Abstract
An earlier version of this paper was presented at the 2011 IEEE International Symposium on Technology and Society (ISTAS) at Saint Xavier University in Chicago, Illinois (and printed in the 2011 ISTAS proceedings).
Perhaps the most remarkable characteristic of digital social games such as Zynga's FarmVille is that they are designed in such a way that any user, regardless of their skills and experience, can familiarise themselves in a matter of moments with the object of the game, the interface, and the tools and options involved in playing them. In contrast, developers of collaborative platforms for teaching and research have been struggling for the last 15 to 20 years to gain a wide acceptance among users, and with very limited success. Although simple and intuitive usability has long been recognised as a key design goal, no-one has, apparently, yet succeeded in integrating all the tools and functions required for academic work into a platform with an intuitive interface that target groups make enthusiastic use of. This paper investigates which principles and features may be adopted to make the use of these platforms easier and more intuitive. This electronic document is a "live" template. The various components of your paper [title, text, heads, etc.] are already defined on the style sheet, as illustrated by the portions given in this document.
- Information Solutions Group, "2010 Social gaming research," online, available: http://www.infosolutionsgroup.com/2010_PopCap_Social_Gaming_Reseearch_Results.pdfGoogle Scholar
- P. L. Berger and T. Luckmann, "The social construction of reality: a treatise in the sociology of knowledge," New York: Anchor, 1967.Google Scholar
- K. D. Knorr-Cetina, "The manufacture of knowledge. An essay on the constructivist and contextual nature of science," Oxford: Pergamon, 1981.Google Scholar
- T. Walker, "Welcome to FarmVille: population 80 million," online, available: http://www.independent.co.uk/life-style/gadgets-and-tech/features/welcome-to-farmville-population-80-million-1906260.htmlGoogle Scholar
- D. Takahashi, "Disney buys social game firm Playdom for up to $763.2M.," online, available: http://venturebeat.com/2010/07/27/disney-buys-social-game-firm-playdom-for-up-to-763-2m/Google Scholar
- R. Nagarajan, "Zynga's FarmVille may change videogame economics," online, available: http://gurufocus.com/news.php?id=93535Google Scholar
- Gamasutra, "GDC Online adds Zynga, Disney, Playdom Lectures," online, available: http://www.gamasutra.com/view/news/29418/GDC_Online_Adds_Zynga_Disney_Playdom_Tencent_Lectures.phpGoogle Scholar
- S. Chen, "The social network game boom," online, available: http://www.gamasutra.com/view/feature/4009/the_social_network_game_boom.phpGoogle Scholar
- C. McCarthy, "Facebook: one social graph to rule them all?," online, available: http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2010/04/21/tech/main6418458.shtmlGoogle Scholar
- B. Gerron, "5 lessons team leaders can learn from FarmVille," online, available: http://teamleaderconnection.com/2010/05/26/5-lessons-team-leaders-can-learn-from-farmville-2/Google Scholar
- M. Bauwens, "Peer to peer surveillance," online, available: http://p2pfoundation.net/Peer_to_Peer_SurveillanceGoogle Scholar
- C. Fuchs, "Social networking sites and the surveillance society. A critical case study of the usage of studiVZ, Facebook, and MySpace by students in Salzburg in the context of electronic surveillance," online, available: http://fuchs.icts.sbg.ac.at/SNS_Surveillance_Fuchs.pdfGoogle Scholar
- M. Jakobsson and T. L. Taylor, "The Sopranos meet EverQuest. Social networking in massively multiplayer online games," online, available: http://hypertext.rmit.edu.au/dac/papers/Jakobsson.pdfGoogle Scholar
- S. Deterding, "Just add points? What UX designers can (and cannot) learn from games," online, available: http://noteandpoint.com/documents/pdf/jap.pdfGoogle Scholar
- D. J. Cheal, "The gift economy," New York: Routledge, 1988.Google Scholar
- M. Mauss, "The gift: forms and functions of exchange in archaic societies," London: Routledge, 1990 (1922).Google Scholar
- L. Hyde, "The gift: imagination and the erotic life of property," London: Vintage, 1983.Google Scholar
- M. de Certeau, "The practice of everyday life, trans. Steven Randall," Berkeley, CA: University of California Press, 1984.Google Scholar
- ride223, "My farm in FarmVille," online, available: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0Pjuk5vuPt4Google Scholar
- J. P. Mazer, R. E. Murphy, and C. J. Simonds, "I'll see you on 'Facebook': the effects of computer-mediated teacher self-disclosure on student motivation, affective learning, and classroom climate," in Communication Education, vol. 56, no. 1, 2007, pp. 1--17.Google ScholarCross Ref
- D. Brandon and A. Hollingshead, "Collaborative learning and computer-supported groups," in Communication Education, vol. 48, no. 2, 1999, pp. 109--126.Google ScholarCross Ref
- K. Metz and D. Hammer, "Learning physics in a computer microworld: in what sense a world?," in Interactive Learning Environments, vol. 3, no. 1, 1993, pp. 55--76.Google ScholarCross Ref
- M. Prensky, "Don't bother me mom -- I'm learning!," St. Paul, MN: Paragon House, 2006. Google ScholarDigital Library
- J. P. Gee, "What video games have to teach us about learning and literacy," New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2003. Google ScholarDigital Library
- M. Dodgson, "Learning, trust, and technological collaboration," in Human Relations, vol. 46, no. 1, 1993, pp. 77--95.Google ScholarCross Ref
- R. Jong-Eun, C. Nass, S. Brave, Y. Morishima, H. Nakajima, and R. Yamada, "The case of caring colearners: the effects of a computer-mediated colearner agent on trust and learning," in Journal of Communication, vol. 57, no. 2, 2007, pp. 183--204.Google ScholarCross Ref
- D. Tosh and B. Werdmuller, "Creation of a learning landscape: weblogging and social networking in the context of e-portfolios," online, available: http://projects.cbe.ab.ca/central/altudl/FILES/Creating_a_Learning_landscape_blogs.pdfGoogle Scholar
- P. Harrigan and N. Wardrip-Fruin, "Second person: role-playing and story in games and playability media," Cambridge, MA: MIT press, 2007. Google ScholarDigital Library
- J. Juul, "Half-real: video games between real rules and fictional worlds," Cambridge, MA: MIT press, 2005. Google ScholarDigital Library
- R. F. Wilson, "The six simple principles of viral marketing," online, available: http://library.softgenx.com/Children/marketing/ViralMarketing.pdfGoogle Scholar
- S. Cikic, F. Lehmann-Grube, and S. Jeschke, "Creating local geographies for map-based cyber navigation," in Proceedings of the 12th International Conference Information Visualisation (IV08), Los Alamitos, CA: IEEE, 2008, pp. 397--402. Google ScholarDigital Library
- S. Cikic, S. Jeschke, N. Ludwig, U. Sinha, C. Stelzer, and E. Uhlmann, "Make engineering students collaborate," in Proceedings of the 2007 International Conference on Interactive Computer Aided Learning (ICL 2007), Kassel: Kassel University Press, 2007.Google Scholar
- T. L. Taylor, "Play between worlds: exploring online game culture," Cambridge, MA: MIT press, 2006. Google ScholarDigital Library
- J. R. Kücklich, "Play and playability as key concepts in new media studies. Research report," online, available: http://www.playability.de/Play.pdfGoogle Scholar
- J. C. Beck and M. Wade, "Got game: how the gamer generation is reshaping business forever," Boston, MA: Harvard Business School Press, 2004.Google Scholar
- E. Fear, "Playfish: social game developers 'must act responsibly'," online, available: http://www.casualgaming.biz/news/27875/Playfish-Social-game-developers-must-act-responsiblyGoogle Scholar
Index Terms
- What FarmVille can teach us about cooperative workflows and architectures
Recommendations
Can machine learning teach us anything? - [Opinion]
The Breathless headline caught my eye: "Computer Shows Human Intuition-AI Breakthrough!" (or words to that effect). I was intrigued but skeptical. Reading further, I learned that a computer program, AlphaZero, developed by a team at DeepMind, in London, ...
What video games have to teach us about learning and literacy
Theoretical and Practical Computer Applications in EntertainmentGood computer and video games like System Shock 2, Deus Ex, Pikmin, Rise of Nations, Neverwinter Nights, and Xenosaga: Episode 1 are learning machines. They get themselves learned and learned well, so that they get played long and hard by a great many ...
Comments