: http://lists.runrev.com/mailman/listinfo/use-revolution ___ use-revolution mailing list use-revolution@lists.runrev.com Please visit this url to subscribe, unsubscribe and manage your subscription
Helper apps (was Re: EduTainment Titles)
Sivakatirswami wrote: Richard Gaskin wrote: Are there methods for each platform by which an application could assign itself as the helper app for a given file type extension when linked to within a web page? This would let any of us make player apps for stuff, and just clicking it would download and run it like iTunes links. Doable? I realize that's not nearly as convenient as the browser plugin, but that plugin is still several months away and when it's available it won't have an offline mode that one could build into a player (file I/O and other normal options available to apps but verboten for plugins). Agree, an unhobbled option would be very useful. I've also proposed in the past that this helper application/Player, just like iTunes only comes from Apple, (Real Player from Real, Flash from Adobe etc.) be available from an official RunRev site. I can see security issues being of some concern, obviously, but if Apple and Adobe can do it, why not RunRev in Edinburgh? Does it require anything from them? In Firefox one can assign a default application to run downloaded files of a given type. IIRC such a setting is available in IE and Safari as well. Providing instructions to the user is one way, but it would be ever so cool to be able to have it just work, as iTunes links do. There must be some way, even if it requires a one-time explicit approval from the user, to allow an app to set this up for them. -- Richard Gaskin Fourth World Revolution training and consulting: http://www.fourthworld.com Webzine for Rev developers: http://www.revjournal.com ___ use-revolution mailing list use-revolution@lists.runrev.com Please visit this url to subscribe, unsubscribe and manage your subscription preferences: http://lists.runrev.com/mailman/listinfo/use-revolution
Re: Helper apps (was Re: EduTainment Titles)
Not much joy with Safari, I'm afraid: http://8help.osu.edu/1600.html paraphrasing this: the assignment of helper apps is done within the Finder, (i.e. the ones for when you double-click on a doc in the Finder) and Safari just uses those. I wonder what it does in Windows? Internet Explorer has a 'Helper Applications' option in it preferences department. Richard Gaskin wrote: Sivakatirswami wrote: Richard Gaskin wrote: Are there methods for each platform by which an application could assign itself as the helper app for a given file type extension when linked to within a web page? This would let any of us make player apps for stuff, and just clicking it would download and run it like iTunes links. Doable? I realize that's not nearly as convenient as the browser plugin, but that plugin is still several months away and when it's available it won't have an offline mode that one could build into a player (file I/O and other normal options available to apps but verboten for plugins). Agree, an unhobbled option would be very useful. I've also proposed in the past that this helper application/Player, just like iTunes only comes from Apple, (Real Player from Real, Flash from Adobe etc.) be available from an official RunRev site. I can see security issues being of some concern, obviously, but if Apple and Adobe can do it, why not RunRev in Edinburgh? Does it require anything from them? In Firefox one can assign a default application to run downloaded files of a given type. IIRC such a setting is available in IE and Safari as well. Providing instructions to the user is one way, but it would be ever so cool to be able to have it just work, as iTunes links do. There must be some way, even if it requires a one-time explicit approval from the user, to allow an app to set this up for them. -- Richard Gaskin Fourth World Revolution training and consulting: http://www.fourthworld.com Webzine for Rev developers: http://www.revjournal.com ___ use-revolution mailing list use-revolution@lists.runrev.com Please visit this url to subscribe, unsubscribe and manage your subscription preferences: http://lists.runrev.com/mailman/listinfo/use-revolution ___ use-revolution mailing list use-revolution@lists.runrev.com Please visit this url to subscribe, unsubscribe and manage your subscription preferences: http://lists.runrev.com/mailman/listinfo/use-revolution
Re: Helper apps (was Re: EduTainment Titles)
I suppose expecting a revlet to act like a sniffer dog and detect an end-user's web-browser (OS, version number, . . . . ), an end-user's preferences for that browser, and attempt to modify them is too much to hope for for quite a while. What would happen, then, if the end-user did not have the helper app the revlet programmer wished to use on their computer, would the revlet reach out to the relevant website and start downloading the appropriate version for the end-user's OS? If for no other very good reason I can see the main objection to this being that I for one wouldn't really want all sorts of revlets (as well as other plug-in stuff from other RADs) merrily playing pat-ball with my helper app settings and stuffing my hard disks, willy-nilly, with all sorts of helper apps that might, in the long term, not be of much help at all (except for the nonce) and make my system grind to a halt because the hard disks don't have enough swap space left to function properly. It all seems, oddly enough, to open the way to nasty characters using revlets as virus-delivery devices. If a revlet in my browser pops up a dialog window that says Permit download of Fastplay, my first inclination (being fairly naive) is to assume that because it comes from Runtime Revolution it is OK; but, of course it doesn't come from RR, it comes from a programmer who owns (or has got his/her sweaty paws on a pirate copy) RR, and may be up to nothing very good at all. Sorry if this all seems very poisonous and negative, but . . . Richard Gaskin wrote: Sivakatirswami wrote: Richard Gaskin wrote: snip Agree, an unhobbled option would be very useful. I've also proposed in the past that this helper application/Player, just like iTunes only comes from Apple, (Real Player from Real, Flash from Adobe etc.) be available from an official RunRev site. I can see security issues being of some concern, obviously, but if Apple and Adobe can do it, why not RunRev in Edinburgh? Does it require anything from them? In Firefox one can assign a default application to run downloaded files of a given type. IIRC such a setting is available in IE and Safari as well. Providing instructions to the user is one way, but it would be ever so cool to be able to have it just work, as iTunes links do. There must be some way, even if it requires a one-time explicit approval from the user, to allow an app to set this up for them. -- snip ___ use-revolution mailing list use-revolution@lists.runrev.com Please visit this url to subscribe, unsubscribe and manage your subscription preferences: http://lists.runrev.com/mailman/listinfo/use-revolution
Re: EduTainment Titles
Richmond, Your rant is somewhat unfair and ignores the bulk of instructional design research that has taken place over the years. Yes -- FORCE them to do it, and make it as unintuitive and boring as possible -- and some WILL still learn regardless. The main idea behind EduTainment done well is that you can give it to students and have them VOLUNTARILY spend FREE TIME learning. With the other method? goodluckwiththat. Judy On Mon, 22 Jun 2009, Richmond Mathewson wrote: To be honest the word 'EduTainment' makes me feel extremely queasy. Conservative rant follows. There has arisen, in the English-speaking world at least, a theory that children always have to have 'sugar' wrapped round 'the pill' as if, in some way, educational material is not sufficient in and of itself, and that children will only learn if the information is presented as entertainment. Of course on a strict diet of edutainment children will be so mentally crippled that when they actually have to sit down and do some good, honest, hard work they will be quite incapable. One of the reasons I moved from Scotland (my country) to Bulgaria (my wife's country) with all its manifest short-comings (when compared to 'the West') was that the idea of edutainment had not permeated the system to anything near the extent it has in Britain. As a result my sons are laying down a serious foundation to life-long learning instead of playing all sorts of educational games fit for Elementary kids in the last years of High school. --- I successfully marketed a CD (authored in Runtime Revolution) for 12 year-olds to prepared themselves for High School entry exams in Bulgarian literature; no pictures (well, we printed the heads of half-a-dozen Bulgarian authors on the label side of the CD), only texts referring to literary analysis and themes, and a few multiple choice quizzes on literary content. The cover made no bones about the CD's content. It was the 12 year olds who bought the disk, not a rabble of overly ambitious parents. This was what the children required (after all, they could rent videos of cinema treatments of most of the books should they really want a visual feast), and they knew that. - I am well aware, Sivakatirswami , that your agenda largely consists of religious instruction. This has, of course, become unfashionable of late. However, when I was at school (in England) nobody made any bones about it; you just got on and read your scripture; and by that I mean that the children's version of Bible stories, Mahabharata, or what ever, was cleared away with other childish things fairly quickly; and replaced with the real thing - strong meat! I see a very real risk that if children are constantly fed the Children's Bible they will be quite unable to cope with the real thing when, far too late, it is presented to them. This is rather like a friend of mine, who, when I was reading 'Robur the Conqueror' (Verne) at 11, said he would never be able to read it because it had no colour pictures in it. The poor boy had been so 'poisoned' on a diet of picture books that he was quite unable to summon up any imagery in his own mind. Therefore while I can see the place and the use of 'edutainment' as a way of easing children into learning, I would be wary of getting too obsessed with it; lest (c.f. my earlier reference to 'Maya') it swamp the educational aspect. It is perfectly possible to present educational materials in an interesting and absorbing fashion without cheapening it all with tainment. Through the summer months my work-load is somewhat lighter, and I shall essay to upload to my website some screenshots of my EFL programs with notes on the target ages they are aimed at; so that everybody can see that the tainment can be minimised at a comparatively early age just as long as the child's attention is held. Sivakatirswami wrote: Lynn and Richmond: Thank you so much for all the insights into the industry standards All very useful. I have added this to my respository of production standards resources. You have offered some really useful points. A few simple replies before I go off the deep end of musing. 1) I totally agree that content is king, not software wizardry. Thanks for the reminder. 2) It's not that I'm focusing too much on the techology here. as Lynn saw it... rather I'm interested in the *delivery channel/ mechanisms* 3) My original request was: can I buy some/see some titles? Richard? Let me see your stuff! (smile) One could conclude from you
Re: EduTainment Titles
udy Perry wrote: Richmond, Your rant is somewhat unfair and ignores the bulk of instructional design research that has taken place over the years. Um, Yes; probably slanted too much in one direction; but mainly as a reaction to too much in the other. To be fair; I gave warning, and characterised it as a 'rant' rather than trying to palm it off as a piece of sweet reasonableness. :) - Warning; Reasonableness follows. ___ Also; good educational programming can be intuitive and interesting without becoming so 'tainment' that there is a risk of the 'edu' getting swallowed alive. Yes -- FORCE them to do it, and make it as unintuitive and boring as possible -- and some WILL still learn regardless. The main idea behind EduTainment done well is that you can give it to students and have them VOLUNTARILY spend FREE TIME learning. Force? Not really, but I do think it is important that children should learn the distinction between what we might like to term pure learning and pure play; most of my programs probably lie further to one end of the intervening continuum than to the other. However I am not in the business of churning out soul-destroying little numbers that might come from some latter-day Dickensian schoolroom complete with computerised caning machines (the iThwackum no doubt). As the children I work with grow older and their level of English becomes better I tend to move away from the 'tainment' end of the spectrum towards the 'edu' end; however there is always room for goofy pictures to keep the smiles going. I just don't want to lose sight of the ball while I am running through the garden full of lovely, distracting flowers. With the other method? goodluckwiththat. My 13 year old has just spent a month cranking away at Maths problems as, tomorrow, he has a Maths exam which (along with one in Bulgarian language and literature) will determine whether he gets into a good school, the bargain basement, or somewhere in between. For that he has had to get his head down and done buckets of boring Maths - not what I would choose, and, Judy, something that would probably make you blench. But it is hard to see how one would separate out the good, bad and the ugly in any other way. Bulgarian children, at least, see my educational programs as a breath of fresh air beside the stagnant, old-fashioned, rote-learning oriented stuff that is dished out to them in state schools; and the sort of computer-deliverables they are subjected to at the EFL factories just down the high street here. As I studied instructional design principles at Abertay (even though the lecturer hardly ever bothered to turn up to the lectures, and, on one famous occasion, suggested that 2 other students and myself should do the teaching as he felt a bit tired), as well as looking into a fair bit of that, both when I was doing my MA in Carbondale, and when trying to make visually rich programs in a University where one had to be jolly careful not to upset Wahabi Islamic sensibilities, I am well aware of them; and use them. I sincerely hope, that within a couple of weeks with the advent of the RR 4.0 betas I will be able to have a couple of my programs up, embedded in webpages for everybody to have a look at. -- It will be really great fun if as many people in the, err, Edu ... tainment game could upload samples of their stuff so that we teachers could do some jolly old compare and contrast exercises. --- Sorry, Judy, I had to chop off the rest of the posting as the Use-List bot sent me a message saying that everything was too long. R ___ use-revolution mailing list use-revolution@lists.runrev.com Please visit this url to subscribe, unsubscribe and manage your subscription preferences: http://lists.runrev.com/mailman/listinfo/use-revolution
Re: EduTainment Titles
Judy: I second your motion that it is possible to make something fascinating enough to encourage young people to go swimming in the knowledge pool, and then want dive in again tomorrow. Richmond: It is perfectly possible to present educational materials in an interesting and absorbing fashion without cheapening it all with tainment By what logic is entertainment necessarily cheap ? In fact the best entertainment is very expensive! N'est ce pas? Here at the monastery we watch TV and have EDU nights. I find most TED talks extremely entertaining. (Not everyone does, but I do) ( Every Revolution programmer should run (not walk) to view the TED talk Hole in the Wall . BBC Documentaries by brave anthropologists trekking into rain forests talking with indigenous peoples, are both, educational and entertaining, but cost 100's of thousand of pounds to produce-- not cheap. http://www.ted.com/index.php/talks/sugata_mitra_shows_how_kids_teach_themselves.html) We have RunRev 10 Thumbs typing program here and young Potriyan from Malaysia spent his summer vacation in Hawaii and he loved that program. It's very well designed. he found it entertaining and got up to 50words a minute error free typing, so... tainment does not necessarily mean it has to be silly song and dance show... intellectually challenging can be very entertaining -- beautiful graphics (theoretically our forte) are entertaining The original Snakes and Ladders games was designed in India. We have a copy of the original game, it is *incredibly* sophisticated and pedagogical at the same time... A sanskrit scholar was visiting from India recently, we had him translate for us all 280 squares... It could take you days and days playing this thing, all you do is roll dice but you learn a lot. But very entertaining (and even humorous... if you roll the dice and you are on a particular square you may slide off the board and end up on Jaina territory... very in joke... but educational, Jainism is not Hinduism... i.e. off the board. Entertaining. In this case, something that fits Lynns model: technological bells and whistles are minimal (roll dice: up a ladder or down a snake) but the content is super rich. This would suggest that a given eduTainment software title, is only as cheap as it's content and design. Richard: Thank you for the wonderful analysis: You are quite right, our little ebooks are really just that: print matter repurposed onto cards... I have a few much cooler things in the hopper. In delivering educational materials, it adds value to deliver it in an application to the degree that the material is dependent on interaction. well said... Back on my original point here: Send me examples! so far I have off list some excellent things: Sona Vocabulary; Learn Japanese Sllabaries, Randal's excellent little tutor's Baseball Math, Word Racer, State Capitals SE. Randals pieces are marvelous examples of reducing a learning task to very small modular units, that are digestible by very young and fit the kind of delivery context I thinking of. They are focused on the learning with just a tad of gaming edge, enough to pull the students along... State Capitals SE I found quite entertaining. good job... Richmond and Judy! Send me some of your titles (smile) (or point me to where I can buy them) Sivakatirswami ___ use-revolution mailing list use-revolution@lists.runrev.com Please visit this url to subscribe, unsubscribe and manage your subscription preferences: http://lists.runrev.com/mailman/listinfo/use-revolution
Re: EduTainment Titles
Sivakatirswami wrote: Au contraire... , I already have a number of titles, for free, on the internet. If you look at access logs, I see a lot of traffic to these pages, but not a lot of downloads. http://himalayanacademy.com/resources/children/dws_youth/ http://himalayanacademy.com/resources/children/yamas_niyamas/ (I think if you try these you will have to agree I'm not into super technology... the one complaint being they lack sound...) Meanwhile: PDF's here: http://himalayanacademy.com/resources/children/SaivaHR_course/ on the other hand are downloaded at the rate of 2000-3000 a month consistently year after year. There may be other factors at play with these download rates than just the formats. For example, on the download page for the apps you have a form, but there is no form on the page with the PDF links. If you read the app page carefully you'll understand that the download doesn't actually require the user to fill in the form, but for someone in a hurry (read, Most folks in the 'net g) that may not be clear. In contrast, the links to the PDFs occur on a page with no form at all, just a simple inviting link. So just moving the form to a separate page and making the free download more readily understood as a one-click operation may boost downloads there significantly. But also, the nature of the apps is more about reading than doing. The doing in those apps is limited pretty much to navigation, with the core content being primarily textual (though there are some very nice supporting graphics and animations). The text is the real value to those apps (very good reminders for all of us about right mindfullness; I really enjoyed reading them), but being textual they lend themselves equally well to being in a PDF or even in HTML. On the other extreme we have apps like Dynamic Digital Maps and Reactor Lab: http://ddm.geo.umass.edu/ http://reactorlab.net/ These apps are richly dependent on doing, with any textual elements merely supporting the intensely interactive nature of these apps. Both of these were made with Rev, and both have an educational focus but each would be very difficult to build as web pages. And IIRC they also provide offline modes, which are generally not supported with purely browser-based apps (no control over local file I/O). So when comparing adoption rates of apps to documents like PDF, I believe there's a lot more going on than just the format. Like McLuhan told us, The medium is the message: In deliver educational materials, it adds value to deliver it in an application to the degree that the material is dependent on interaction. -- Richard Gaskin Fourth World Revolution training and consulting: http://www.fourthworld.com Webzine for Rev developers: http://www.revjournal.com ___ use-revolution mailing list use-revolution@lists.runrev.com Please visit this url to subscribe, unsubscribe and manage your subscription preferences: http://lists.runrev.com/mailman/listinfo/use-revolution
Re: EduTainment Titles
Richard Gaskin wrote: So when comparing adoption rates of apps to documents like PDF, I believe there's a lot more going on than just the format. Like McLuhan told us, The medium is the message: Actually, he said it was the massage. ;-) Curry ___ use-revolution mailing list use-revolution@lists.runrev.com Please visit this url to subscribe, unsubscribe and manage your subscription preferences: http://lists.runrev.com/mailman/listinfo/use-revolution
Re: EduTainment Titles
To be honest the word 'EduTainment' makes me feel extremely queasy. Conservative rant follows. There has arisen, in the English-speaking world at least, a theory that children always have to have 'sugar' wrapped round 'the pill' as if, in some way, educational material is not sufficient in and of itself, and that children will only learn if the information is presented as entertainment. Of course on a strict diet of edutainment children will be so mentally crippled that when they actually have to sit down and do some good, honest, hard work they will be quite incapable. One of the reasons I moved from Scotland (my country) to Bulgaria (my wife's country) with all its manifest short-comings (when compared to 'the West') was that the idea of edutainment had not permeated the system to anything near the extent it has in Britain. As a result my sons are laying down a serious foundation to life-long learning instead of playing all sorts of educational games fit for Elementary kids in the last years of High school. --- I successfully marketed a CD (authored in Runtime Revolution) for 12 year-olds to prepared themselves for High School entry exams in Bulgarian literature; no pictures (well, we printed the heads of half-a-dozen Bulgarian authors on the label side of the CD), only texts referring to literary analysis and themes, and a few multiple choice quizzes on literary content. The cover made no bones about the CD's content. It was the 12 year olds who bought the disk, not a rabble of overly ambitious parents. This was what the children required (after all, they could rent videos of cinema treatments of most of the books should they really want a visual feast), and they knew that. - I am well aware, Sivakatirswami , that your agenda largely consists of religious instruction. This has, of course, become unfashionable of late. However, when I was at school (in England) nobody made any bones about it; you just got on and read your scripture; and by that I mean that the children's version of Bible stories, Mahabharata, or what ever, was cleared away with other childish things fairly quickly; and replaced with the real thing - strong meat! I see a very real risk that if children are constantly fed the Children's Bible they will be quite unable to cope with the real thing when, far too late, it is presented to them. This is rather like a friend of mine, who, when I was reading 'Robur the Conqueror' (Verne) at 11, said he would never be able to read it because it had no colour pictures in it. The poor boy had been so 'poisoned' on a diet of picture books that he was quite unable to summon up any imagery in his own mind. Therefore while I can see the place and the use of 'edutainment' as a way of easing children into learning, I would be wary of getting too obsessed with it; lest (c.f. my earlier reference to 'Maya') it swamp the educational aspect. It is perfectly possible to present educational materials in an interesting and absorbing fashion without cheapening it all with tainment. Through the summer months my work-load is somewhat lighter, and I shall essay to upload to my website some screenshots of my EFL programs with notes on the target ages they are aimed at; so that everybody can see that the tainment can be minimised at a comparatively early age just as long as the child's attention is held. Sivakatirswami wrote: Lynn and Richmond: Thank you so much for all the insights into the industry standards All very useful. I have added this to my respository of production standards resources. You have offered some really useful points. A few simple replies before I go off the deep end of musing. 1) I totally agree that content is king, not software wizardry. Thanks for the reminder. 2) It's not that I'm focusing too much on the techology here. as Lynn saw it... rather I'm interested in the *delivery channel/ mechanisms* 3) My original request was: can I buy some/see some titles? Richard? Let me see your stuff! (smile) One could conclude from you comments (simplistically) Make and deliver standalones; forget about the internet except as a shopping mechanism i.e. If you can get the client(s) to download (purchase, get on CD... whatever) a standalone that has excellent (even if technically simple) content, clearly branded which runs easily on any machine, without an internet connection, then probably you will be reaching a larger audience in the long run because the connectivity issues are bigger than anyone wants to
RE: EduTainment Titles
Hi Sivakatirswami, With the advent of Rev Stacks running inside a browser, there is interest here in our shop with the idea of doing educational stackware. The perception that such titles by CD would probably never do well compared to a) distributing printed materials b) PDF's of the same c) Some Browser app led to us never putting any energy into educational stackware. The run a stack in a browser changes the equation, big time. You might be focusing too much on the techology here. Almost every major educational software company and major academic press house in the USA has licensed Valentina. Most of them are using Director, a few Ive pursuaded to get into Revolution. One thing is clear to me though is that they choose solutions that have lean tech requirements and focus almost entirely on the content itself. Here's sort of a short list of what I see in common between them: 1. Focus on the content. Almost all work they do is towards making the content compeling to their audience - really rich audio, interesting graphics and video and the like. Interesting meaning, it may either be very special and on topic, or it could be fun or exciting on the branding side. 2. Minimize recommended configurations. They make sure the titles can work without a web browser, best even without any internet connection at all. A lot of school labs which account for very profitable volume sales will have highly controlled internet access. If it cannot run without an internet connection, its often a no buy. 3. Easy to use local management. If its an application that benefits from lab level administration, make the teacher side of it easy to set up. A lot of Valentina customers get our Bonjour add-on because they can simplifiy a lot of lab level configuration by using it. 4. Protect Privacy. This is a big one - if your software tests understanding/comprehension/etc, then make it secure. 5. Branding. Just one title doesn't really cut it; come up with several titles that can have a shared brand. When you ship your first title, make sure you can transfer your branding efforts to new titles. In most cases - these companies do not push the limit of what Director (or Revolution) can do - they don't want to, because it means they won't be able to be used in so many schools. Best regards, Lynn Fredricks President Paradigma Software http://www.paradigmasoft.com Valentina SQL Server: The Ultra-fast, Royalty Free Database Server ___ use-revolution mailing list use-revolution@lists.runrev.com Please visit this url to subscribe, unsubscribe and manage your subscription preferences: http://lists.runrev.com/mailman/listinfo/use-revolution
Re: EduTainment Titles
Dear Sivakatirswami, In all the institututions I have worked in where I have prepared education content delivery and reinforcement programs over the last 15 years the following have held true: Most programs have been held on a local server (SIUC, UAE University) or on individual computers (St Andrews, My school). In the case of the UAE that was because that is a conservative society with a conservative educational ethos who did not want their students to have internet access. At SIUC and St Andrews the applications were for use by students on specific programs in specific computer labs. In my own school I have no internet access at all as it is not required. At St Andrews we ran some tests and found that programs on individual machines tended to run faster, and load more quickly, than when stored on a server. As Hard Drives are not the most expensive items on an educational institution's budget storage space never came up as a problem. Lynn Fredricks wrote: Hi Sivakatirswami, With the advent of Rev Stacks running inside a browser, there is interest here in our shop with the idea of doing educational stackware. The perception that such titles by CD would probably never do well compared to a) distributing printed materials b) PDF's of the same c) Some Browser app led to us never putting any energy into educational stackware. The run a stack in a browser changes the equation, big time. You might be focusing too much on the techology here. Almost every major educational software company and major academic press house in the USA has licensed Valentina. Most of them are using Director, a few Ive pursuaded to get into Revolution. One thing is clear to me though is that they choose solutions that have lean tech requirements and focus almost entirely on the content itself. Here's sort of a short list of what I see in common between them: 1. Focus on the content. Almost all work they do is towards making the content compeling to their audience - really rich audio, interesting graphics and video and the like. Interesting meaning, it may either be very special and on topic, or it could be fun or exciting on the branding side. Yes, Yes, Yes: your first goal is to engage the student, and, presumably, not have them so turned on by the jazzy technology that they lose sight of the content you want them to focus on. 2. Minimize recommended configurations. They make sure the titles can work without a web browser, best even without any internet connection at all. A lot of school labs which account for very profitable volume sales will have highly controlled internet access. If it cannot run without an internet connection, its often a no buy. - My own applications are bog basic in terms of technology: I could, if I wished, have all sorts of jazzy extras (and I take out my frustration in not being able to use them by lobbing them at Use-List members). However, an exercise in self-discipline is required here, and one must eschew the bells and whistles lest one lose-sight of the rationale behind the whole exercise (I believe the Sanskrit term for this type of distraction is 'Maya' - and, about 5 feet from the keyboard I am using right now I have a statue of Lord Shiva with his foot firmly placed on the back of a Mara; an agent of Maya). -- 3. Easy to use local management. If its an application that benefits from lab level administration, make the teacher side of it easy to set up. A lot of Valentina customers get our Bonjour add-on because they can simplifiy a lot of lab level configuration by using it. Just bung the programs on the classroom server. 4. Protect Privacy. This is a big one - if your software tests understanding/comprehension/etc, then make it secure. 5. Branding. Just one title doesn't really cut it; come up with several titles that can have a shared brand. When you ship your first title, make sure you can transfer your branding efforts to new titles. And, something that I think is very important here; a fairly standardised, and recognisable interface style. So that when a student fires up one of your applications s/he can say Ah, one of those programs and feel comfortable and relaxed; and, as a consequence, open to new instruction. Once in a while I go funny and try out a new interface style in a program - always a mistake - the kids I teach, have, over a period of time, got used to the 'Richmond style' and respond well to it - and when faced with a new interface get seriously discombobulated. Now as my main aim is to shoe-horn some English into the kids' heads, a change in interface is merely churlish and counterproductive. In most cases - these companies do not push the limit of what Director (or Revolution) can do - they don't want to, because it means they won't be able to be
Re: EduTainment Titles
Lynn and Richmond: Thank you so much for all the insights into the industry standards All very useful. I have added this to my respository of production standards resources. You have offered some really useful points. A few simple replies before I go off the deep end of musing. 1) I totally agree that content is king, not software wizardry. Thanks for the reminder. 2) It's not that I'm focusing too much on the techology here. as Lynn saw it... rather I'm interested in the *delivery channel/ mechanisms* 3) My original request was: can I buy some/see some titles? Richard? Let me see your stuff! (smile) One could conclude from you comments (simplistically) Make and deliver standalones; forget about the internet except as a shopping mechanism i.e. If you can get the client(s) to download (purchase, get on CD... whatever) a standalone that has excellent (even if technically simple) content, clearly branded which runs easily on any machine, without an internet connection, then probably you will be reaching a larger audience in the long run because the connectivity issues are bigger than anyone wants to admit. deep end dive But this simply leads to more questions Au contraire... , I already have a number of titles, for free, on the internet. If you look at access logs, I see a lot of traffic to these pages, but not a lot of downloads. http://himalayanacademy.com/resources/children/dws_youth/ http://himalayanacademy.com/resources/children/yamas_niyamas/ (I think if you try these you will have to agree I'm not into super technology... the one complaint being they lack sound...) Meanwhile: PDF's here: http://himalayanacademy.com/resources/children/SaivaHR_course/ on the other hand are downloaded at the rate of 2000-3000 a month consistently year after year. Our Vedic Calendars http://himalayanacademy.com/resources/panchangam/; get (and this is no exaggeration) 200,000 plus downloads a year. (my goodness we should start charging something, if only $1.50 each) What does this tell us? I don't know for sure. Perhaps our packaging is just lousy, or the resistance to downloading executables is higher than one might expect, which then militates against your thesis that people will only use a product that can runs off the internet, but they don't want to get it off the internet, but I don't want to go into physical CD production (sales packaging, shipping order handling etc...), catch 22. Our Hinduism Today Digital Edition (Rev desktop thin client, PDF manager) on the other hand has been downloaded 15,000 copies. Why? higher profile, strong need? Sidebar: I deal with an asian/indian/malaysian/mauritian/singaporean audience, which is frankly (sorry to say it but it's true) easily 10-5 years ahead of the US admin establishment in terms of moving forward in the digital revolution, at least at home...if not always in schools, but even in some schools, where you may have a high resistance to internet connections in a US context, there will be little to none in a similar Asian context where the admin is so technically advanced they have no problem dealing with filtering content etc. So whether the paradigm of a paranoid protect our kids from porn edu, universe should inform our decision moving forward is yet another question mark. Well obviously we want to protect our kids, but there are lots of ways to protect without shutting down the pipeline completely. But, if Flash is any model to measure by, even a modicum of success in getting people to download a plug-in to run stacks in a browser is likely to blow away the numbers of those who may never download an executable, which, by our experience so far, is still quite low/high resistance. Since band width is still an issue, obviously a small modules model will be needed. So, there I came full circle: I would like to see some e.g titles of good edutainment ware. Dear Sivakatirswami, In all the institututions I have worked in where I have prepared education content delivery and reinforcement programs over the last 15 years the following have held true: Most programs have been held on a local server (SIUC, UAE University) or on individual computers (St Andrews, My school). In the case of the UAE that was because that is a conservative society with a conservative educational ethos who did not want their students to have internet access. At SIUC and St Andrews the applications were for use by students on specific programs in specific computer labs. In my own school I have no internet access at all as it is not required. At St Andrews we ran some tests and found that programs on individual machines tended to run faster, and load more quickly, than when stored on a server. As Hard Drives are not the most expensive items on an educational institution's budget storage space never came up as a problem. Lynn Fredricks wrote: Hi Sivakatirswami, With the advent of Rev Stacks running inside a
EduTainment Titles
With the advent of Rev Stacks running inside a browser, there is interest here in our shop with the idea of doing educational stackware. The perception that such titles by CD would probably never do well compared to a) distributing printed materials b) PDF's of the same c) Some Browser app led to us never putting any energy into educational stackware. The run a stack in a browser changes the equation, big time. I'm interested in purchasing some existing well done eduware done in Revolution, either by downloads or on CD's as studies of examples. I should add that since the team here is somewhat advanced in terms of graphic design, the first impression based on the eye candy factor of your titles will be pretty high...with gorgeous GUI will fly better (= the Scott Rossi Factor). But simple is also fine. Please contact me off list with any titles and points of purchase, edu-tainment (games that teach) are also OK. Thanks Sivakatirswami ka...@hindu.org ___ use-revolution mailing list use-revolution@lists.runrev.com Please visit this url to subscribe, unsubscribe and manage your subscription preferences: http://lists.runrev.com/mailman/listinfo/use-revolution
Re: EduTainment Titles
Sivakatirswami wrote: With the advent of Rev Stacks running inside a browser, there is interest here in our shop with the idea of doing educational stackware. The perception that such titles by CD would probably never do well compared to a) distributing printed materials b) PDF's of the same c) Some Browser app This raises a question that I haven't seen a simple answer to: Are there methods for each platform by which an application could assign itself as the helper app for a given file type extension when linked to within a web page? This would let any of us make player apps for stuff, and just clicking it would download and run it like iTunes links. Doable? I realize that's not nearly as convenient as the browser plugin, but that plugin is still several months away and when it's available it won't have an offline mode that one could build into a player (file I/O and other normal options available to apps but verboten for plugins). -- Richard Gaskin Fourth World Revolution training and consulting: http://www.fourthworld.com Webzine for Rev developers: http://www.revjournal.com ___ use-revolution mailing list use-revolution@lists.runrev.com Please visit this url to subscribe, unsubscribe and manage your subscription preferences: http://lists.runrev.com/mailman/listinfo/use-revolution
Re: EduTainment Titles
Richard Gaskin wrote: Sivakatirswami wrote: With the advent of Rev Stacks running inside a browser, there is interest here in our shop with the idea of doing educational stackware. The perception that such titles by CD would probably never do well compared to a) distributing printed materials b) PDF's of the same c) Some Browser app This raises a question that I haven't seen a simple answer to: Are there methods for each platform by which an application could assign itself as the helper app for a given file type extension when linked to within a web page? This would let any of us make player apps for stuff, and just clicking it would download and run it like iTunes links. Doable? I realize that's not nearly as convenient as the browser plugin, but that plugin is still several months away and when it's available it won't have an offline mode that one could build into a player (file I/O and other normal options available to apps but verboten for plugins). -- Richard Gaskin Agree, an unhobbled option would be very useful. I've also proposed in the past that this helper application/Player, just like iTunes only comes from Apple, (Real Player from Real, Flash from Adobe etc.) be available from an official RunRev site. I can see security issues being of some concern, obviously, but if Apple and Adobe can do it, why not RunRev in Edinburgh? With the widespread sterotypical perception of the strodgy conservatism of UK, trust factor for a product from Edinborough will be very high (smile) vs. every Tom, Dick US Cowboy and Cowgirl Revolution programmer offering their own helper app. Just kidding.. but you get the point. ___ use-revolution mailing list use-revolution@lists.runrev.com Please visit this url to subscribe, unsubscribe and manage your subscription preferences: http://lists.runrev.com/mailman/listinfo/use-revolution
