Interesting article in The Age. The modern young geek seems content to socialise online, rather than seek physical company of fellow geeks. link

Young people live life faster," says Lyn Goodall, president of the Melbourne PC User Group. "They don't have a need or a wish to know what is going on under the bonnet of their computer."

Another Age newspaper article considered how Technology has changed the family relationships at home.  This does me give a clue into the mind of what might now motivate my students.

For a different perspective, I read in a New Scientist Technology blog of a programmer who explained why computer games need emotions. He then justified why he is trying to program this into his next game and where this might lead. The Blog entry includes a brief video.

"If we really want to introduce a new level of innovation into computer games, then things like emotion are important .. books and films show just about every emotion"

A while ago on the National Planning Committee for an ACEC 1997 conference held in Brisbane, I had the good fortune to work with Margaret Lloyd at QUT. I was interested to read of the following competition that she has just posted onto the Internet for students to design, build and race land yachts. I had the chance to briefly meet up with her at the ACEC2006 conference.

CSIRO do something very similar with their Bronze, Silver and Gold CREST awards to inspire creativity. When I launched this at Glen Wavlerley SC over a decade ago, the projects motivated many kids to take up a career in science / technology. I recall that former ECAWA president and leading technology educator, Mark Webber had the idea of building and racing cars made from CDROM motors and junk that he called Falcon Fliers.  Students negotiate a project, given a swag of ideas and resources, scope and guidance to help realise their work.

On the long drive back from the Benella GameMaker workshop with Maggie I was thinking though the seed of an idea. Later that weekend the ASISTM cluster has released me to run something on a small scale this week. I would like to try it again during ICT week in June.

I now think that the state competition model that we should be working towards should involve a six hour programming boot-camp incorporating web2 elements of cooperation and collaboration with a constructionist flavor of just in time learning. It will require little management overhead to organise or buckets of funding to run. It can work regardless of the programming language used, gender of the team members or their programming experience.

If the journey is more important than the destination, then this competition vehicle could best help teachers to organise and showcase what students can do by working together to program a small game, solve a simple problem that can help the us make the world a better place to live in. If we hold it on a specific competition day, there is no reason why we a chat room / forum / skypecast / online review system could not be set up in partnership with a group like OSV where some programmers can be to be on  hand for advice, reviews or suggestions.

All we need to do in advance is prepare a planning kit, resource guide and audit sheet, something we can even sell on with the certificates to recover some of our costs. The projects are later audited by the teachers who check the things done by the team against a a criteria sheet (something I did with the crest awards) then later issue certificate. Whilst this will mean dropping the key competitive thrust of our current programming award, it can still lend itself to a team spirit of innovation and creativity where any school team that participates can become winners.

I welcome your feedback.

Following the installation of GameMaker version 7 on my computer system, this program alert flashed up on my screen and the program terminated. As with my previous tests with GameMaker on Linux that i have reported back to my ASISTM cluster, the computer is running Ubuntu Feisty Fawn 7.10 and this software is running on Linux with the support of Wine.

The software installs fine but reports this alert message "XtreamLok Alert. DLL loading problem or Debugger detected or Integrity violated" then stops.

XtreamLok is apparently some kind of copyright protection software that prevents software being reverse engineered. Hardly in my case as I was just trying install and run GameMaker version 7 on my computer. Was I doing something wrong, was this a threat, was I being warned, whose integrity was being violated?

I wondered if others are aware of this feature that added by YoYo Games to GameMaker and saw no mention on their website although it seemed from this GameMaker forum discussion that the software is potentially spyware or at the very least, part of the DRM movement that threatens to prosecute me if I look at or circumvent it.

YoYo games of course has right to protect their intellectual property including GameMaker software. I still have some serious security and privacy reservations about undocumented features, spyware, DRM by the back door or loss of freedom. When the doors to a house are welded tightly closed and the alarm is turned on, trust me only goes so far.

I have promptly removed GameMaker from this test computer. Commercial, closed source software is now making me feel increasingly nervous.

Last cluster meeting of our ASISTM cluster to consider our achievements and future plans, held at ACMI, Melbourne. Using Skype, Bill was able to listen in and connect to us remotely, speaking from the two speakers at the end of the table.

Here we are showing off a prototype model for the OLPC project whilst considering ways that we can support this initiative by involving Australian schools. The OLPC notebook computers are the cool looking, green and white units scattered across the board room table. The group was engaged with the idea of all Australian children having such a computer and what we could do to work towards this goal.

I am now interested in exploring further the XO system, Sugar interface and eToys software.

We are reinventing many aspects of business and schooling with a focus on networks. It imperative for teachers to understand and objectively enage with the new technologies that underpin these new distributed networks. It is an issue that our ASISTM cluster has been working through.

Glen Boreham, the new CEO and managing director of IBM, points out that Australia's information and communications technology needs to become more competitive to take advantage of new ways of working and doing business. Organisations are being replaced by highly responsive, globally resourced enterprises that do not think of themselves as organisations but as networks. We see this happening with the development of Linux, open source, eBay, Secondlife, blogging and many other web2 and other folksomony initiatives.

Glen notes that the skills of the future will come at the intersection of the disciplines of IT, science, engineering, mathematics and business yet sadly, the Australian education system fall short of supporting both a fusion of these skills and misses out from our fantastic first hand knowledge of other cultures and languages. The window of opportunity is fast closing. (March 2007 National Press Club address, Computerworld - March 2087- IBM CEO urges Education Revolution)

So what is going on in the minds of our students?The president of the Melbourne PC User Lyn Goodall group recently observed from their aging membership profile that young people don't have much of an interest in understanding the workings of technology. Rather, they seem to be increasingly motivated by the socialisation that happens online than the physical company of others. (The Age - bunch of old mugs)

We also know that technology has changed family relationships at home, sometimes for the worse. Whilst mobile phones and instant messaging can give children a stronger sense of individual identity and independence, these tools may also undermine the time that families can spend together, making it harder for parents to know what is going on in the lives of their children as mentioned in (The Age - Technology threatens family bonding, Parents should monitor childrens web use)

I guess that it is all about swings and roundabouts. With these new freedoms and liberties will come new responsibilities to manage these opportunities.

Parents are responsible to provide effective parenting and supervision of their children, technology should not replace this supervision or undermine this relationship. Similarly, if teachers are going to effectively and safely engage with this technology in the classroom, they need to consider safe collaborative and virtual learning sandpits such as Moodle whilst ensuring that their curriculum covers any important Internet safety issues.

Teachers don't all need to create a personal webblog for every lesson, a Secondlife account, edit a movie, program a game or jump online to play one. They all do need to keep open the channels of communication with their students and critically understand the challenges presented by web2 technologies, drawing upon the interests, language and cultural backgrounds of their students. We ignore this at the peril of our role as leaders in the lives of our students.

The revolution is real and it will not stop because our minds are closed shut.

Tony posted a good set of links online, they discussed a research report that found that Students Using Technology-Based reading and maths products did no better than that that did not.


IT teachers have a large slab of the school budget and some are under fire for not dividing up these same technology goodies amongst the rest of the school. Although we now have a better idea about what it means to be a good IT teacher, there is still confusion about what is our territory in the new VELS.

Now, every time we talk about kids doing interesting stuff that involves a computer, we'll get hit with this. Making movies, programming, blogging, collaboration, projects, kids making games, exploring virtual worlds, GIS, Google Earth? What are you thinking, haven't you heard? Educational Technology Doesn't Work.

We need to make a meaningful distinction between educational software that pretends to replace teachers and that which supports a learning community and helps empower students to learn.

Perhaps it is time for us to speak out together and articulate what "Educational Technology" really means.

Although our ASISTM cluster has been using GameMaker, I have kept an eye out for other game programming options.

Over the January break, one of my students attended a summer school at NSW University. She was really motivated by the use of Python and with her team, built an Internet search engine. Python has had a splendid writeup and great future in our classrooms. To date I have found..

• A Python programming competition on the Internet.
• A physics-based puzzle game written in Python for PyWeek 2. Features over 15 levels, a "free-play" mode and an integrated level editor.
• A research paper that compares eleven programming languages which are currently used in introductory courses. The comparison suggests that Python is one of the most suitable languages to be considered for use in the classroom.
• A game programming exercise and challenge, this chap created a role playing game from scratch in 40 hours using python and a suite of free software.

Those that might find Python a bit too hard, there is always Gambas.

As a representative for our ASISTM cluster, Tony helped hand out some of the 2006 ACMI ScreenIT competition awards at a special ceremony in the city.

For this competition, primary and secondary students from all over Australia were asked to create a short film, animation, flash animation, mobile phone film or computer game based on the theme of water, even a category for a mobile phone films. The competition is a fun way of engaging students with the moving image whilst learning about the creative and technical processes behind how the production of their favourite entertainment media.

The competition heme on 2006 was water and we saw many interesting computer games and films made by these students using GameMaker and Flash.

I have a student who lurks around the local games store and buys games in the marked-down sales box for our computer club. He keeps burying some titles deeper into box so that we have a reasonable chance to buy them with our rather meager club funds as the prices are marked further down and hit the $20 mark.

One day we splashed out and bought the computer game "Oblivion - The Elder Scrolls IV". This screen shot from the game shows a wealthy character with her pet wolves, companion mountain lion and in the background, a beggar asking for alms.

I recall that Gee mentioned in a lecture of a computer game where students figured out how to structure events and an outcome so that the native Americans managed to win the game. History isn't so much about what happened as what might have happened.

There is some merit in an approach that links the virtual spaces that students enjoy exploring with reality. This is more than just turning education into entertainment. MIT professor Henry Jenkins remarked after dancing with some students in a world that they had constructed in SecondLife.

"We have to think of ways to use games not just to escape reality but to re-engage with reality"  link

I have seen some oblivion mods under development rebuilding the worlds from Tolkein and another mods involving piracy and slavery. In theory, it would be easy to create an Oblivion mod of a political prisoner / convict, trying to escape Port Arthur, Tasmania. If we toss into the mix all the wild fantasies held by them about the countryside then we may have a computer game that could be both entertaining and educational.

It would be one thing for a teacher to build this kind of game from scratch, and another for students to do the research and build this environment themselves, drawing upon the suite of tools, programming mods that use of the games physics engine,  constructing quests by reflecting on relationships, building in all the trajectories that a character might reasonably follow. As Lindy remarked on a mailing list:

               "Watch out for this digital modeling clay of the future"

Screenshot taken from inside the computer game "Obliviion - The Elder Scrolls IV". Of all the pictures that have made from the game, this wide screen version is my favourite.

It has been fun whilst playing this game to keep an eye out for a good photograph or screenshot.  A light airbrush of cirrus clouds, little wind and some shades of autumn colouring the foliage of the surrounding forest can do wonders to the tranquility of a walk in the wilderness. Trying to do this with a game isnt easy and timing is everything for some shots. I recall fumbling with my controls to missed a great picture with an Imperial guard on horseback, riding down a path between a splash of yellow and red flowers. 

Each mountain top to climb is yet another distraction from hunting or picking these wild plants. Many plants have special medical effects and can be used to make potions or poisons. The plants are very detailed and found in many places. A gardening mod that I installed allowed me to actually harvest and remove the flowers or fruit so that after several days, they would grow back.

Some sunsets are really worth watching out for in this game. Nothing better at the end of the day than to climb a snow covered peak with your pet mountain lion to catch the last last rays of a spectacular sun and clouds slip behind a mountain peak. Next time I will bring a torch so that I don't have to stumble in the dark down the path back to my camp and tent.

Again, you can view a slideshow of my Oblivion screenshots.

2006 Christmas alumni reunion of some past school students and fellow nerds. This group photograph was taken outside the file server room before we headed off to share a pizza.

Over the past decade our school has really valued their collective contribution, towards technical advice, hands on help with Cybercom computer games club, open fellowship and friendship.

A huge thank you to their encouragement and collective support. It is no secret that the magic ingredient was our network of jokes, laughs and friendship.

A hypothetical for developers of open source software projects that I have adapted from a comment by a flickr user.

"Consider a typical busy software user called Adam. Perhaps he is familiar with the Macintosh computer, smart, but has no technical background. Adam downloads the open source application, installs then starts to use it. Adam notes that important parts such as importing and exporting were not completed. In addition, the application works and looks very different to applications on his other computer. Adam has trouble finding out how to do things as the documentation is incomplete, there is no clear support page or help forum. Adam gives up and vows never to use this application again in business."

Putting out a 'nearly finished' product is a good start although failing to maintain the momentum, support and upgrades is not. Groups need to watch out that they do not treat any new users from the Linux desktop with a narrow minded "stay tuned until we get back to you." attitude. Busy customers have a long memory and short patience.

In this way, Ubuntu got it right. The kid-friendly, polished suite of Ubuntu desktops does more than just serve the self interested tinkering needs of some geeks (unlike this funny flash animation that pokes fun at Linux powered super dudes). It looks good, feels good, is good.

I have just finished reading World Domination 201 (thanks kattekrab), a fascinating article that tries to grapple with our computing future. Mention is made of some new actors on the stage including network games and on demand video. There are some good pointers about the way that the open source and Linux community could push ahead. Off the top of my head, it is vital more effort is put into support for 3D and multimedia on a Linux desktop .. but I can also see the dirty, political battle it has become with copyright, codec and DRM lines hastily drawn in the mud to confuse and confound us. The very last sentence about public choice theory is very important.

We face two very different futures at the start of 2007.

How open minded are you? Whose interests will you serve?

There are many different and free computer games that can be played on a computer running Ubuntu with the OpenGL graphics format. Here is a screengrab of Wormux.

Click on this link to see a small image slideshow of Ubuntu games that we have been playing to date. They range from the friendly network team play Wormux, strategic Widelands, arcade format Super Tux and mind numbing Solitaire or KMines.

Good family fun that kept the kids and I amused when it rained outside. :-)

There are many kits about to help users build their own games, some are commercial, some free, some open source.Here is a link to a detailed list of game programming options (albeit Dutch language). The kids and I found this cool link to Helix Games where we found a great collection of games made with GameMaker. (l love the hand drawn look of the website)

This afternoon I might run some experiments to see if I can get GameMaker (unregistered free download) working with Wine on an Ubuntu (Edgy) system. Some of you might have already guessed that I have been heading in this direction since I have been tinkering with Ubuntu.

I have greatly valued some of the suggestions and advice by Donna and Peter from CC who must grow weary from my continual banter of questions about bug fixes or directions to head in. It is good to know that there are some friendly navigators who are sailing ahead of my little boat.

It seems from a detailed testing report posted to Wine HQ Application Database that it can be successfully installed although there were some problems getting it running. I also found this GameMaker forum post that steps users through an installation for version 5. Another GameMaker forum post hints at the problems with version 6 because it uses DirectX instead of OpenGL.

My guess is that if I stick with the unregistered version 5 then it should work (or use version 6 but avoid any fancy graphics function calls that exploit DirectX). I have a suspicion that clicking on the compile run button in GameMaker might not work. Instead I may need to first save a compiled version of any games made then launch them from outside GameMaker.

Wish me luck..

We had some frustrating problems installing half height graphics cards into some our our new desktop computers. We needed these running to enable some new computer games to work at school for IT and the computer games club.

This screen grab illustrates a unrealised feature we were only able to detect by running the detect new hardware wizard with Microsoft Windows XP.

When posted to the school ICT support team Moodle forum, it was worth the smile on all our faces. In the end we gave up and swapped them for a set of full-height graphics cards for some different computers .. they worked.

This afternoon I set up Ubuntu (Dapper version), a linux based operating system as the default desktop on an old computer at home. Very easy to do and the kids were quick to discover and play with the default games.

I was impressed to see the software checked online that all the important files were up to date. I was curious how it would handle this. The process only took a few minuites to complete and critical patches were automatically installed with little user intervention needed. Very cute.

Ubuntu packages itself as Linux for human beings. I have used it in the classroom with Virtual installations when studying operating systems. Some of them have taken the free cdroms that I distributed and have had a go at installing Ubunto on their home computer.

Time to try it myself for a serious examination.

Tony and Lindy have made some great contributions to the Games in Learning mailing lits and I fully agree with their sentiments. Australian legislators seem to have ignored all reasonable advice and have taken the most draconian, restrictive line with their most recent copyright amendments. Whilst there is sufficient scope in the legislation for a student to produce Machinima that includes some copyright content although I would question the value of doing this when the work cannot be shown outside the classroom to classmates, friends or the wider school community. Audience is everything!

With a recent Machinima activity for the 3in6 project, we took steps to make available for our year 9 students a small collection of royalty free sound effects and copyright free (copyleft) music by Indi studios. We probably could do more to support these indie musicians that don't hide behind towers of intellectual property and permit the free use of their works. This does not answer the status of movie grabs made from virtual worlds and games such as WoW, Second Life, Oblivion etc.

Kimberlee Weatherall, a prominent academic in Intellectual PropertyLaw has publicly stated that some of the information provided by the Copyright Council regarding infringement is misleading. Her submission to the current inquiry goes to the heart of these issues with some good pointers for educators. Here is a portion:

Last month, I had my senior students pen some words about the kind of educational schooling that they thought we would be would be teaching students in a dozen years time. They presented a fantastic collection of creative stories ranging from disembodied brains in bottles to virtual classrooms connected by networked sneakers. On the GIL list, Lindy McKeown posted this interesting bit of news.

The idea is to blending the technologies of the 3D game world of Second Life with the VLE platform Moodle to create SLoodle.  A Moodle course that, if you wanted, could turn into a proper 3D interactive classroom with all your Moodle resources available to your students in the virtual world. It is a fascinating idea about what we might perhaps expect Moodle to fork.

http://www.sloodle.com

Indigenous Australians are the custodians of important cultural understandings. On many occasions I read that they are gifted with a sacred artistic skill. The Dust Echos website published on the ABC is an opportunity to respectfully share their culture. It was fun to try out some of the games and activities published on this website. I rather liked the quote by Actor-Musician, Tom E. Lewis:

"Dust Echoes is one way that we are bringing everyone back to the same campfire - black and white. We are telling our stories to you in a way you can understand, to help you see, hear and know. And we are telling these stories to ourselves, so that we will always remember, with pride, who we are." link

Bill Kerr has taken our ASISTM cluster on some interesting journeys following the ACEC2006 conference when we began to explore the area of  games programming for indigenous students using GameMaker. Some good words by Noel Pearson from the Cape York are listed on this LearningEvolves wiki page where you can also read of the work by Kym Urquhart of Gillen Primary School, Alice Springs.

It is as if we need to stand with a foot in the past and our minds to the future. Perhaps telling stories about the campfire is a good place to start.

Last year Tony and Bill posted a challenge to our ASISTM cluster about programming a GameMaker soccer game with both a human and computer player. I must follow up how this went.

I read on a NASA website that an orbiting satellite is learning to think for itself. Artificial intelligence still has a long way to go but there is considerable scope towards using it to help us study the Earth or other planets.

I just asked my students the question, if they could program some artificial intelligence into a robot at school or home, what features would they add? .. perhaps turn dripping taps off, clean rubbish dropped outside the canteen or help plants that need a bit of water.