MT35801: April 2011

Sunday, April 17, 2011

Class 13: SketchUp

Modeled after:

Rectangle for the body

Circles for the feet

Shoulderguard-type thing and a sphere for the head

Arms

Making the spear, tip isn't that pointy... didn't really plan for it to look like that but in the end it's probably better this way

Coloring it, also drew the diamond in

More coloring, drew in 8's on both side, as well as the other diamond

Class 12 Homework: Fairie World Down...

See this post for the updated work, decided there's no real point to post here:

http://mt35801-tang.blogspot.com/2011/05/class-13-homework-alice-in-wonderland.html

Sunday, April 10, 2011

ROLL CALL #2 CLASS #12

Roll Call 2 from Class 12, after assigning what we're creating

Class 12: Explaining Fairy Stuffz

Work done already from the Thursday class: http://mt35101-tang.blogspot.com/2011/04/class-11-fairy-stuffz.html

Patrick and I instead explained what we're supposed to do to the class.

ROLL CALL #1 CLASS #12

Roll Call of Class 11's homework, addiction questions

Class 11 Homework [1]: Video Game Addiction RESEARCH AND STUDIES Questions

My post on the iED forums. The formatting in the comment section is completely screwed up. [1]

1. Are video games addictive? Does it matter?

They definitely are, and sure it does matter on a personal level. I don't think it as a trend is that huge a deal that it requires special attention when there are so many other things that need to be focused on.

2. How fine is the line between being engaged and addicted?

It's not that fine a line. You can play hours and hours of games a day as long as it's not adversely affecting other parts of your life. If it affects your health, you should probably limit your playing and eat/exercise. If it's affecting your social life, you should probably go out more. If it's ruining your relationships, well. Consider what's more important to you. I'm not going to judge anyone if they value their time with games to be more important than interacting with their spouse, etc... It's just a shame they forced their spouse into that position to begin with. As for directly answering the question, most people I know who are "addicted" to WoW or other such games can quit, and with relative ease. If something else in life requires attention, they will bail on the game. And I know hundreds of avid, hardcore gamers. Not one of them has what I'd call "addiction" to the point where they dropped out of school or anything. Given how many people play games nowadays, the percentage of people who are detrimentally addicted is pretty low.

3. Are there "warning signs" that I should be aware of?

My above response basically outlines how one's life can be affected. One thing I will add though is that I don't really think a disinterest in other activities is really a bad thing. Yes it's a sign of addiction, but addiction in itself does mean you're doing an activity. If it's not detrimentally harming your body or mental state, who cares what you're doing with your free time. On that note, gaming can be social too... it really just depends on what your definition of "socializing" is.

4. Are there best practices or guides for parents and educators to follow for dealing with compulsive gaming behaviors?

I have no clue. That's what people are struggling with right now. I don't think not allowing any exposure to the medium is healthy, as is with alcohol. Many other countries seem to agree that some taste of alcohol when young can help fight against addiction in the teenage or older years. That might be the same case with games. Everything in moderation. I am curiously about all these parents now playing video games WITH their children... How will they turn out?

5. Are learning games ever considered "addictive" or is it only traditional video games?

Anything is addicted, but learning games do seem to lose their novelty once the kids are older. I think if anything is forced on someone, the less they'll enjoy it. But again, anything that is stimulates the senses can be addictive.

6. What issues or questions should the panel be aware of for the next meeting?

I don't think it's that big of a deal as of now so I'm not going to bring up concerns or anything like that. Should it be medically classified as addiction? Sure. No hurt in that, and there's many institutes which "aid" people in overcoming video game addiction already (in other countries).

Sunday, April 3, 2011

ROLL CALL #2, CLASS #11

After the VG Addiction and iED assignments, Roll Call 2 from Class 11

Class 11 [5]: WoW Addiction

Professor Aaron E. Walsh notes: This was written by "John" in July 2007. John was a student of mine. He was in my Discovering Computer Graphics course at Boston College (http://ImmersiveEducation.org/@/bc), and was much more advanced than the other students. When I asked why he was taking this class, when he clearly had enough experience to take one of my more advanced classes, he explained that he had no choice: he had failed out of school, and was starting over. After we talked more as the semester went he explained why. I asked him to write it down for future students. Here’s what he wrote in one sitting about why he was “starting over”:

World of Warcraft (WoW): My Addiction

I've played various MMORPG games over the years, some being fairly addicting, some not even catching my interest, but one stands out above the rest as the most addicting and life consuming thing I've ever encountered in my life. You might have guessed it already, but that game is World of Warcraft, a game that I would recommend everyone stays away from.

Like most addictions, it didn't start out that way. It was just harmless fun; I'd log on for a few hours every day and level my character, talk to some friends I had on the game... it was nothing that took me away from other things. I was in high school at the time, and was still managing to get on with my work at first, even though that was a struggle in itself sometimes, and I kept in touch with my friends and saw them regularly.

At first I was surprised at how little interest I had in playing the game for long stints, as I had heard some things about how enticing and gripping the game was, and the first few months were fine, until I started to get near the level cap. Approaching the maximum level I began to play the game more and more, as reaching the end game content opened up a whole new world. I became involved with a hardcore raiding guild, competing to be the best guild on the server, and it all went from there.

The first thing that changed was that I now had raiding times to meet every weekday evening in addition to the gold farming I had to do during the day in order to be able to afford all the potions

and items I needed to raid, and somehow, my guilds progression through the bosses in the game became the most important thing to me in my life, and I slowly started to phase out my friends. At this point I was still going to school, so between the school day and the game, I had no time for anything else.

Contrary to what people might think, I didn't lack a social life at all, even without seeing or talking to any of my friends from school. In fact, it was quite the opposite, I had a whole new group

of friends... in World of Warcraft. Now I didn't even have to leave my room to hang out with my friends, I could just pop on my headset and hang out with them in the game.

Now, to rewind a bit, I remember when I was creeping up on the level cap, and my parents were beginning to get concerned with how much I was playing the game, I kept telling them that it would be all over soon. Heck, even I thought it would! Little did I know, the game would be even more demanding of me after that.

I wanted to be the best, I wanted to have the best items, I wanted to have the most gold. I wanted to be popular with the people on my server, I wanted to be known. I wanted to top the damage meters on every single fight. I don't know why, I can't explain it, but the game was just the most important thing to me, I wanted to do nothing else. I wanted to play every single day all day and night and would do whatever I could to keep myself awake and at the computer. Whatever it took, energy drinks, amphetamines, I would keep myself awake for hours on end, not getting any exercise and rarely leaving the house.

The more and more I played, the more and more things I felt compelled to spend my time doing inside the game. It seems that they create the game in such a way that even though there technically is a way to have the ultimate everything and clear all the bosses etc.. etc...... By the time you get close they add more content to the game to keep you going, its a never ending story. I would pick up my prescription for amphetamines just so I could stay up all night farming items to sell for gold, I wanted to have the best enchantments and to get all the rare random world drops... and so much more. I completely stopped going to school, completely stopped seeing my friends.... and the most worrying fact was that I didn't really care. It just stole my heart and mind from everything else, gave me a false sense that everything was okay and that I wasn't ruining the rest of my life. I don't know what would have happened if I hadn't stopped, I had stopped going to school and cut off social contact with everyone but the people I knew in the game, it was like a world within itself. I didn't even want to stop until I had a taste of life without it, a taste that was forced, however. If I hadn't been forced to live somewhere without a computer I don't know what would have happened.

--------------------------------------EOF----------------------------------

Here are some screenshots of my playing World of Warcraft...

Invincible

Mimiron's Head

Toon that I rolled for class assignments... shouldn't be playing this again -.-

Class 11 [4]: Immersive Education

Here is a link to the Terra Nova blog post about iED:

http://terranova.blogs.com/terra_nova/2007/05/teaching_in_vr_.html

The beginning of the article refers to Immersive Education, Prof. Walsh's background and essentially where he would like to go with the whole initiative in the future. I guess by now we can see that Second Life was indeed selected as the platform in which the classes are conducted, although the part about reaching the end of its life rings true now, once again. There's not much like SL out there right now, as most everything has been focus/goal-driven MMORPGs. Maybe MineCraft in a year or two will be workable, albeit not free or open source.

Hardware and bandwidth issues are cited as major concerns about virtual online learning, but they're basically a non-factor nowadays. Also, if one does sign up for a course like this... they should really know what they're getting themselves into.

"For education there's no reason why all content has to be delivered inside of the virtual environment. In fact, it can be quite restricting to do so."

I agree with that, especially considering Second Life. Doing anything in SL requires a lot more computing power than it would otherwise, and it does complicate things quite a bit. If a video or image can be viewed outside of SL, that means to me to be the much better choice. I am curious about the whole shy students being vocal in immersive environments... It definitely does happen in gaming with its anonymity, but from what I've seen during class, not many people are eager to speak >.<

"it's a grand challenge we're not even remotely prepared for today. As with other disruptions society will eventually adapt, but I think we're in for a very rough ride"

Yeah... it's been in the news for the past 25 years, ever since computer entertainment has really become "mainstream" or accessible, but we have a long way to go until it's a full-blown epidemic, if anything. There are a few avenues in the near past/present that do deal with these "what if's", take a look at something like .hack// Granted most of that isn't based in what can actually happen in reality, but that is a bleak future nonetheless.

Virtual classes are definitely convenient for me, since I live far off campus. However, the fun factor is arguable. I think whether a class is "fun" or not depends largely on the subject matter, not the means by which it's taught. If you enjoy/have an interest in the subject, it'll probably be a fun experience. Virtual environments just happens to be something most people can and do relate to.

Congratulations to Prof. Walsh on winning the award, there really isn't anything else like these classes offered at BC. Hopefully Immersive Education will experience even more success in the future.

Sample screenshots of the work we've done so far in virtual worlds: