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#50by50 #32 – Complete a MOOC – Understanding Video Games

The Writing Life of a Tadpole Posted on by  

About three and a half years ago, I got excited by the idea of MOOCs — massive online open courses. I went through multiple sites like edX and Coursera, reviewed some online offerings from Canadian universities, and tore through the Great Courses catalog to try and identify “which courses should I do?”. The resulting list of courses I was interested in was massive, no pun intended. Literally hundreds of courses available to me, and since I wasn’t interested in certification or a degree (I already have those), these would be just done for interest. The true embodiment of lifelong learning, with a strong focus on flexible learning. I could download stuff to my MP3 player, I could read on my tablet, I could blast through printed materials. It would be awesome.

Yet I also knew I wasn’t looking for a dry boring course, it would need to balance the education and entertainment components, even if I didn’t exactly call it that at the time. I wanted a “quick win”, something that would hold my interest, not get bogged down too far in esoteric academic theory yet still have the rigour of recognized academia doing the curation. A course taught by Leah Hackman and Sean Gouglas at the University of Alberta through the Coursera platform seemed like a great match. It was entitled “Understanding Video Games”, and it would let me scratch a particular learning itch — having a better foundation to understand the elements of “games” before tackling the morphous and relative wild west frontier of “gamification” where everyone talks about it and throws elements up, seemingly without any real framework to know how the pieces fit together into a coherent picture.

I started the course in January of 2015, and my hope was I would finish three in the year — Understanding Video Games would be followed by a course on MetaLiteracy and then likely an intro to psychology course at Carleton. Not exactly what happened. First and foremost, I got sidetracked and distracted with other more pressing pursuits. Second, with no accreditation tied to it, and thus no extrinsic motivation other than interest, there was no immediacy or urgency to my learning. Three and a half years later, and I’m finally finished 11 “weeks” of videos that I could have finished in two short weeks with a set of videos each night.

But did I achieve my objective of learning? In short, I did.

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What I learned

Rating for the week
Week 1. Introduction

This opening week introduced some ideas that I found limiting in their initial approach, and I was happy to see them expanded upon in later weeks (the evolution, for example, from linear storylines to more multi-modal storylines (tying in nicely to emergent gameplay). Equally, I liked the final elements of the course on how certain games have boosted gamification to encourage repeated game play by modifying the game mechanics, which explained in part why certain games that held zero interest for me seemed incredibly popular and addictive to others.

The rest of the course would be devoted to:

  1. Basic terminology and concepts;
  2. Academic theories about game frameworks;
  3. Applying the theories to cultural topics

(Completed January 2015)

 4 / 5
Week 2. Play and games

IMO, this was the best lecture of the series, partly as it provided the foundation I was seeking in order to have further discussions later about gamification. It starts with the question, “What is a game?” and what initially would seem almost pedestrian veers into deeper philosophy almost to distinguish a “game” from mere “play”. In the end, I was most attracted to the idea that a game may have a common set of elements such as:

  1. Usually close-ended with formal system of rules and a desired end-state to reach;
  2. Consequences for cheating or violating the rules;
  3. An ending or conclusion;
  4. Quantifiable outcomes;
  5. Balance between risk and reward;
  6. Effort on behalf of the players; and/or,
  7. Fun or whimsical elements.

For me though, I think that second half of the list is more about the enjoyability of the game, as many other games could have those elements or not and still be games.

(Completed June 2015)

 5 / 5
Week 3 – Emergent and progressive gameplay

This would be my second favorite lecture of the series as I think it starts to expand upon the basic definitions of a game tied to physical medium games like board games and takes you deeper into the world of interactive video games.  With the idea introduced that progressive gameplay means you progress linearly through the game, and the idea that emergent gameplay allows for some self-identification of goals and / or methods to achieve them, I was struck though that there was something missing — the difference between single player games and the limited opportunities for emergence vs. the natural emergence, even in more linear games, if the game allowed for multiple players to interact. The one element that I feel is underdeveloped is the significance of griefing. I don’t think griefing really qualifies as emergent gameplay, just more that the computers now have help (an extra opposing side, for instance).

(Completed June 2015)

 5 / 5
Week 4 – Game Mechanics

I love the framework of game rules (obvious), agents (players), game mechanics (what the agents can do to interact with the game i.e. actions, behaviours and control mechanisms), dynamics, and aesthetics (emotional level).

(Completed June 2016)

 4 / 5
Week 5 – Story and Games

The week’s material covers RPGs, and I found myself more interested in the story elements (narratology) over the game mechanics (ludology). An interview with a game designer and programmer was fascinating about how built in personalization / differentiation gives an illusion of total openness in a scene, in contrast to the reality that it is actually a tightly controlled narrative / dialogue. However, overall, I think the biggest addition for the week was Joseph Campbell’s monomyth of the hero’s journey (departure, initiation, return). While I understand the limitations (default male-orientation, kitchen sink ethos to include “everything” and its misuse as prescriptive storytelling), it’s a decent framework for the frequent “hero’s journey”.

(Completed June 2016)

 4 / 5
Week 6 – How to Interpret Games

The week walks through the beginnings of MMOs with multi-user dungeon games (MUDs), and how MMOs added to it with advanced GUI and recognizable visual settings. In particular, they work their way through Ultima (which added both positive social interactions and negative ones such as griefing), Everquest (innovation through adding 3D interfaces, but also led to selling characters in the real world and early references to online addictions), Second Life (showing that it wasn’t all about weird fantasy worlds), and the true powerhouse, World of Warcraft.

This week stepped back a bit and pulled from literary theory to talk about a structural way of analysing games and the interrelationships between the parts such as the hardware and program code, functionality, gameplay, meaning of a game (relying on semiotics, signs and symbols), referentiality (how it represents a genre or crosslinks to other games and gametypes), and socio-culture (how it fits within the outside world or what is brought to the game by players).

In the end, though, it basically argues what the game says or doesn’t say, does or doesn’t do, includes or doesn’t include, all represent choices that then can tell you something about how the game views the “real world” as it abstracts from our reality into the reality of the game. I hesitate to go so far as to say the medium is the message, but at the least, it is a medium that is saying something and that “something” is open to analysis and interpretation.

However, this is the point in the course where I started to have niggling concerns about the level of complexity or simplification shown by the various types of included analysis.

(Completed June 2016)

 3 / 5
Week 7 – The culture of video games

I had a jump in the course at this point as it disappeared from Coursera. I had already downloaded all the materials though so that I could work offline, so I could continue, which was good for me. Not that surprising, really…after all, I was almost three years from having first started the course!

The week was about a cultural studies approach to gaming, and for me, there is a constant struggle in CS to studying any culture. If you are part of the culture, it is hard to step back to study it, thus challenging objectivity; if you are not part of the culture, you’re often interpreting that culture from an outside perspective, thus challenging bias and perspective. Yet, to the extent that CS ever allows you to wrestle those two competing challenges to the ground, I accept that gaming culture would include the members, their specialized language, a sense of community, identity representation of self and others, questions of membership (in/out), and how members interrelate.

However, I found myself wanting more depth in the analysis. For example, with modders, I wanted some indication of scope or magnitude, their motivations and desires…it seemed simply descriptive, not truly analytical. Equally, I felt there was room for a deeper dive on the change in commercial distribution channels and Indies, with perhaps some comparative analysis with the music industry, Kickstarter campaigns for inventions, or self-publication of books through Amazon.

Finally, I think COS players warrant some additional consideration. If you want to understand a culture, one of the most basic tools of cultural studies is to look at ways in which they express themselves for both artistry and identity. And the physical embodiment of a video game character would seem to be the ultimate form of that expression. For some, it may simply be a creative challenge — can they make a costume or do the makeup? For others, it could be an opportunity for role play and to experience the game in a different way, not by actually immersing oneself into the game’s reality, but by bringing that reality into the broader world. And for some, it is simply Hallowe’en costume play. Yet there are people who can do it for a living — they’re booked and paid to attend in various costumes at ComicCons, they pose as models for photographers, they travel around the world doing it. It’s a area ripe for potential misinterpretation, but still, I would have liked to see more on it.

(Completed December 2017)

 3 / 5
Week 8 – Violence and video games

The week’s videos have a great history of “fighting” / “violence” in video games from old platform games to cinematic online games. I have more niggling concerns when they get into treating blood and gore as a mere aesthetic, similar to horror movies, partly because of the interactive nature. In the movies, you’re watching and observing; in video games, you’re interacting and causing the mayhem. I see the similarities in questions, but with a key extra component, similar to Roger Ebert’s concerns … does the gameplay take you out of “art” into something more participatory?

As the week progresses, I like their framework for understanding games i.e. risks and rewards, impacts of attacking non-playable characters, or forced moral choices (actual choices or where they are made for you in order to advance the game i.e. often no pacifist solutions).

Overall for the week’s videos, I expected more direct reference to situations like Columbine in the U.S. as one of the “hot button” examples that media pundits like to reference. I was also disappointed that they didn’t explore a bit more of the argument by some psychologists that video game play is not causal of aggression but more likely symptomatic of aggressive tendencies. In other words, aggressive people were likely to play violent games and commit violent acts, not as cause and effect, but as a series of symptoms of their aggression.

(Completed May 2018)

 3 / 5
Week 9 – Sexuality

The videos range a bit in their content from the history of sex in gaming, ways to imagine sex in gaming (sex as an abstraction, sex as a game goal, sex/gender as a mechanic, sex as an aestethic (including what is “normal), and sex as emergent gameplay), and the role of women in the industry, ranging from marketers using sex to “sell” gaming; designers including sexual content; exploration of gender through cyber-sex roles; and creation of the Entertainment Software Rating Board (ESRB).

The one area that they lightly touched on in other wording was the question of agency and empowerment, through role models. I was disappointed for example that the summary of Tomb Raider was simply her form and outfits, while totally ignoring that many women liked the fact that they finally had a kick-ass heroine to anchor a highly-playable, highly-successful franchise.

It’s also disappointing that their discussions of women in the industry happened before #GamerGate. It would be interesting to see any updates on those areas in the future.

(Completed May 2018)

 4 / 5
Week 10 – Race

I’m not sure about the content for the week. At times, I feel they are reaching too far…the idea that a blue army against a red army is an indication of race is no more valid than assuming that someone being a thimble or a racecar in Monopoly tells you about their personal views of objects.

And, yet, I do agree that there can easily be inherent and inherited biases in game design (black dwarves being more evil than light), that racial conflict can serve as a proxy for a larger narrative arc, and that fighting games often include game mechanics framed through a racial lens to control player attributes (strength, intelligence, etc.). I just don’t know if it gets us anywhere.

(Completed May 2018)

 2 / 5
Week 11 – Serious games

For the last week, they note that there are lots of types of games that are supposedly “serious” i.e. aimed at serious purposes. In history, the longest running example are wargames, but there are also “tycoon” games about business simulations and broader education games, such as the Oregon Trail or Carmen Sandiego. Games often have to walk a fine line between learning and fun/engagement, but while constructionist tools are often more “fun”, they are also ripe to be subverted by emergent play.

The part I really liked was the ending summary of gamification, namely those tools that some online apps use to gamify their products to keep people playing:

  • Decay (daily obligations and no way to pause);
  • Sweetening/achievements (the achievements are shared publicly to encourage competition);
  • Object rarity (often with luck and duration-of-play time); and,
  • Social obligation/activation (gift-giving and reciprocity).

If you access gamification as the use of game mechanics in non-game situations, and that it is a whole other field of study (i.e. suitable for another course), it’s not a bad place to end.

(Completed June 2018)

3 / 5

I feel like the platform / style of a MOOC is right for me as a learner…yet I didn’t “stick to it” to do it more quickly. The two professors suggest perhaps if they redid it, they would gamify the course itself to see how it impacted participation. Not sure that would work for those not in the “enrolled for accreditation” portion. Yet, I completed Duo Lingo and liked getting the little badges as I went. Not enough to “share” them on Facebook however. 🙂 I’m into gamified solutions, I’m not a sheep!

As I said, I met my learning objective, and completed another #50by50 item on my list.


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Understanding Video Games – Week 11 – Serious Games

The Writing Life of a Tadpole Posted on by  

For the last week, they note that there are lots of types of games that are supposedly “serious” i.e. aimed at serious purposes. In the history, the longest running example are wargames, but there are also “tycoon” games that are about business simulations. However, the largest sub-genre are education games, such as the Oregon Trail or Carmen Sandiego. Over time, the educational starter series have moved into mobile apps, virtual environment, and training simulations.

Stepping back from the genre, I can see how they are dividing things. For example, there are:

– games used in instruction, where the game is an added medium (for processes or procedures); or,

– other games are used as a construction tool, and thus the game empowers the learning style of the individual student (explore and discover).

Games often have to walk a fine line between learning and fun/engagement, but while constructionist tools are often more “fun”, they are also ripe to be subverted by emergent play.

In order to keep players playing, games frequently use:

  • Decay (daily obligations and no way to pause);
  • Sweetening/achievements (the achievements are shared publicly to encourage competition);
  • Object rarity (often with luck and play time); and,
  • Social obligation/activation (gift-giving and reciprocity).

The last video is probably the launching point for future learning that interested me the most from the start — gamification. Namely, the idea of using ideas such as game mechanics in non-game situations. The course concludes with Qs about how to gamify the course — such as course badges, increase use of avatar creator, etc. but I had hoped for a bit more.

And with that, the MOOC finished.


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Understanding Video Games – Week 10 – Race

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The first video for the week notes that “colour” is frequently used as a way of showing race, even when it is two armies — one red, one blue. As you go through the next four videos, it is expanded to show how race is used to indicate “the other” — an opponent, for example. Some examples for the week include:

  • Choices may often reflect external racism i.e. “black dwarves” are more evil than light dwarves, often as proxies for more complex situations;
  • Race serves as the basis for conflict, and conflict can serve as the basis for a narrative arc;
  • What is present is as important as what is absent;
  • Default characteristics can serve as “indicator” of what a “normal” character should be;
  • Character race representations look at cultures and roles within games, including options around protagonist or antagonist roles;
  • Fighting games often include game mechanics framed through a racial lens to control player attributes (strength, intelligence, etc.);

It was an interesting summary, and I can see in many cases the detailed internal mechanics and choices that are presented as a basis for racial conversation. However, the initial premise — red vs. blue, or even white vs. black in chess — is a bit too stretched.


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Understanding Video Games – Week 9 – Sexuality

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Week 9 of the MOOC introduces the theme of sexuality and how it is explored in video games.

In video 1, they focus on the first games that introduced sexuality — adventure games like Colossal Cave Adventure and Zork. Or how most of the text adventure games were relatively straightforward, yet Japan started introducing some sexual role-playing content with Night Life while America was still playing Kings Quest by Sierra. But mostly the video is about the development history of text games from basic parsers to added parsing, added exploration, added audio, added graphics, and expanded narrative arcs. It’s an okay start, but mostly it is just to give you the background so they can then talk about:

  1. The history of sex in gaming
  2. Five ways to imagine sex in gaming
  3. Role of women in the industry

The second video talks about the examples of how it is introduced:

  • marketers using sex to “sell” to generally single heterosexual males;
  • designers including sex content (Sierra’s Soft Porn Adventure and eventually Leisure Suit Larry);
  • exploration of gender through cyber-sex roles; and,
  • creation of the Entertainment Software Rating Board (ESRB) as reactions to games with sex and/or violence.

Interestingly, while some of the big FPS games like Doom do have strong male markets, other games with bigger audiences — Myst, Sims, Farmvilles — have much bigger female markets. But those markets are often dismissed as not “real video games”.

The third, fourth and fifth videos introduce five ways sex and sexuality can appear in games:

a. Sex as an abstraction — namely as a simplified representation, to reduce explicitness, and to add rationality and linear logic for game play, with similar approaches to how it is done in film, literature and advertising;

b. Sex as a game goal — using lust as a motivation (such as an early strip poker game), and with little diversity in the target market (where the gamer objectifies and identifies with sexualized game characters, namely white men pursuing women);

c. Sex as a mechanic (part of design) — some games make the character’s sex irrelevant while others make it explicit, but not necessarily obviously (such as Super Mario Brothers 2 where the male characters are stronger and faster than Princess Peach who can float), but there are some other still who use sex and gender to create a sense of agency;

d. Sex as an aesthetic (part of gamer experience) — some games are heteronormative (with assumptions of inherent differences matching societal perceptions) in their gamer experience, and while important, there’s also the risk of objectification, such as is argued by Lara Croft’s outfits and proportion in the Tomb Raider series; and,

e. Sex as emergent gameplay — some players have imported outside constructions like online weddings into an MMO game, but this pales in comparison to Second Life (with sold services, toys and club memberships).

For the role of women in the industry, they note that women not only play games, they also critique and make games. And while 45% of gamers are female (although that stat includes a bunch of games that some gamers don’t really consider games at all), only 11% of production crew are women, which goes even lower when you exclude HR, admin, etc. and focus on engineering or designers.

Overall, it was a solid week, just not with much depth. In most places, it just lightly touches on the concepts. Which was disappointing. For example, I expected them to talk about Tomb Raider, and they did; however, they could use TR as an entire study in and of itself, with some pretty complex elements. They don’t even mention the agency aspect that you have a strong female character as the protagonist, smart, attractive, strong…a bad ass who makes Indiana Jones look wimpy. They only cover the superficial controversy, without much attention paid to the counter-argument (although they do mention the puzzle-solving aspects). Grumble, grumble.

I’m also disappointed with the timing of the original recording. But they recorded all their stuff (I think) before #GamerGate started (2014), and so there is no mention of it at all. They mention in passing that there are those who face some harassment online, but it is a throwaway line at most. Obviously if they were doing the same pieces now, GamerGate would likely figure prominently in a discussion of women in the industry.

In the meantime, two more weeks to go…

 


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Understanding Video Games – Week 8 – Violence and video games

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I’m still plugging away on this MOOC. Week 8 of  “Understanding Video Games” (hosted by Leah Hackman and Sean Gouglas through Coursera) starts off talking about violence in early games, and begins with the old platform games (i.e. jumping to or swinging from platforms), ranging from Donkey Kong (static screens) through to Super Mario Brothers (scrolling), and on further into cinematic platform games. Even the cartoonish games attracted concerns of parental groups who wanted to limit ages or locations for arcades.

In the second video, the pair talk about blood and gore, and it’s long artistic roots in art as an aesthetic. They then move on to flagging the different interpretations — gory violence as nothing more than a video game “horror movie” experience; gory violence as a murder simulator; or merely a source of catharsis. Yet it is the same questions that have been posed of art, comic books and television too. In the end, violence can be seen as either gratuitous or as an ingredient to drive a narrative story arc (such as the need to resolve conflict or overcome strategic or tactical challenges).

The third and fourth videos focus on consequences and morality. As a starting point, they assume that there is feedback to all actions in a game, including violent ones, and then look at the cost or reward for committing violence acts, including:

  1. Punishment for attacking “non-player characters” (NPCs) such as Ultima III;
  2. Rewards for attacking NPCs (Crusaders);
  3. Mixed punishments and rewards with competing mechanics (Grand Theft Auto 3);
  4. Mixed mechanics where emergent play (setting your own goals) decides the reward or punishments; or,
  5. Complex mechanics of moral choices (such as avoid, talk their way out, bribe the NPCs, or fight) with differing narrative outcomes, or rewards (the “clean hands” achievement for finding a non-violent solution).

However, some games use “gating” techniques — i.e. you can’t get to the next area until you satisfy the previous area’s requirements in a specific way. In many of these games, there are no “pacifist” solutions. Usually this is the default option for any game that has a boss.

Watching the video, I was reminded of my first time playing Syphon Filter…there are two levels that are “gated”. In one, you have to kill terrorists to rescue hostages. And no matter what you try to do to stop the one bad guy, he would always end up killing the hostage and the level would reset. Unless you did one very specific thing — killed him with a sniper rifle shot to the head. No head shot, no advancement. A short while later in the game, another level required you to go through the whole level without setting off any alarms. But there were so many guards, the only way to get close to your objective was to repeatedly use head shots to eliminate bad guys. No head shots, no advancement.

The fifth video delves into the idea of the degree of photo-realism to the violence. I found it interesting the example of Mortal Kombat 2 — it was initially viewed as gratuitous violence, yet is now viewed as relatively over-the-top cartoonish violence. However, with increasingly realistic physics mechanics (destructible buildings, bullet trajectories, etc.), the immersive experience increases.

Which leads to the final video for the week, dealing with how academia has studied video game violence. It identifies three common threads in the discussion:

  1. Playing video games can cause desensitization to real violence;
  2. Playing causes players to act aggressively;
  3. The more graphic, the more likely they are to be aggressive.

The focus though is on two research questions — does it increase the likelihood of violence and/or decrease empathetic behaviour? The main approach in academia is to rely on social learning theory aka mimicry. The humanities may also look at political, moral, and cultural aspects of violence and video games. However, some academics identify multiple methodological problems with the research, such as:

  1. Ethical design issues;
  2. Choice of undergraduates as the sample guinea pig;
  3. Lax and flexible definitions of what actually constitutes violent and non-violent mechanics, and how to separate / isolate the violent parameter;
  4. Impossibility to test for real-life violent behaviour in an experiment; and,
  5. Journals have systemic biases towards publishing negative results.

Overall for the week’s videos, I expected more direct reference to situations like Columbine in the U.S. as one of the “hot button” examples that media pundits like to reference. I was also disappointed that they didn’t explore a bit more of the argument by some psychologists that video game play was not causal of aggression but more likely symptomatic of aggressive tendencies. In other words, aggressive people were likely to play violent games and commit violent acts, not as cause and effect but as a series of symptoms of their aggression.


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Articles I Like: Are ‘Learning Styles’ Real? – The Atlantic

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In recent years, many educators have ratcheted up their attacks on the idea of people having “learning styles”. While it was in vogue for awhile, more and more research is suggesting it isn’t as compelling a theory as it once was thought to be. To me, it is more about a theory that resonates instinctively with people, and more a metaphor for approaches to learning – a descriptive paradigm, if you will – then a hard and fast “rule” or law, let alone a theory. So when I saw an Atlantic article aiming to debunk it further, I couldn’t help but click.

In the early ‘90s, a New Zealand man named Neil Fleming decided to sort through something that had puzzled him during his time monitoring classrooms as a school inspector. In the course of watching 9,000 different classes, he noticed that only some teachers were able to reach each and every one of their students. What were they doing differently? Fleming zeroed in on how it is that people like to be presented information. For example, when asking for directions, do you prefer to be told where to go or to have a map sketched for you?

Today, 16 questions like this comprise the VARK questionnaire that Fleming developed to determine someone’s “learning style.” VARK, which stands for “Visual, Auditory, Reading, and Kinesthetic,” sorts students into those who learn best visually, through aural or heard information, through reading, or through “kinesthetic” experiences.

Basically the idea that everyone is relatively unique, but if you break them into sub-types for learning, you can reach them better by using techniques that target that sub-type. Yet the scientific evidence, i.e. the “testing” of the sub-types is less indicative:

…a lot of evidence suggests that people aren’t really one certain kind of learner or another. In a study published last month in the journal Anatomical Sciences Education, Husmann and her colleagues had hundreds of students take the VARK questionnaire to determine what kind of learner they supposedly were. The survey then gave them some study strategies that seem like they would correlate with that learning style. Husmann found that not only did students not study in ways that seemed to reflect their learning style, those who did tailor their studying to suit their style didn’t do any better on their tests.

[…]

Another study published last year in the British Journal of Psychology found that students who preferred learning visually thought they would remember pictures better, and those who preferred learning verbally thought they’d remember words better. But those preferences had no correlation to which they actually remembered better later on—words or pictures. Essentially, all the “learning style” meant, in this case, was that the subjects liked words or pictures better, not that words or pictures worked better for their memories.

Source: Are ‘Learning Styles’ Real? – The Atlantic

However, in the same article, it basically says it isn’t about “styles”, it is about skills. Some people are better at certain tasks than others, so they may think they’re a visual learner because they happen to be good at things that are visual. My problem though is that I’m not sold the idea fails with their “tests”.

All of them have the same methodological problem that the studies about “digital reading” vs. “paper-based reading” exercises and measures of retention. Basically, the studies conclude that if two students read the same text, one on paper and one electronically, the one who read paper will remember better. Which I can practically guarantee will happen with the test they’re running…they’re taking a text that was designed for paper reading, converted it to e-format, and then ran the test.

But what is the more appropriate test? Well, how about optimizing the text electronically first? Taking advantage of the e-format to embed other info or even use a font that looks better on e-format? There’s a reason why so much money and attention is paid to web design — layout and format matter, and it isn’t simply a matter of converting from paper to electronic. And did they first gauge how comfortable the person is with reading an e-text? The assumption is that the texts are the same, so the reader experiences no difference. Yet we all know modern day Luddites who might be adept at email, surfing, or texting, but they find the idea of e-readers abhorrent. They just don’t want them. Almost NONE of the tests asked what the student preferred to use. If you start off blocked and negative, would you expect the outcome to be different? People are used to paper, they don’t often “balk” at a paper text (except in purchase decisions).

To use the VARK idea, and downgrading it from a learning style to a communications style, we all know that personality types are generally accurate in groups but not so much individuals (all stereotypes, negative or positive, break down when you go from a group to an individual — the standard of deviation is enormous). So let’s look at the personality-type model that resonates the most with me — the axis of introverts/extroverts vs. analytical/intuitive.

Analytical introverts (the blues) have a very clear preferred communications style — they want details. They analyse, they nuance, they want to get their fingers dirty poking the content so they understand it. Preferably, they get paper and read it on their own and they have it before they discuss it together.

Reds, i.e. analytical extroverts, are action-oriented and while they want details, what they really want are the KEY details — they prefer high-level summaries and overviews with minimal back-ground noise. Be brief, be bright, be gone. Don’t waste their time.

Yellows, i.e. intuitive extroverts, want interaction, team work, FUN. They want to discuss the information. Sitting quietly and reading the book by themself is tantamount to torture.

Greens, i.e. intuitive introverts, also want to be “involved” in small-group discussions. A bit quieter than the yellows, and preferably with some say in how they decide what to study or how to proceed.

Those personality studies have been studied to death and for about 60% of the population, they have pretty strong validity. Another 20% end up straddling types. Which leaves 20% where, in my view, they suffer from two measurement problems — about half don’t know themselves well enough to answer the questions reliably (they’re following scripts of what they THINK they should say, not describing what they actually do) and half who are balanced across multiple categories. It doesn’t mean the theory of personality types is wrong, it just means it isn’t universal when you apply to individuals. Quelle surprise.

So what might that look like in terms of learning styles? Well, if the four groups have differences in their preferred communications styles, would it be surprising that they have a different way of learning? Not really, it should be expected. So the test would have to be optimised first for EACH learning style.

But even then, it’s not going to be 1:1 for every person on every item for every subject. Not unlike the phrase that talking about love is like dancing about architecture, reading about art isn’t very useful without pictures of the actual artwork. Equally, if a picture is worth a thousand words, historical video footage of events is far more compelling and easy to “understand” as the students witness.

Is that true for everyone? Nope. Some are going to respond to the text more than the pictures, pictures over video, and video over text, or the reverse such as text over video.

Ultimately the benefit of the theory is not in saying everyone has a different style and targeting the individual, although some day we may be able to do that better. Instead, the benefit of the theory is recognizing what everyone has already known. Mixed teaching techniques, judiciously applied, work better than a single technique of one-size fits all.

But that’s just my view. What do YOU think? Do you learn differently from a friend or sibling? Or do you believe one can find a perfect way to deliver info for a topic or subject area that is applicable to all?


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Reading “Big Box Reuse” by Julia Christensen – Chapter 10

The Writing Life of a Tadpole Posted on by  

Chapter 10 is interesting in that it goes in an entirely different direction — not the use of a Walmart by another big retailer, or a completely different business, or a community group even. Instead, it focuses on the reuse in Kentucky to open a mini-mall of second-hand stores. Micro-businesses, in the parlance, or in this case, flea markets.

But with an innovative twist — a central check-out. All the vendors sell their wares just as Walmart has little divisions. Yet they are no competition for Walmart, so Walmart loves them. How many individual vendors? One store had over 300. The central checkout handles all the finances for them, along with most of the transactional paperwork. I think it is brilliant. Ripe for disruption, of course, but brilliant.

And the store renovation is as minimal as they can make it…splash some paint and they are good to go. Nobody cares, they just want an indoor space to sell their goods. The lower the overhead, the better. Even some of the original signage is still in place.

In the long run, however, the mini-malls are doomed to fail…once the main lease runs out, and the lease restrictions ease, larger retailers can come in, take the space, and increase the revenue for the site owner, just as it did with the race track in an earlier chapter. Yet, in the meantime, it’s a very different way to take over the space.


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Reading “Big Box Reuse” by Julia Christensen – Chapter 9

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Chapter 9 is a somewhat starker chapter, as it looks at Chalmette, Louisiana, after Hurricane Katrina devastated the area. And it isn’t like the other chapters, as it is not really about reuse of an abandoned building.

Instead, it is the use of the Walmart parking lot — the only local place large enough to hold a small medical centre made up of a series of large double-wide trailers all connected together. Supported by non-profits, for-profits, religious groups, FEMA and Walmart, it got going in the aftermath of Katrina, and at the time of writing (3 years afterwards), it was still running, while the Walmart remained closed. Walmart even let them open a small pharmacy onsite to meet local needs.

However, what I find interesting and for which I wish there was more coverage in the book (admittedly, it is beyond her scope), is the description of how Walmart used its existing large distribution network to help relief efforts. Not unlike nationalization of some industries back in WWI and WWII, from the descriptions.

Yet in the end, the main reason for their use of the parking lot? Location, location, location — it has good transport networks leading to it, everyone can get to it, and it’s easy to find. The same reasons any user would choose the same location.


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Reading “Big Box Reuse” by Julia Christensen – Chapter 8

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Chapter 8 struck me as the oddest of all — converting a Walmart into a chapel in Pinellas Park, Florida. Now, admittedly, it’s a Calvary Chapel plus a whole bunch of other things, not your traditional wayside chapel of Catholicism, for example. Yet, when you realize that the parishioners are not “local neighbourhood” residents, but cross the county, it isn’t surprising that they would choose a building with built-in parking and a virtually unlimited size meeting space (i.e. auditorium). How big a congregation? Services for 700-1000 at a time are for slow days, normal hits at about 1500, and potentially 3300 are part of the congregation.

When Walmart was looking to vacate their space, the Calvary Chapel was already in a smaller old Winn-Dixie store. They bid on the new space, and Walmart agreed. The part I find a bit confusing in the story is that the author seems a bit puzzled about Walmart’s decision, even though there were potentially higher bidders. The Chapel credits divine intervention; the authors wonders if it was PR, or that the Chapel had a good business reputation for reuse, etc. Yet the author already spoke of the most likely reasons way back in the earliest chapters — when Walmart vacates, they want to know that whoever takes over the space is not going to compete with them for business. And they often have huge lease and/or sale restrictions to prevent it. With the Chapel? No such concerns.

The renovation is extensive, of course. Even the roof has been modified to have a huge patio. Inside, they have sports areas (courts for basketball, dodgeball, etc.), recreation areas (pool tables on a second floor), some small theatres, lots of offices, some educational spaces for schooling, etc. And of course, a temporary auditorium for 1500.

I can’t help but feel there is some irony between products for the masses and a commercial approach to religion, but that is my own upbringing showing through I suppose. But the renovation of the exterior wasn’t a big concern for the church, they are all about the congregation and having a tool to help serve them, not the extensive aesthetics.


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Reading “Big Box Reuse” by Julia Christensen – Chapter 7

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Chapter 7 looks at an old KMart building, now repurposed as a county library in Lebanon, Missouri. The building is shared with a museum and a cafe. What I love about this example is a quote on page 146:

But the fact is, basically everyone in the community of Lebanon really was involved in the renovation and design of this site. Public school students designed and painted the murals, local electricians designed systems and wired light fixtures, local artisans laid carpet and even designed mosaic tile floors for the hallways. The community here came out for the cause, donating time, money and services to the development of its new county library.

Is that unusual? No, of course not. Lots of towns have done the same thing with recreation centres, or libraries, or museums. What I find compelling is that reusing a box building rarely attracts the creative types, unless the option is to raze it and start over. Yet in this case, the building had some really key selling points — way more space than the library needed, way cheaper than building from scratch, and the previous owner was a school board who could transfer title to them easily (they donated it, after receiving it as a gift themselves). And initially, the reaction would be what you would expect. Everyone wanted a beautiful beacon, a shiny new library, and what they had was an empty KMart. Not much to inspire the community, right?

But a core planning group built street buzz, the local newspaper and radio got on board, and the project focused on having a quick, early win — making sure the facade didn’t look like Kmart. In this case, they used metal in red, blue and yellow to give it a wholly modern look. They gave early tours, when it was still chalk outlines. They designed and merged the concepts for a museum and cafe, tied to learning, tied to local history. They have free meeting rooms for community groups.

Or as the author claims, it went from a community institution to a community centre. One that doesn’t look like Kmart.


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