My name is Ian Gardner and I am interested in various topics that can be seen as related to learning, technology and information.
To see what I am reading elsewhere, follow me on The Old Reader (I.gardner.gb) or LinkedIn.
That I have not been to any conferences or other in-person events for at least a couple of years might be why I seem to be stumbling across a few new tools of late. In the last couple of weeks this has included Weet.
Are you already using Weet for learning related projects? If so, let me know.
Weet offers browser based video recording with very easy webcam over screen share functionality. Obviously similar functionality exists in Teams, Zoom and elsewhere – indeed one of my few paid for apps is Screencastify which has some similar functionality. Where Weet is powerful is that the webcam video can make use of their virtual backgrounds (ala Teams and Zoom) within the browser based recording.
Weet themselves do a good job here for explaining its benefits for learning so education/learning is clearly a market they are aiming for. Therefore, they are targeting market share from some of the more sector specific tools such as Camtasia.
The Teams integration (I haven’t tried this) offers an easy way to communicate, share video, etc without having to do the slightly counter-intuitive Teams approach of having single person “meetings” to record video messages.
A very nice feature of Weet is that even on the free plan you can download your recordings. Therefore, if you have concerns over their hosting (which can be a private or public link) you can download and host/share on/via your own systems. The free plan caps you at a 8 minute video which, in all honesty, is probably as long as most videos should be anyway.
Obviously lots of use cases as part of async communication – in education video based feedback would be an obvious example.
More generally, are we seeing a move back towards browser based tools? It feels a little like this to me, with less emphasis on Apps, or maybe I am just imagining that?
So, I am not sure how I became aware of it initially but I have been giving StreamYard a go.
What is StreamYard?
Basically you can Stream live, from your browser, to a number of different platforms (YouTube, Facebook, etc). This is all super easy and cheaper than more traditional methods:
Why might you be interested?
From an education and L&D background, I have used various online classroom/meeting tools over the years. These normally involve some level of friction for the user, be it logins, tracking, plugin installation, etc.
I recently only just realised that LinkedIn has a beta “live” feature – details here. StreamYard is one of the tools you can use to publish to your profile and/or page(s) via this – if you have LinkedIn groups this might be the way to go, being able to broadcast direct to your groups, rather than needing a separate meeting tool (at least for low interaction broadcasts).
The alternative to a browser based model is a tool like https://obsproject.com/ – an open tool but one that requires install and setup. When I have tried to use Twitch in the past I might have tried OBS but must admit I can’t actually remember what I used! Either way it was not as easy as how StreamYard makes things.
StreamYard trial
So, what have I found with StreamYard is that it is very easy to use. I ended up deleting most of what I created in the trial but it is noticeable that there are still hoops to jump through, for example, YouTube requires your phone number to allow you to live stream to your channel. Therefore, StreamYard might be the best tool in its space (considering ease and cost) but the platforms you stream to might still be a problem.
The future of work and the hybrid nature of future organisations continues to be of news. I would first caveat the rest of this post by saying it is really about office workers (not those in other workplaces):
Interesting data to show how HR and "future of work" type narratives are often too narrow and written by office workers about office workers > "Most people in UK didn’t work from home in 2020" https://t.co/xuMWBhageo
My view on what workplaces now need to look like is that the nature of what the office is has to shift.
We have seen some of this already, for example the office as a recruitment and culture tool in being “cool” with pool tables and the like in the pre-Covid world to attract talent. This will continue to some extent, especially for young people who appreciate social experiences as well as the informal learning offices can provide.
Where we are now is in a position where an office can be seen as an enabler. Gone are the days, for those organisations who made the shift to more remote work, of enforced drudgery. Instead we can see the office as being something ‘to be used’ rather than using us.
The office can be an enabler for relationships, interaction, etc but we should now use it in more specific ways than in the past. Many of us will be used to this – for example visiting other offices to meet people, for specific meetings, etc. This now needs to be extended to everyone, including those who traditionally worked 100% at a set location. In the past I have worked in both quiet and noisy open plan offices, office layouts where small teams sit together as well as environments where most people have their own room. None of these are ideal. Indeed the backlash to open plan continues:
Personally I have struggled with enforced home working more than I perhaps expected. However, I think this is due to the lack on in person interaction and social events. As we shift back to being able to choose where to work (fingers crossed for the Covid situation), a clever talent strategy will enable workers to choose where (not just office/home but anywhere) and when to work but with the benefits of collegiate experiences centred to that.
Indeed if I think about past experience much of this is long running, for example having meetings with suppliers at a coffee shop rather than the office as a break from screentime and the environment. The real challenge for orgs, is time tracking and productivity. Here talent management needs to be smarter in terms of goals and outcomes rather than screen time and time on task. Using the office for two hours of productivity in a meeting may well be more valuable than a 9:5 day of dealing with emails or other task.
This will likely not develop into a series but I am being brave and adding a #1 to this post.
Trying out some visual novels
I recently played a couple of ‘visual novel’ games and they immediately made me think about branching eLearning scenarios. From a little bit of research online, it is clear that there is an identified gap here between current visual novel markets and their potential use. A 2020 paper describing this thus “there are genres with untapped potential for teaching, such as narratively driven…visual novel games” (Oygardslia et al, 2020).
The games I played noticeably achieved a few things, including:
(1) Strong character development through storytelling.
(2) Narrative choices for the player that really impact on the story and resulting scenes (albeit that this is not always obvious until you play through multiple times, look online for the different options, etc.).
(3) Motivation for the player to continue due to cliff-hangers and other drama devices, managing to create a desire to find out “what is going to happen next”.
These attributes are of course not unique to visual novels (aka ‘narrative games’). For example, I am currently playing Assassins Creed Valhalla (as mentioned in a previous post) and this game has strong character development and a compelling story to keep you playing – it even specifically separates the game into “story arcs” (effectively chapters in traditional written storytelling). Where traditional games, and particularly rich 3D open worlds like Valhalla, struggle is how much narrative choices can impact the game. Valhalla, for example, gives you choices for the conversations of your character but few actually impact outcomes or the game’s story. It is not obvious to the player of Valhalla which conversations impact things either, hence a number of explainer articles online such as this one.
An example Assassins Creed Valhalla narrative choice from a EuroGamer article.
If a quick Google is anything to go by, there has been relatively limited interest in visual novels (specifically) within the wider interest of gamification and how games may, or may not, educate.
Gamification has, of course, been a bit of a buzz term but I would agree with quite a lot of this post regarding explaining that the real reason that gamification has become a focus is because of concerns around motivation. The other half of the puzzle here really is the storytelling element which has also had a lot of interest in L&D (see here for an example article). This is of course nothing new in so much as video based and drama based learning have long played on the benefits of storytelling and emotional response.
As with most categorisations in gaming, what makes a ‘visual novel’ is debatable. However, games categorised as such amount to 4,588 items on the hugely popular Steam Store. Perhaps inevitably a large subsection of these are tagged as “dating” sims or even “adult”. There are also the usual visual gaming splits between anime style graphics, more western style cartoon, more realistic 3D models, etc. The quality of these graphics of course impact the experience but at the same time it was nice for me to play a few things with real character development – rather than the stock Microsoft, Articulate and other cut out “characters” we see in so many webinars, eLearning modules, etc.
Reading this, you might presume these games, often free-to-play or low cost, are terrible. However, reviews on Steam are an interesting read for learning professionals – for example people fearing “click-fest type” games are instead “genuinely surprised” thanks, again, to the storytelling. How often have ‘click next’ eLearning courses ever really surprised you?
One authoring tool, Ren.Py, has a seperate directory of free games you can try. Interestingly, this directory does give you the word count of the game (something I have previously suggested would be possible for the wider gaming industry).
But branching is hard
Such games are, of course, complex – at least with regards to the branching and storytelling. In the past I have worked for organisations that have outsourced such storytelling into bespoke eLearning. However, today, the basics of branching is relatively straightforward in many eLearning tools.
However, if you play a few visual novels it soon becomes clear how shallow some eLearning branching is. And I include some of what I have worked on in the past in that statement.
If we want to avoid branching due to the complexity then what we are working towards is a different categorisation: “A kinetic novel is a linear type of visual novel where there is a linear storyline with no player choice or gameplay.”.
Authoring tools
There are numerous options in this space, here are a few I have looked at…
A few years back I had a bit of a play with Twine. Twine is primarily text based so might not be appropriate for all situations.
There are some tools marketed for education including ones which shift to a 3D model, like this from CoSpaces, rather than the more scene style of other visual novel tools.
A big problem for those working in corporate environments has always been the restrictions in place with regards to technology. This is why the more recent publishing tools tend to be helpful in being browser based, gone are the days where companies have needed to keep supporting old tech (including Flash) or insisting on everything being in a SCORM package.
Renpy.org requires local .exe files so is likely a non-starter for many corporate environments. Indeed the open source authoring tool but is sponsored by companies that will help you get published elsewhere, such as on games stores. Other options such as TyranoBuilder offer export to browser functionality (although Tyrano is an example with an upfront software cost so I haven’t tried it) which might be more suitable for corporates.
Therefore getting the tool installed and the games out to users to install will be a blocker for some organisations. The mobile app publication option might be a solution for some though.
Nothing new?
In many ways the learning that could be designed in RenPy and other tools is similar to narrative based eLearning in other tools and just as reliant on the quality of writing and story based learning.
This is of course nothing new, indeed conferences for eLearning and games based learning are long running:
With time to learn them, these authoring tools become very powerful. However, the challenges of installation and publication would likely block many corporates/organisations from using them.
Personally, I am going to try and go deeper into Ren.Py in part as it is basically teaching you some Python language through a simple interface which I suspect might be of help in the future. In addition the option to publish to Android and iOS might offer some solutions to the desktop publication problems.
For now, the ease at which Articulate and other tools have made branching become something anyone can do (rather than expensive bespoke eLearning like it used to be) is probably the way that makes sense. However, the cost of developing on a free tool like Ren.Py is likely much lower than a fully blown interactive video experience. Therefore, there are no doubt use cases out there.
This new climate change related online activity is an interesting idea, combining a series of what are basically multiple choice questions (that give the user options for what their government should do to meet the 1.5 degree challenge) with calls to action for individual and national-level behaviour change.
Responses from your selected country will be aggregated and submitted to your government as your “vote”…
What will we do with the results?
Your vote, and those from your country, will be compiled and presented to your government to encourage bolder climate action. Votes will also be counted in a global tally. So stay tuned for the results!
Presumably this vote piece is only prearranged with the 12 countries (plus the EU) that are listed. In addition the game mechanics themselves are a little odd given your choice for each point is really between two items as one is clearly a ‘red herring’. The onscreen results from the ‘quiz’ record 10, 700 or 1000 points depending on your answer to a question and combine into a total score for tackling the 1.5 challenge across multiple areas such as “farms and foods”, “transport”, etc.
Example question from the “Farms & Food” topic.A section’s “vote” (which acts like a summary/debrief of the ‘correct’ answers for each section).Overall scoring in keeping temperature change down.
Does it educate?
The first quote included above specifically states the resource “educates people”. Obviously I could write a lot here about what educating someone actually means versus learning something, etc. What I will try to focus on is if someone is likely to learn anything from the activity. The answer, of course, will be “it depends”.
If we take the cattle example, in the above screenshot, there is a lot of pre-requisite knowledge required – for example a reading level to comprehend “livestock” and “plant-based diet”, albeit with mobile-style friendly graphics as visual clues. Beyond reading ability, there is no real information on the different option and what they mean – thus the light touch to any kind of knowledge content could be confusing and if you really wanted/needed to learn something from this you would likely have to do some research away from the resource. This is not helped by the text being image based and, therefore, you can not simply select text and ask your browser to search the web for more information.
Therefore, I am tempted to say this resource might be quite useful for a school to run through in a group, i.e. with a teacher/facilitator in place to use it to foster discussion, rather than as a learning resource per se.
How could it be improved?
10, 700 and 1000 don’t obviously relate to the 1.5 degree temperature and it is not very clear from the onscreen graphics how many ‘points’ are needed as a minimum for your choices to meet your country’s requirements. Indeed there is a contradiction between not wanting to add to temperature but also needing a high score. It would be better if the scoring was somehow reversed – e.g. starting with your high carbon total and then cutting it with a % target to reach 1.5 from a high score.
There is also a risk here from oversimplifying as, presumably, the carbon impact of some choices would be more in some countries than others (this complexity might be built in but I doubt it).
The “none of the above” option on the vote really does not work either as a form of learning summary nor as a mockup of the democratic action. Particularly if the intention of the resource is for actual democratic input…
Reliable information on public opinion on climate action
This is given, in a related YouTube video’s description, as a reason for the website’s vote element:
Mission 1.5 YouTube introduction
However, it is clearly a limited activity with just three (well two) options to consider per question and then the user being very heavily prompted to select the ‘best’ option for each section’s three questions as the vote. I must admit I voted a few “none of the above” responses in a Brewster’s Millions style mood.
Summary
Overall this feels like one of those examples of where someone wants to try to achieve educational outcomes but they have limited content, a desire to reduce instruction (but to the point of irrelevance) and really only manage to leverage the gaming expertise involved (which seems considerable from the “about” page) to graphics/UI and little else. It also highlights the incredible difficulty in building content for a global audience with no personalisation or clear target audience.
Whose Education Is It Anyway? 