Cross Gamer - Language

Boston Game Jam Coverage

Dan Roy — Mon, 29 Jan 2007 17:29:00 -0700

A week ago we had the first annual Boston Game Jam at MIT in The Education Arcade. I've already written a summary of the game I created during the Jam (Conflict Diamond). Now, I've written a guest blog for Henry Jenkins talking about the role of game jams in the industry and summarizing this particular jam. We've been getting a lot of coverage for the jam, from Slashdot to Gamasutra to Blue's News to VH1 to Little Gamers. The success the Jam enjoyed this year ensures that it will become a tradition.

Update: event photos on Flickr.

Update: GDC 2007 Presentation

Warcraft Teaches Spanish

Dan Roy — Wed, 03 Jan 2007 22:54:49 -0700

Crossposted at The Education Arcade.

This is an off-topic article (not directly about cross-platform or mobile gaming) about my experience playing World of Warcraft to learn Spanish. This is the continuation of my thinking with Ravi Purushotma at MIT about how to use commercial off the shelf games as language learning tools (see our GDC 2006 presentation video and Ravi's thesis). The basic premise with all of this work is that commercial games are already localized into many languages and that language educators and game developers can use these resources to cheaply create entertaining learning experiences. Blogger Katelyn Olmstead, a co-conspirator in this experiment, has already begun her own series on playing WoW to learn Spanish. Her first article focuses on the technical challenges we faced getting the Spanish version set up in the US.

We picked World of Warcraft for several reasons. One, because it's an MMO, it's immersive and social and it elicits lots of playing time. Two, because it's WoW, it's popular and well known, with high production values. Three, because it has a highly customizable interface, and we saw potential for integrating translation and annotation features.

I play with a Spanish client (interface) on servers in Spain, so the other players all speak Spanish. Katelyn alternates between Spanish and English clients on the Spanish servers. Ravi plays with the German client on Spanish servers.

I have intermediate Spanish skill, so I can understand just about everything in the game if I read slowly and keep a computerized dictionary handy. There are a few ways that I expose myself to Spanish while playing the game. First, there are certain key words that come up over and over again which I learn easily. Second, every quest has a couple of paragraphs of the story text. Third, chatting with other players through text or reading their chat transcripts in real-time exposes me to natural, imperfect language production (natural in the context of the game, at least). I'll examine each of these learning situations in more depth now.

Some keywords in the game show up over and over again, and I learn them easily. These words relate to my character's primary actions, like resting, hitting, taking damage, and casting spells. I also learned all of my character's traits, like strength, stamina, and intelligence. I learn all of the parts of my character's body which can be protected with armor, such as head, chest, shoulders, legs, and feet. I learn the names of all of the creatures I encounter in the world, both real and fictional, including boars, wolves, bears, and crabs as well as Troggs and Murlocs. Fortunately for me, as a game designer, even these game-specific, fantasy names are relevant to my vocabulary. I learn all of the different professions players can adopt in the game, including tailoring, leatherworking, mining, fishing, cooking, and herbalism. I learn the names of the fantasy races, like orcs, elves, humans, and dwarves. Again, all of these words I learn easily without any extra effort on my part. It would be difficult to play with the Spanish interface and not learn these words.

Quests offer players opportunities to practice reading Spanish, but they are easily skipped. Each quest comes with a few paragraphs of story and instructions, where a computer-controlled character (NPC) in the game world requests that the player's character perform some services. Reading this text slows down play significantly. When playing in groups, other group members may become impatient and ask a player who is reading slowly to hurry up. If the player reads quickly enough or is sufficiently motivated to learn the language, these brief stories provide entertaining, grammatically-correct interludes with a fairly wide vocabulary. I read the text for every quest I do, frequently two or three times. I read it once when I get the quest, once when I begin the quest (which could be hours or days later), and once when I finish the quest. While reading, I switch back and forth between WoW and computer translator Ultralingua (ALT-TAB on Windows), typing in words I don't understand to see translations. I think this functionality could be built into the game's interface as a tool-tip pop-up, eliminating the need to type the unknown word. Because of my skill level with Spanish and because of the similarity between Spanish and English, I only need to look up a handful of words for each quest. Ravi, who plays with the German interface, struggles more, since German and English vocabularies differ more. Katelyn also struggles with the vocabulary and different grammatical forms, and generally forgoes reading the quest text entirely.

Chatting with other players in Spanish is perhaps the most compelling way to become more comfortable with the language. Unfortunately, I have spent the least time with this activity so far. Partly, this is because Katelyn, Ravi, our friend Lori, and I all play together, so we rarely require the skills and services of other players. We are too self-sufficient as a unit. However, the few interactions I have had with Spanish speakers have felt the most meaningful and have given me the biggest rush, in terms of language learning. So far, I have only communicated via text, but I hope to set up a guild which incorporates voice chat as well (probably via Skype or Teamspeak). I hope to write more about this in the future.

My initial impressions of WoW as a language learning tool are mixed. On the one hand, there is a high percentage of time spent in the game not learning the language. For this reason (and many others), use of a game like this would probably not find its way into classrooms. On the other hand, the game does encourage a long-term commitment to language learning. For some, slow and steady may be better than nothing at all. Players who enjoy the game and language will find play an easy, fun, and rewarding way to learn as a complement to other learning activities. Chiefly, the game includes very little spoken word (unless using voice chat with a group), so players may need to look elsewhere for ear training.

A Multiplicity of Intelligences

Dan Roy — Thu, 28 Sep 2006 14:55:08 -0600

Type: Article

URL:

Scientific American Article (PDF)

Notes:

Gardner, H. (1998). A multiplicity of intelligences. Scientific American, 9, 19-23.

A shift away from standardized short answer "proxy" instruments to real-life demonstrations or virtual simulations. During a certain historical period, it may have been necessary to assess individuals by administering items that are themselves of little interest (e.g., repeating numbers backwards) but that are thought to correlate with skills or habits of importance. Nowadays, however, given the advent of computers and virtual technologies, it is possible to look directly at individuals' performances-to see how they can argue, debate, look at data, critique experiments, execute works of art, and so on. As much as possible, we should train students directly in these valued activities and we should assess how they carry out valued performances under realistic conditions. The need for ersatz instruments, whose relation to real world performance is often tenuous at best, should wane. (8)

I've written a response in this blog post.

Building Games for Improved Standardized Testing

Dan Roy — Thu, 28 Sep 2006 14:46:34 -0600

This post is a short tangent from my usual theme of extending MMOs onto cell phones. My underlying desire with that theme is to improve the game experience for all players and to use these games to improve education (I'm designing educational games right now). I particularly like the multiplayer component of MMOs in the context of education, because so many of the things people want to learn to do involve interacting with other people and because anything we do has more meaning in a social context. So, I've been thinking about MMOs for education for awhile (particularly to teach languages). One property of using any kind of game for education is that assessment is built in -- the game knows if you're succeeding or not. However, I did not consider using these games to improve the sometimes-bane of every student's academic existence: standardized tests. These tests are, after all, basically the assessment without the learning.

Where is all of this coming from? My girlfriend is preparing to take the LSAT on Saturday, and has been studying for months. It's bringing back my own memories with the SAT and GRE. It has always struck me the degree to which a standardized test I consider arbitrary has influenced admissions committees' predictions of my future success or aptitude. I knew before college, before the SAT and GRE, that I wanted to design games "when I grew up." Now that I've been designing games for several years, and am much more aware of what the process involves, I find that my success and aptitude has very little to do with those standardized tests. Even my success in Computer Science, which was technically my major, had very little to do with these tests. A much better test would have been for me to actually design games (or, for computer science, write a simple program in simple a language with an unknown API/"toolbox").

I was reading some of Howard Gardner's work on multiple intelligences, and was struck by the following paragraph:

A shift away from standardized short answer "proxy" instruments to real-life demonstrations or virtual simulations. During a certain historical period, it may have been necessary to assess individuals by administering items that are themselves of little interest (e.g., repeating numbers backwards) but that are thought to correlate with skills or habits of importance. Nowadays, however, given the advent of computers and virtual technologies, it is possible to look directly at individuals' performances-to see how they can argue, debate, look at data, critique experiments, execute works of art, and so on. As much as possible, we should train students directly in these valued activities and we should assess how they carry out valued performances under realistic conditions. The need for ersatz instruments, whose relation to real world performance is often tenuous at best, should wane. (8)

For the most part, standardized testing has integrated computer technology by digitizing the same old tests. The big change in the case of the GRE is that the test is now adaptive on the computer -- it gives you harder questions worth more points if you correctly answer previous questions. However, now that we can construct virtual environments that simulate many of the tasks students are hoping to do someday, we can measure their aptitude at those tasks directly, instead of asking abstract, multiple-choice questions and then guessing at a presumably correlated aptitude.

It's not immediately obvious how a simulation would be constructed to test every field, but certain fields seem well suited: medicine, engineering, and aviation, for example. Even some softer skills like communication, leadership, resourcefulness, and creativity can be effectively simulated and scored in multiplayer virtual environments. Take communication, leadership, and ability to follow instructions -- all crucial factors in successfully organizing any team activity in MMOs. Admissions committees currently look to extracurricular activities, work experience, and personal statements for traces of these qualities in applicants, as they should. However, a test activity completed in a collaborative virtual environment could give even more insight and eliminate some of the guesswork. Players would need to repeat the test enough times to sufficiently reduce the variability introduced by the particular teammates or opponents the player had, so the test should probably be short.

The way the educational game space is proceeding right now, these virtual training/testing grounds will probably be applied first to teaching, perhaps in the context of a course, and only later to testing.

Another issue, of course, is that games are great learning environments for some students because some students enjoy games. But, the same has always been true of standardized tests -- they have always favored some students over others.

Gardner, H. (1998). A multiplicity of intelligences. Scientific American, 9, 19-23.

Access and Affiliation: The Literacy and Composition Practices of English-Language Learners in an Online Fanfiction Community

Dan Roy — Sun, 20 Aug 2006 22:59:19 -0600

Type: Article

URL: Journal of Adolescent and Adult Literacy Article

Notes:

My research into the best ways to connect cell phones with MMOs has brought me to focus on identity: how it is constructed and what it means to players. I was reading Access and Affiliation: The Literacy and Composition Practices of English-Language Learners in an Online Fanfiction Community, by Rebecca Black, because of my interest in foreign language learning, and I stumbled across the following quotes on identity.

These hybrid elements of this online fanfiction genre scaffold ELLs' [English language learners'] access to the development of literacy skills by enabling them to act as “experts”, allowing them to construct identities as successful writers within the animé-based genre, and thus increasing their acceptance as English language users within the community.

The key point here is that participants in a community can volunteer to help others and be looked up to by them. Respect of one's peers is a strong motivator for continued participation in the community.

ELLs have the freedom to use and practice English with native speakers (Warschauer, 2000), develop an “authorial voice” (Kramsch, et al., 2000), and take on an identity as an English language user (Lam, 2000) outside the constraints of the classroom.

This is a problem that comes up in education constantly, but which is also relevant for games. Students in a classroom setting often feel constrained in ways that inhibit the development of identities the students themselves want to adopt and inhabit. By extending their identities as language learners beyond the classroom, and keeping those identities positive, students can escaped the shackles of the classroom and begin a lifelong love affair with language learning. The same is true for games. By helping players construct identities that make them feel proud, confident, and respected, game designers can keep players coming back again and again.

Within the fanfiction community the term “Mary Sue” describes a particular type of hybridized character [...] “A character that may be loosely based on the author. The character often is perfect and has a tendency to save the day. The story may focus around canon characters and their relationship to the character.” Thus, Mary Sues are recognized as one way that many female adolescents fuse their own identities with those of the characters and write themselves into a position of power in the fiction.

What are the corresponding ways that MMO players develop images of themselves as powerful? Leveling up helps. Membership in a guild helps. Increasing skill helps. In general, any reputation marker the game can give players for them to then take into social interactions in a highly visible way helps build player affiliation to that identity and that game space.

In composing online fanfictions, ELLs are able to draw on popular cultural, social, and personal resources to construct an identity as an English writer and reader that may depart significantly from the one that they are able to display in the ESL classroom.

The great thing about online identities is there's always another chance to start over. Regardless of the differences between the classroom and online communities, some percentage of writers who don't find success in the classroom will find it online. Add to that the free-form, nonjudgmental norms of the fan fiction community, and chances for positive identity construction go up considerably. What are the norms in MMOs? Are they more judgmental? How much control do designers have in shaping these norms? How do they affect players abilities to construct positive identities?

Additional quotes saying more or less the same thing:

What is significant to note is that they almost invariably follow such comments with positive feedback on the plot, a request for more “chappies” (chapters), or ask the author to “update soon.” Such positive feedback and requests for more writing can contribute to the construction of an ELL’s identity as an accomplished writer or designer of fanfiction.

These elements of the site also help ELL authors to establish a legitimate social position within the community as accomplished writers and promote their continued affiliation with writing in English.