Wii + Second Life for Training Simulations

Nice article on Wired about a firm who is helping organizations build training simulations using a “Wii-mote” in Second Life.

A few examples were cited:

• a company interested in training workers for its power plants
• a manufacturer of medical devices
• pest-control firm Orkin, who is hoping “…to create training simulations, which might involve inspecting a house for moisture and heat sources or mixing chemicals and loading them onto a truck.

Cool cool cool…

Nintendo DS as Life Coach

This month’s issue of Wired has an interesting note about some new games being released for the handheld Nintendo DS system:

Gals in Japan are using Nintendo DS to do way more than play with Mario. A flood of femme-focused self-help software now runs on the touchscreen handheld. Female Power Emergency Up! DS (shown) promises to “Change your destiny in three months!” by measuring skills in love, fashion, beauty, diet, and fortune-telling(?!), then challenging girls to increase their scores. My Happy Manner Book gives lessons on social etiquette — vital stuff, like which kimonos are proper for single women. Mainichi Kokorobics DS Therapy (a play on the Japanese word for “heart” and the English “aerobics”) is like a series of sessions with a digital psychiatrist. And Yoga Anwhere is a CG personal trainer that demonstrates poses and guides girls through daily workouts.

This got me googling to see of others had developed e-learning for the Nintendo DS platform… which led me to this post:

The only people left in the world who don’t see games as the ideal tool for learning are those that have never played one. If you can’t see that kids are forming, managing, and leading 60 person Guilds and spending 45 hours planning, and learning the correct strategies for achieving one successful mission than you are playing the wrong games and way out of touch.

Re-posted from my abandoned Eduspaces blog

Pick Up That Joystick and Learn

Tom Crawford recently posted a link to an NPR story about 1st round NFL draft pick, Amobe Okoye. Okoye came to America from Nigeria as a young man in high school. When he was 13, a local coach asked him to try out for the football team and gave him a copy of Madden Football to learn the game. Okoye is now getting paid lots of money to run complicated defensive schemes in the NFL.I’ve watched football since I was a child, so the rules of the game seem second nature to me. However, I once tried to explain American football to a family friend from England. As I tried to describe the intricacies of 4th downs, extra points, field goals, halfbacks, fullbacks, quaterbacks, and cornerbacks, I realized that this was a pretty complicated sport… and I was only trying to explain the basics that are necessary for being a spectator. Explaining the strategies involved with playing the game would have been a 3-month course.

Had I known then what I know now, which is that video games can be powerful educational tools, I would’ve just challenged him to a game of Tecmo Bowl.

Click here to listen to the NPR story about Okoye

Re-posted from my abandoned Eduspaces blog