Pablo Moreno-Ger’s blog

As promised, this post is written from the Netherlands. I am working at the Educational Technology Expertise Center in the Open University of the Netherlands in Heerlen.

I’m doing a reseach stay with Daniel Burgos in the Development Program, directed by Prof. Rob Koper. We’re working in the integration of the <e-Game> engine with the CopperCore IMS Learning Design player. In a fancy setup, we’re trying to get SLED to launch in the student’s computer a small adventure game as one of the activities from a Unit of Learning. After launched, the game should be adapted to whatever happened in the previous stages of the unit (namely, the previous knowledge of the learner) and when the game finishes, it should report the outcomes of the game to the CopperCore engine so that the rest of the UoL is in turn affected by the outcome. Technologically, lots of SOAP, lots of Java and the wonderful design of the CooperCore Service Integration layer.

Hungry readers will already be wondering: Wassup with the chocolate? It’s coming. From two sides, actually. First a picture, so you get the proper frame of mind:

First, on our proof-of-concept Unit of Learning for the work at OUNL. Provisional title: The Art and Craft of Chocolate. After some initial tests on learner knowledge, we launch this adventure game in which the player is responsible for Paniel, a young student at Le Cordon Bleu learning advanced techniques dealing with chocolate. Sweet sauces, bitter sauces, salty sauces, combinations of chocolate with exotic materials, etc. Nice theme, huh? The player is required to do some research and then prepare a variety of sauces with different styles. Once the player is satiasfied with his arsenal, he can move on to the final test: A practial exam in a restaurant with real customers. The customers have different tastes and Paniel has to infer which of his sauces will satisfy better each client and with what dish they should be served. After the exam, the Unit of Learning continues. More information on that project should be available around Christmas.

Then, I wanted to report my experience this weekend in Cologne. In addition to a nice (but dark and spooky) cathedral, Cologne hosts the Museum of Chocolate, with detailed descriptions of the history and the process of chocolate, a fountain of chocolate that you can actually taste, a tropical garden and a long etc. The pic is actually from the visit to the museum… unfortunately, there was a wall of glass keeping me away from all that melted chocolate.

Obviously I was required to go there as part of my field research (ahem), and I ended up finding game-based learning hidden in a corner. What happens to be relevant was a touchscreen that was going mostly unnoticed but actually included a number of mini-games trying to put some points across. The most interesting one was actually a trading game on the (shameful) history of chocolate. Get some brass, some lanterns, some weapons and a bit of silver in europe and set sail to Africa. Sell some brass there and load the ship with slaves. Set sail to america, sell the slaves and load cocoa beans. Back to europe and some accounting: you spent some 6.000 silver coins and earned some 50.000. Point taken.

A nice way to express a crude reality without hiding it. Very sincere and illustrative. There were also some other minigames on the production, identification of trading vessels and cocoa beans. It is a pity that the machine was going unnoticed and was hidden in a corner. Hopefully, it is actually a good tool when you’re in the guided tour, but visiting on your own it goes rather unnoticed. We’re on the way, but still far from there.

Pics from Cologne and the museum coming when I get up to date with the thousands of photos pending publication.

Well, there goes my half-promise of updating every other week after September. If this research blog is “my creature”, it follows that, in all the world, I’m the person who cares more about it and I keep failing to pay it proper attention. So, what will the rest of the world think? Easy guess. Fortunately readers may have such a thing as RSS aggregators that allow them to ignore this blog until something interesting happens in it and their aggregator tells them. Easy excuse.

Moving on, let’s talk game-based learning. My latest chore was a visit to the ICEC 2006 Conference in Cambridge, UK. I spoke about <e-Game> there with an audience that knew what a game was, that accepted that games and education match (weeee!) and where noone raised a hand when I asked who did not know Monkey Island (well, actually one person did, but he didn’t understand the question properly). In retrospection, maybe it was because I asked the question in negative, and that means I counted in all the attendants that were actually asleep as positive votes. To keep my morale up, from now on I will always ask these questions in negative.

The approach was reasonably well received, maybe slightly technical for part of the audience, but I perceived interest. Andrè Melzer (second appearance in this blog!) seemed interested and we discussed about the possibility of turning that personal interest into an institutional interest from the Univeristy of Lübeck.

Speaking of the University of Lübeck, it’s curious how its Institute for Multimedia and Interactive Systems keeps doing stuff that is almost games, without really being games. With the incredibly original ideas they have (on this conference Andrè Melzer spoke about interactive radio plays and Wendy Ann Mansilla spoke about using Acousmêtre in virtual environments), they could enter the game-based learning arena as a storm and really come up with original ideas.

Obviously in a conference about entertainment computing it is difficult to extract only a few papers for a decent-sized blog entry without leaving out a lot of interesting works. Let’s just point out some adjectives:

The curious: Wim van Eck presenting a paper describing their experiences in designing games with real animals within. On the premise that animals are unpredictable and non-deterministic, they conducted a pilot in which they created a pac-man game connected to a camera that looks at some crickets hanging around and translates their real movement to the ghosts in the computer game. Do check it out, it is really interesting.

The true game-based learning: Colleague Pedro Gonzalez Calero presenting the evolution of JV²M, a true game specifically designed to learn the inner workings of the Java Virtual Machine (for a Theory of Compilers subject). Developed by the people sitting next to me in my office, by the way. It will be easy to keep an eye on that project

The game-related: The most game-related talks were actually the keynotes. Emotions in game design, casual games and hardcore gaming rankings and matching. Hard to decide which was more pure gaming. Let’s give Microsoft this one.

The trend: Lot’s works coming from Asia related to hand motion recognition. In all flavours: Using an active glove, using a glove with beacons, recognizing the movement of the bare hand, you name it. Those were different works by different groups in different countries. See a trend? If you are looking for a new line of research, consider that one.

Other notes: Dutch people innovating in Dance Dance Revolution and similars, a lot of interactive storyelling, several GPS-based games (I should really explore that area) and lots of reflections in the relations between games and emotions.

In any case, this is a shallow selection. There were a lot of great talks, so check the conference’s website (they promised to eventually post the presentations there… still waiting) and the proceedings. You won’t regret it.

As for the conference organization: Superb. Nice location, nice facilities, and a nice information flow. Buses to pick us up in the center of the city (and drop us there), two dinners, lunch included. A weird”gala” dinner including live music by a rock band, which is a very interesting twist from traditional conferences. Kudos to them.

The research facilities that Microsoft has in Cambridge look like a wonderful place to produce good science. They even had a XBOX-360 in the common area, which connects with the ranting bit of this post: If this was a Entertainment Computing conference, how comes I didn’t see anyone approach it during the entire conference other than myself and my colleague Pedro González Calero? We can’t talk about entertainment if we never have fun, we can’t talk about games if we don’t like games.

Next post from the Netherlands, I’m visiting the Educational Technology Expertise Center at the Open University of the Netherlands with Daniel Burgos as host researcher, where we will explore the integration of games authored with <e-Game> and Units of Learning following IMS Learning Design.

Once again, a long time between posts. I am expecting a rough September but, after that, posts should become more frequent (every other week, I hope). Last post came from Boston, while I was working at the Laboratory of Computer Science (Mass General Hospital / Harvard Medical School).

My research stay was a great experience. It was refreshing to be immersed in a different work culture, which by the way I found much more challenging and interesting than the rather stale model we have in the Spanish academic field. Our paper-publication model, with all its flaws, cheats and bad effects in the quality of our science is substituted with a model based on actual products that work. Mind you, I’m not stating I prefer that model, for I haven’t been working in that context for long enough so as to detect its own flaws.

In any case, it was surprising to meet there, in that product-oriented research facility, a far more open-minded approach to innovation and different things. A token of that was the reaction to my ideas regarding game-based learning. In the “open” and “free” environment of my univeristy those ideas are at least tolerated and, at best, seen as amusing. On the other hand, at the lab the idea was taken as new ideas should be understood in science: “Hey, it might be worthless but it might be a bomb… let’s follow that line and see where it goes”. That’s the best that a plan for introducing things with a bad reputation (that is, games) in a serious process could hope for. And the LCS really had that spirit. I mentioned it during a meal and 48 hours later the Lab had devoted some money to purchasing a promising game. Getting my univeristy to pay for a videogame… well, I don’t even want to think about that.

So, kudos to the LCS for their attitude, thanks for having me there, thanks for listening, thanks for teaching me and, most of all, thanks for involving me. From a professional perspective, those have been the most interesting months in my career so far.

It has been a long time since I last wrote anything in this blog, so I would just want to let any potential readers know that I have not forgotten about the blog or my research.

One of the main reasons for the lack of recent posts is that I’m currently enjoying a research stay at the Harvard Medical School / Massachusetts General Hospital Laboratory of Computer Science in Boston. Actually I have been here since May 1st, invited by Carl R. Blesius.

I’m having a great time and doing some very interesting stuff (I would say I’ll keep you posted, but I’d rather not make promises without being sure I will keep them). This includes participating in a variety of projects for different (medicine-related) clients, always with stuff related to .LRN.

The bad part is that what I’m doing here, although interesting and very related to e-learning and standards, is not directly related to Game Based Learning, so the <e-Game> project is kind of suspended until summer.

On the other hand, the group now has the collaboration of a new student, Bruno Torrijano, who is making a great job to keep the project running in my absence (he’s writing some very interesting stuff using the <e-Game> language).

In the meantime, we have received positive reviews for our submissions to the ECTEL 2006 and the ICEC 2006 conferences, where we will be presenting different advances in the development of the <e-Game> project. More information about this soon (or late).

As a final note, I uploaded some new photos to the album from my 2004 vacation on the Mediterranean (with a slight delay). I also have photos from the ITNG 2006 Conference (Las Vegas) and the CELDA 2005 Conference (Porto) that I will eventually post.

The end of the year approaches and the conferences keep coming. The last trip of the year was the second IADIS Conference on Cognition and Exploratory Learning in the Digital Age (CELDA 2005).

This has been a remarkable experience because it was the first public presentation of the <e-game> project. Our paper (The <e-game> project: Facilitating the development of educational adventure games) was presented in front of a small but very receptive audience. After the presentation and during the rest of the conference I gathered a lot positive feedback and a couple of petitions of a demo. The current prototypes are not yet as complete and furnished to become an actual demo, but this means I should REALLY get on with the <e-game> section of the website for once and for all. The stub has been there for far too long.

However, the nicest surprise was how many people actually felt positive about educational gaming beyond the typical confrontation against the stereotypes. The work of some them is relevant to this blog.

Dr. Tom Page from the Loughborough University was presenting the paper “Emotionality considerations in virtual reality and simulation based learning”, co-authored by Miika Lehtonen (University of Lapland) and Gisli Thorsteinsson (Iceland University of Education). It was a reflection of the role played by emotions when it comes to immersion and motivation inside virtual environments. Although this is far from my domain of expertise, I found it fascinating because it is the scientific basis that supports the claim that videogames are a motivational medium.

Dr. Alex Amato from the University of Hong Kong commented how they have been using the Sim City series to teach about sustainability in the field of architecture (I love that idea) and had very interesting opinions on how to enhance learning processes in general.

Sébastien George from the National Institute for Applied Sciences (INSA) in Lyon presented an interesting poster titled “Simulating learners in educational games” co-authored by Désirée Titon. It presented their advances in creating artificial players that can explore all the possible interactions of a learner inside an educational game. This is very interesting when it comes to guaranteeing that all the content is navigated, that there are no loopholes and similar things.

Finally, the work of André Melzer (and his team from the Univeristy of Lübeck) entitled “Developing, Implementing and testing mixed reality and high interaction media applications in schools” was not strictly about game-based learning, but it was all about bringing fun into the educational processes and thus it is relevant for the blog too.

By the way, Porto is a beautiful city and I will publish some photos in the album very soon (or very late).

As every year, it was again the moment to visit the SIIE 2005 Conference. This is an international conference about Computers and Education which is held yearly alternating locations in Portugal and Spain. This year we all went to Portugal, and the conference was held in the beautiful Leiria.

Just like last year’s edition, the highlights were the friendliness of the organization committee and the domestic (yet exotic) feeling imbued by the fact that half of the presentations are in Portuguese and the other half in Spanish (note for foreigners: Spanish and Portuguese people can understand each other more or less provided we speak slowly).

The contributions had a good overall level (with a low acceptance ratio) and covered a variety of fields. About having fun while learning, there were a few contributions worth mentioning.

Guillermo Jiménez Díaz, Mercedes Gómez Albarrán and some other fellows from my own Complutense University of Madrid presented the paper “Visualización y Role-play en la Enseñanza de la Programación Orientada a Objetos” (Visualization and Role-play for teaching Object Oriented Programming). Role-play is a teaching/design method often used in Object Oriented Programming, where different people play the roles of different objects and simulate the passing of messages and control flow using a ball that is passed from person to person. The paper presented a 3D environment that simulates this activity. There is more information on the project’s website.

Filipa Filipe, Miriam Aguiar and some others presented the paper entitled “e-COPOS: Utilização de um jogo 3D como ferramenta de aprendizagem em e-Learning” (e-COPOS: Use of a 3D game as an e-learning tool). They have developed a beautiful and well-polished game about the relationship between alcohol and driving.

Finally, I wouldn’t want to end this report without commenting the friendliness of the organization committee with a special mention for Isabel Pereira, who acted as our host and struggled to make us happy during our stay in Leiria. Thank you!

This week I have assisted the SPDECE 2005 conference in Barcelona (Spain). The objective of this conference is to drive the evolution of the Learning Object Model in Spain, gathering a number of experts from a variety of fields. Most of the assistants are also part of RED-AOPA, a community of Hispanic researches involved in the domain of Learning Objects.

This contrasts with other conferences that focus mainly in the technological aspects of LOs, and the result is a conference with a unique flavour. If the experience during the SPDECE 2004 conference was interesting, this year has been as exciting and worthwhile.

Some may say that, in spite of the special publication for selected papers, the conference does not have a high-repercussion publication of the proceedings. However, this has a wonderful side-effect. Academics don’t come because it will look great in their CV, but because they are actually interested in the field and in seeing it become a reality. Because of this, most sessions derived in interesting discussions, with the experts in different domains doing their best to explain their points of view in a manner that would be understandable for academics from other fields.

All in all, a wonderful experience and I’m really looking forward to next year’s edition.

After a long exhausting year, the last effort was to assist to a conference… Did I say effort? I would hardly say that visiting one of the most vibrant cities in the far side of the world is really an effort.

I’m talking about the 4th International Conference in Web-based Learning (ICWL) held in Hong Kong, China. After an emotionally challenging year, I decided to turn that trip into a reward, and it has definitely worked. Such a nice experience deserved being told in detail and so I did in this log (only in Spanish, sorry). I did also take a lot of pictures, which can be found in the photo-album.

And the conference? Well, it had a superb organization, better than any conference I have ever attended. These were serious people, with a serious organization and a serious publication for the proceedings (Springer-LNCS). The average level of the publications was nice, and all was happiness and joy. I really recommend this conference.

As for our publication, I can’t post that paper here for copyright reasons, but the abstract can be found here.