Let me preface this by saying I'm not quite sure why the readings and assignment were the same from Week 4 to Week 5; as well, I am finding this book incredibly difficult to read. I don't usually have difficulty reading textbooks, and am more than able to digest and understand complex information. However, this book escapes me. I suspect my primary issue is that it consists of a great deal of inflated rhetoric, whose main objective seems to be to impress the reader with the writer's erudition and vast array of knowledge. I have no doubt that the writer is brilliant and a leader in the field; I also have no doubt that this is written with a very specific audience of colleagues in mind. I find it almost unapproachable, and consequently am getting nothing out of the readings at this point.
Since it seems to me that the main objective of this exercise is to get us thinking about the parameters of our game project, I will start there. My intent is not to design a game -- or at least, not to flesh one out. I do not have those capabilities. However, I am considering a premise for an online educational game based on a course which we teach here in British Columbia. It is a valid and worthwhile course, but it incorporates a great deal of information that many teachers (me included) feel should and could be learned outside of the classroom without eating up resources that could be better used for other subjects. It is a dumping ground course that covers many aspects of living life during the later secondary and post-secondary years: bullying, sex ed, career planning, educational planning, workplace safety, relationship issues -- every time we turn around, the government has added more to the curriculum in an attempt to address what I would consider the shortfalls of many parents.
It seems to me that such a course would be ideally suited to full adaptation to a Second Life-style arena. Students would generate an avatar, and would be directed through a series of learning experiences designed to mimic life choices and life experiences. This would be an incredibly complex game program to design, because each life choice made would generate a new series of life choices and life consequences, to which the student would have to adapt.
I would build into the program a "do over" aspect as well, so that students who reached a certain level in their chosen path could opt to go back to a certain decisive point in their path and choose a different course. I think this would have validity in that it would enable students to explore the consequences of more than one choice or action, giving them a deeper learning experience by reinforcing the concepts of choices and consequences. As well, I think it would serve to emphasize an important aspect of lifelong learning -- that you can continue to make new choices and head in new directions, or go back to a certain point sometimes and start over -- the point is to continue to develop and learn.
That's my reflection, for what it's worth.
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