Dan's+Journal


 * Week 1**

Okay, I'll come clean: I've been playing video games since I was a little kid! I remember getting excited playing games like Adventure or Chess on the Atari 2600. My folks also had an Atari computer. I don't remember anything legitimate you could do on it, but I do remember you could play video games on that as well. Now that I think of it, my dad made this program where it asked you a math question and when you answered correctly, it flashed a bunch of colors and made some weird noises. I suppose you could say that was my first learning video game?!

Since then, I've had most of the big systems. Nintendo systems, Playstation systems, XBox systems... I play on my XBox 360 now, though not as much as I'd like. I've been pretty busy lately with homework and working extra at the office. I hope things'll calm down soon.

As far as the type of game I usually go for, I tend to like something with a good story. Sure, I like games that folks find popular - Call of Duty, for example - but my favorite part is the story that goes along with it. I want to find out what happens to the hero. I'm curious about the back story behind the other characters. I like to find stuff and collect stuff and do stuff with all of it. That's one of the reasons why I like Fallout 3 so much. You can do so much stuff! I suppose Richard Bartle would say I'd fall under the Explorer category of gamers. I often like to look at the story or technology or whatever from a game and see how well it jives with real life. If there's some technological marvel, I find it interesting to see if there are theories that support something in the game. If the character works for some shadowy government agency, I like to find out if there any record of a similar government agency. For example, I've liked the Splinter Cell series of games. I thought it was awesome that the main character's fighting style is based off of Krav Maga, a devastatingly effective martial art developed in Israel. I remember thinking, "Man, that looks like Krav Maga." I looked it up and sure enough, it was!

I don't know that I take on any virtual identities other than myself. When I play online, my gamertag is Papa Hepcat, but I generally do the same things I do or make the same decisions I would in real life. I think I can see what Gee is saying about trying out different identities, but I guess I've never had much interest. Maybe it sounds boring, but I like being me. I've played games where you had the opportunity to make decisions you normally wouldn't be able to make, but I almost always choose the ones I think I'd choose if I were really there. I remember playing this one game where you were part of a team of Russian soldiers who had just beat back a brutal attack on a bunch of Nazis. The Nazis were cornered and put up their hands in surrender. You had the chance to throw molotov cocktails to finish them off or not. I chose not to, but some of the NPC's in the game did anyway. I remember thinking afterward, "If I were all pumped up with adrenaline and just experienced the hatred and hell of war, would I have been able to hold back?" I don't know the answer.

I like how Gee has a wider view of literacy. Sure, reading and writing is valuable, but there's more than just that. I think historically, there's always been more of a focus on reading and writing because that was the most effective way of transferring information. If not the most effective, then the most widespread mode. But with today's technology, there are so many different and effective ways of delivering information. A lot of people say that "video games teach violence." It doesn't matter if that's true or not, but what I am going to say is: "If that's true, how are video games teaching that?"

One new semiotic domain that I'm recently trying to get used to is what I like to call "Farmer Dan." I've always liked the idea of living out in the country with animals and the whole thing. Well, last fall we moved out to the country to do just that. Computers and technology and everything with it has always been a breeze. But today, I just finished building a chicken coop! There are even chickens in there and everything. We also have goats and rabbits and bales of hay... I'm just waiting to get a straw hat. I find the whole thing fascinating. Earlier this week, I was up to my ears with testing for our LMS upgrade. Then today, I was up to my knees in rubber boots getting my farm on. I have a truck now and when I park it at the office, it totally stands out. One of my coworkers said a couple weeks ago "Hey Dan, that looks like it belongs on a farm!" Yes it does. It certainly does.


 * Week 2**

I've been trying to think of how virtual and/or projective identities might be helpful for me as a trainer. Not being a teacher in the "normal" sense, it's a little different for me. I mean, I teach some classes, but most of my effort anymore is helping other trainers do their thing over an online medium. For eLearning courses, I don't see how it'd work since there is no live instructor. But for synchronous courses, I think I can see it. We often have presenters who are shy or hesitant to speak "on the air" over the internet to a bunch of people. Some of these folks even teach in front of class, but struggle when it's over the Internet (Just wait until we finish the upgrade and show them via streaming video!). I realize one thing I always do when I'm speaking over the air is I put on my "radio personality." I talk a little different and put on a certain type of persona. No, I don't talk like Casey Kasem, but I definitely put out a different personality. I know that using exaggerated voice inflection is helpful when an audience only has your voice, but I take it a few steps farther than that and it happens as soon as I walk into the studio. I do it to help the presenters relax a little and to help ramp up the students since I always talk first and introduce the presenters. Beyond that, though, since my job is to help other trainers train better, I should work with them to develop their own "radio" personas when presenting.

A lot of my work involves the use of technology, and it seems I'm constantly running into people who have a damaged identities with regard to their ability to do stuff on the computer, specifically teach classes online or develop eLearning courses. I guess for me, it's just a part of the work. A lot of folks aren't confident that they'll ever be able to do anything well if it involves using a computer. I do a lot of coaching as part of the job, so I guess yeah, working with that type of damaged identity is a regular thing.

When it comes to showing someone the basics of how to use an eLearning authoring tool like Captivate, I often first talk about PowerPoint. Most the folks I work with have used PowerPoint and are pretty familiar with it. So we talk about how PPT has slides and you can drag objects to where you want them, make them show up at certain times, disappear, move around, etc. Then I explain that the basic structure of Captivate is not much different. I show them that it basically just adds a timeline and navigation tools for the user, and it goes from there.

I'm not sure if it exactly fits, but this was the closest thing I could think of: Okay, so we're in the middle of a huge upgrade process in our LMS. It's A LOT of work and has pretty much dominated everything I'm doing at the office lately. We have a couple of test environments, and my job is mainly to break the LMS - find where the system doesn't work. Then I document the error and what causes it, then send it off to the developer to fix. Being one of the LMS admins, I'm pretty familiar with the ins and outs of it, so I tend to fly around in it. As I'm jumping around doing this and that (it isn't random, btw. I follow scripts or I'm chasing one particular functionality, etc!) and run across an error or notice when something doesn't work as it should, I have to stop in order to document it. This is where the probe, hypothesize, re-probe and rethink cycle comes in. The probing is already done when I see an error. I think back a few steps and come up with ideas as to why that error occurred. Then I try to recreate it. There can be a lot of different variables, and I need to narrow down whatever combination of factors cause it. Then I test and retest again until I know exactly what causes it. It's a mini learning experience every time.

For games this week, I've been playing Mass Effect. I'm getting drawn in on the story, so I admit I haven't been focused on what the game is teaching me. I suppose on thing is culture. There are a lot of different alien races with all kinds of history and culture. Some of it is viewed as weird from the humans in the game, but to the aliens, it's all perfectly normal. That's not much of a stretch when thinking about people coming from different backgrounds and cultures right here in good ol' USA. So that's something the game is teaching me. That, and don't shoot your rifle too much or it'll overheat.