Cyberculture, Academia, and the

New Web

University of

Connecticut

ACRL/NEC 2008 conference

Plan of the talk1. Pieces of

Web 2.02. Gaming

the world

(Vermont trees and sky, winter 2008)

Plan of the talkNot talking

about:1. Mobile/

wirelessness

2. “Web 3.0”

(Second Life message, 2006)

Thematics

• Emergence in

time and space

• Pedagogy• Open

determinism

(“Sorpdragon,” Voicethread 2007)

Memes

• Shadow IT• Storytellin

g• Giants

(Middlebury bridge,

January 2006)

One odd metaphor

Web 2.0 and education is like gaming and education: awareness is challenging

• Huge, financially and quantitatively successful worlds

• Global and rapidly developing scope• Bad anxieties, policies, and media

coverage• Perceived lack of seriousness

Five responses

Web 2.0 and education is like gaming and education: intersections are happening

• Take advantage of preexisting projects and services

• Mod/warp/hack • DIY• Literacy: new media• Influence

(World of Warcraft)

I. Web 2.0

(Web 2.0 Bullshit Generator, http://emptybottle.org/bullshit/)

“Technorati is now tracking over 70 million weblogs, and we're seeing about 120,000 new weblogs being created worldwide each day. That's about 1.4 blogs created every second of every day.”

(David Sifry,April 2007)

(Flickr blog, March 2008)

Will YouTube kill the podcasting star?

(eMarketer, February 2008; Via Podcasting News)

(Le Monde, January 14 2008)

(March 2008http://wikimediafoundation.org/wiki/Press_releases/10M_articles)

The term’s history: Tim O’Reilly, 2005

• Expands “social software”

• Draws on Web history

Microcontent, rather than sites or large documents

(NITLE blog Liberal Education Today, http://b2e.nitle.org)

I. Web 2.0

Multiply authored microcontent

Open content and/or services and/or standards…

(Pepysblog, 2003-)

…leading to networked conversations

(Pepysblog, 2003-)

O’Reilly: Web 2.0 is a platform for development

• Open APIs• Access to data• Virtue of the lazyweb

(http://www.hurricanearchive.org/, Center for History and New Media,George Mason University)

• Programming staff• Perceived recognition

Web 2.0 components, movements• Collaborative writing platforms: the wiki way

-Viégas, Wattenberg, Dave (Historyflow, IBM, 2004)

Wikis are (often) textually productive

Web 2.0 components, movements• collaborative writing platforms: the

blogosphere

(Radio Open Source blog/podcast)

State of the blogosphere, more• Diversity: diaries, public

intellectuals, carnivals, knitters, moblogs, warblogs home and abroad…

• 12 people million using three platforms, including LiveJournal: majority women (Anil Dash, MeshForum 2006)

NIH guidelines, http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/books/bv.fcgi?rid=citmed.section.61024

What’s happened since “podcasting” in 2004? Neologisms:

• godcasting• nanocasting• podfading• podsafe• podspamming• podvertising• porncasting

(Missing Link podcast, Southwestern University)

Web 2.0 influences rich media: video

(Gootube? Suetube?)

Videoblogging(vlog? vog?)

(Ask a Ninja; Rocketboom; Howard Rheingold)

Social object: the person

• FaceBook• MySpace• LinkedIn• ZoomInfo• CyWorld…

“Less than four years after its launch, 15 million

people, or almost a third of the country's population,

are members.” (BusinessWeek, September 2005)

Social organization of information, new forms: folksonomy

• Search• Retrieval• Self-

awareness

http://del.icio.us/

for DoctorNemo

Community surfacing

• Ontology

• Concepts • Collaborative research

Keeping up

NITLE workshop tag cloud, 2008

Extrapolating principles: Ton Zylstra on the social object:

“In general you could say that both Flickr and del.icio.us work in a triangle: person, picture/ bookmark, and tag(s). Or more abstract a person, an object of sociality, and some descriptor...”

(Zylstra in Second Life, 2007)

“…In every triangle there always needs to be a person and an object of sociality. The third point of the triangle is free to define[,] as it were.”

-http://www.zylstra.org, 2006(emphases added)

(“Online Communities”, XKCD, April 2007 )…

For academia, this can seem a bit overwhelming

(“Online Communities”, XKCD, April 2007 )

Already out of date

For academia, this can seem a bit overwhelming

Flickr and storytelling

• Tell a story in 5 frames group

“Gender Miscommunication”, Nightingai1e, 2006

“Gender Miscommunication” (Nightingai1e, 2006)

Social photo stories

Or remix social media into narratives

Example: "Farm to Food", Eli the Bearded (2008)

• Library of Congress collections

Social photo stories

Social photo stories

Social photo stories

Flickr, Tell A Story in Five Frames group (http://www.flickr.com/groups/visualstory/)

Example: "Food to Farm", Eli the Bearded (2008)

Social photo stories

Example: "Food to Farm", Eli the Bearded (2008)

Social photo stories

Pedagogies:• Remix• Archive work• Social

presentation• Visual

literacy

(http://www.flickr.com/groups/visualstory/discuss/72157603786255599/;http://www.flickr.com/photos/library_of_congress/ )

Social workshopping

In the Tell a story in 5 frames group, 'Alone With The Sand' , moliere1331 (2005)

Pedagogies and publications

Teaching with Web 2.0: it’s not all new - Web 1.0, internet pedagogies• Hypertext• Web audience• Discussion fora • Collaborative document authoring• Groupware

Teaching with Web 2.0: it’s not all new

Earlier pedagogies• Journaling• Media literacy

Teaching with Web 2.0: principles

http://smarthistory.blogspot.com/

Distributed conversation

Collaborative writing

Object-oriented discussion

Connectivism (G. Siemens, 2004)

Wiki pedagogies• Collective

research• Group writing• Document

editing• Information

literacy• Discussion• Knowledge

accretion(Romantic Audiences project

Bowdoin College, 2005-present

• Discussion• Knowledge

accretion

Social object pedagogies

• Prompts• Discussion

object• Compositio

n materials

More social object pedagogies• Annotate details• Remix (“Make it mine”) Edugadget

http://www.edugadget.com/2005/05/07/flickr-creative-commons

RSS pedagogies• Shaping Web reading• Pushing student-created

content (mother blog, Feed to Javascript)

• Web 2.0 wrangling

(Bloglines)

Teaching with Web 2.0: “net.gen”:“Fully half of all teens and 57 percent of

teens who use the Internet could be considered Content Creators, according to a survey by the Pew Internet & American Life Project.”

http://www.pewtrusts.com/pdf/PIP_Teens_1105.pdf

“[S]tudents… write words on paper, yes— but… also compose words and images and create audio files on Web logs (blogs), in word processors, with video editors and Web editors and in e-mail and on presentation software and in instant messaging and on listservs and on bulletin boards—and no doubt in whatever genre will emerge in the next ten minutes.

Note that no one is making anyone do any of this writing.”

Kathleen Blake Yancey, "Made Not Only in Words: Composition in a New Key." CCC 56.2 (2004):297-328.Emphasis added.

Academic open archives for social media

Freesound archive

•DIY copyright•Social networking values•University of Pompeu Fabra (Barcelona)

(http://freesound.iua.upf.edu/)

Podcasts and teaching: profcasting

• Bryn Mawr College: Michelle Francl, chemistry

• Duke: “Classroom recording”

• Learning objects: Gardner Campbell, University of Richmond

• Duke: “Course content dissemination”

• Information literacy

Student program podcasting on campus

• War News Radio (Swarthmore College)

•PEPI courses (University of British Columbia, department of Land and Food Resources)

Media to enhance other media

• Podcast + pdfs: Allegheny College, Gothcast

Podcasts and research• Public intellectual

– Out of the Past– Engines of Our

Ingenuity – In Our Time– University

Channel– The Missing Link

New forms of scholarly communication

CommentPress implementation, Institute for the Future of the BooksMcKenzie Wark, Eugene Lang College

Still more bookblogging

Siva Vaidhyanathan, University of Virginia

Combining Web 2.0 forms• Podcasting• Blogging• Digital storytelling• Web-based photography• YouTube• Video mashups

Middlebury College, Jason Mittell and Barbara Ganley

• Blend teaching with research

• BG now involved in rural community media

II. Gaming

Long history of gaming

• Predigital– Chess, go,

Senet, mancala, backgammon, dice, cards

– Kriegspiel– Cold War games

Digital• Spacewar• Zork to IF

boom (1980s)• 1990s rebirth

Gaming in 2008

Physical platforms• Console• Cell phone• PSP• Extended forms

(DDR)• New forms: Wii

PC• CD, DVD• Browser• Downloadable

…And these can be combined

• Size: huge – (WoW: 10

million subscribers, January 2008)

• Player range: genders, classes, nations

• Interface, device driver

Eve Online, from site

Growing content diversity

• Current events (Kumawar)

• Political argument (September 12th, FoodForce)

• Religious gaming (Left Behind: Eternal Forces, 2006)

• Literary gaming (Kafkamesto, 2006)

(BBC Climate Challenge; Ayiti:

both 2007-present)

Genres

• First-person shooter

• Puzzle • Platform jumper• Strategy• “Adventure”• Sports • Minigame (Koster

fractals)

New forms• Katamari• Portal• Augmented reality

games

Economics of games

Who creates games?• Businesses• Governments• Nonprofits• Amateurs

Scales• Large games

– $millions– EA, Microsoft

• Modding– Back to Doom,

hacking, View Source

– Neverwinter Nights

• Casual games

Other economics• Gambling• Gold farming• Currency trading

Offshoot:machinima

• Tools– Counterstrike, Halo– Second Life– The Movies

• Art movement– Machinima Academy of Arts and

Sciences (http://www.machinima.org/)

(Koulamata, “The French Democracy”, 2006)

Virtual worlds

Antecedents, early digital: science fiction

1984: William Gibson, Neuromancer1992: Neal Stephenson, Snow Crash“’Cyberspace. A consensual hallucination experienced daily by billions of legitimate operators, in every nation, by children being taught mathematical concepts. A graphic representation of data abstracted from the banks of every computer in the human system…”

-Neuromancer

Antecedents, digital: the MUD, Adventure (1970s-present)

(LambdaMOO, 1990-present)

Antecedents, predigital: Theater of Memory

(from Philippe Codognet, http://webia.lip6.fr/~codognet/)

Avatar spaces-Activeworlds-Atmospheres-There

(Activeworlds, 1995-present; image via www.virtualworldlets.net)

-Habbo Hotel-Cyworld (Club Penguin, 2005-present)

2d-3d worlds

-Runescape-VMK

Google Earth

-Keyhole DB-2d: KML-3d: Sketchup-reach-Geotagging

photos: videos

Mirror worlds

Augmented Reality

“Human Pacman,” Adrian David Cheok, circa 2005

-mobile devicesgame playersgeneral use tools

-science fiction explores (Vernor Vinge, Rainbows End)

Interactive FictionSpeaking of text

adventures:• 1980s boom:

Infocom• Ongoing art form• Nick Montfort,

Twisty Little Passages

(“Dead Cities”, from Lovecraft Commonplace Book project 2007http://www.illuminatedlantern.com/if/games/lovecraft/)

Interactive Fiction

Speaking of text adventures:

• Inform 7, free IF editor

(Richard Liston, Ursinus College, classroom example 2008)

Narrative

Where is storytelling in a game?

• Sequence of activities• Cut-scene or

cinematic• Writerly player• Encyclopedia world

(Murray, Manovich)• Ludology vs.

narratology

Linearity?• Game on rails• Branching

outcomes• Multilinear• Open-ended

IF: established long enough to be used for political satire…

Defective Yeti, January 2006

http://www.defectiveyeti.com/archives/001561.html

Alternate reality games• Permeability of

game boundary (space and time)

• Focus on distributed, collaborative cognition

• Increased ephemerality

(Perplex City, 2003-2006)

Political ARGs (ex: World Without Oil, May 2007)()

Example: Chain Factor – casual game, TV show (2007)

Combined with other games, media

New platforms (ex: Myspace, for SilverLadder, 2007-ongoing)

Most widely played ARGs

• Art of the Heist, various for Audi, 2005 (500,000 website visitors, on-going players ?);

• The Beast, Sean Stewart et al for Microsoft & Dreamworks, 2001 (3 mill players worldwide);

• I Love Bees (aka Haunted Apiary), 42 Entertainment for Microsoft, 2004 (3 mill+ players worldwide);

• Jamie Kane, BBCi, 2005/..(20,000+ players)

Alternate reality games

• Majestic, Electronic Arts, 2001(800,000 initially registered, 70,000 ongoing players);

• MetaCortechs, independent [“Project Mu” in credits](1.3 mill, 113 countries);

• Perplex City, Mind Candy, 2005/.. (100,000s website visits, 14,000+ players worldwide).-Christy Dena, “ARG-stats” (2007-ongoing)

http://www.christydena.com/online-essays/arg-stats/

Gaming and education

“Video games… situate meaning in a multimodal space through embodied experiences to solve problems and reflect on the intricacies of the design of imagined worlds and the design of both real and imagined social relationships and identities in the modern world.”

21-century boom

• James Paul Gee (author of preceding quote)

• Marc Presnsky• Henry Jenkins

• John Seely Brown

• Mia Consalvo• Constance

Steinkuehler• Kurt Squire

James Paul Gee’s argument• Semiotic domains; tranference• Embodied action and feedback• Projective identity• Edging the regime of competence

(Vygotsky)• Probe-reprobe cycle• Social learning (roles; consumption-

production)

Gee on Rise of Nations

• “Fish tank” tutorial• Strategic self-assessment

Multimedia literacies

• Gee: multimodal principle• Selfe et al: multimodal literacy• Bogost: procedural rhetoric

Dean for American game (2004)

Archived at http://www.deanforamericagame.com/play.html

Multimedia literacies

“…within games, there are in fact multitudes of literacy practices – games are full of text, she asserted, to say nothing of the entirely text-based fandom communities online that take place in forums, blogs and social networks.”

Constance Steinkuehler,FuturePlay 2007, Toronto

Quoted in http://www.gamasutra.com/php-bin/news_index.php?story=16264

Context and immersion

James Paul Gee’s argument• Semiotic domains• Squire: experiential learning

– Learners prefer immersive environments to targeted scenes

Which educational theory?• Ian Bogost: behaviorist versus constructivist

Issues summoned up:– Media effect

(violence)– Transfer across

domains, platforms– “Simulation gap”– Subjectivity and

assessment

Image from Scot Osterweil, presentation to Learning from Video Games: Designing Digital Curriculums (NERCOMP SIG , 2007)

Pedagogical functions

Jason Mittell, Middlebury college:• Skills • Simulations• Politics (criticism, activism)• Media studies (psych, cultural

studies, media)– NITLE brownbag, January 2008

Pedagogy: virtual worlds

Ancient Spaces project, University of British Columbia

Machu Picchu, Arts Metaverse,Open Croquet

Pedagogy: virtual worlds

Second Life, Bryan Zelmanov

Pedagogy: social software

“Emotional bandwidth” (Linden Labs)

• Social presence• Self-expression

Game studies

• Serious Games• Conferences• Scholarly articles and books (MIT

Press)• Games Learning Society conference,

http://www.glsconference.org/2008/index.html

Game studies

Liberal arts instances• Jason Mittell,

Middlebury• Richard Liston,

Ursinus• Aaron Delwiche,

Trinity (image)• Christian Spielvogel,

Hope• Harry Brown,

Depauw

National Institute for Technology and Liberal

Education(NITLE) http://nitle.org

Liberal Education Today blog http://b2e.nitle.org