Blogscapes

A new online game has got parents in the UK and Europe fuming. It’s called Miss Bimbo and it calls itself a virtual fashion game, where users log on to create an alter ego and compete with other players in beauty pageants.

The aim of the game is to be the coolest, richest and most famous bimbo in the world! Players go on missions to find rich billionaire boyfriends and get plastic surgery to keep up their appearances. Players also take diet pills to maintain their weight!

Interestingly, a quick check of the Miss Bimbo site shows the following statements:

As a result of this rather surprising media attention we have decided to remove the option of purchasing diet pills from the game. We apologise to any players whom this may inconvenience but we feel in light of this weeks proceedings it is the correct action to take.

We would also like to sincerely apologise to our players for the media comparison of Miss Bimbo and Paris Hilton. We feel that this does a dis-service to the players whom send their bimbos to university, tea parties or chess tournaments.

At this time we would also like to remind players that the Miss Bimbo team assume no responsibility or liability for any fashion faux pas, hair style disasters or boob jobs incurred in real life as as a result of playing the Miss Bimbo game.

 There have been many discussions online about the game. Some condemn the game for teaching young kids about breast implants and some have turned the attention on parents for their lack of monitoring of what their young kids are up to.

Nicolas Jacquart, the game creator said that he created the game to mirror life in a ‘tongue-in-cheek’ way.

That’s what’s that scaring many. Is it a matter of ’art’ imitating life, or life imitating ‘art’? What do you think?

In previous posts, I’ve talked about different people achieving fame (or infamy), via new media, and the most common method of doing this is to put videos of themselves or their work on Youtube.

We’ve heard about actors and singers getting ‘discovered’ on Youtube, and writers being talent-spotted on their blogs.

One recent case is that of NUS undergrad Donovan Lee. The former NJC student was so disappointed that his 4As and 2 S papers were not enough to get him into an Ivy League, that he decided to record videos of himself in a series called Gaussian Math and post them on Youtube.

In his series of videos, he takes viewers through complex Mathematical concepts such as Vector Integral Calculus and Kepler’s Laws in a direct and engaging way. He’s hoping that the videos can add to his repertoir and achievements and help him get into a top school, very much like how writing a book, or making a documentary would help (and hey, we live in an age of new media, right, so why not Youtube your way to success?)

Interestingly, the videos are recorded in his bedroom in Bishan and he uses a whiteboard as a teaching aid. Donovan has acquired a fan base that stretches overseas.

Curious, I decided to take a look at some of the videos. Watching his video, you can see how his videos have been getting so many hits each day. The undergrad speaks clearly and in an engaging way and seems pretty personable. Educational and entertaining, not a bad combination to have. Well, even if he doesn’t get his spot in a top school, it’s likely that he’ll get a spot in showbiz as a presenter! Afterall, he’s already a guest speaker in his alma mater. 

These past two days have been spent at the new Republic Poly campus attending the ICET 2007. This year’s themes is “Rethinking Pedagogies: Creating Possibilities Through Digital, Interactive and Media” and the focus was on how ”innovations in ICT like gaming and interactive digital media have created a new environment for teaching and learning in the new century.”

Indeed, the keynote addresses as well as the many speakers there spoke on new methods of teaching and learning such as those using game-based learning as well as Web 2.0 technologies. 

Going by the vendors there, SMART classrooms seem the way to go! Don’t think I have seen that many different types of interactive whiteboards in the same place!

Just some quick thoughts on some of the areas discussed at the Conference:

-there was quite an interesting video shown which was a video by Microsoft, a kind of “devil wears Prada” parody

-virtual worlds like Second Life and gaming such as World of Warcraft can have interesting and myriad educational benefits (hm.. while I do agree that there are some benefits in gaming, I wonder how much of the learning can be transferred to real life contexts. I mean, sure, a gamer can exhibit good leadership skills being the Guild leader and directing a raid, but can he or she also exhibit the same leadership skills in real life? I mean, how many gamers, techies, etc out there are good communicators? and gaming is supposed to cultivate communication skills…

- learning needs to be fun and engaging….hm.. but won;t it be a bore if everything is all fun and games? Also, real life is not all fun and games. If students fed on a diet of highly stimulating environments go out into the world, will they be disappointed? Worse, will they be able to cope with the mundane everyday world, where work can be gasp, actually tiresome and tedious?! 

- there’s an increasing closing gap between virtual and real worlds. Much has been done to recreate the real world in a virtual setting..with that, where is the room for one’s imagination?

- gaming addiction - incidentally, I was just watching Tab TV and the topic tonight was on cyber addiction.

Clearly, while educators explore the use of IDM in teaching and learning, let’s hope people don;t just all get carried away by the technology. As shown at the Conference too, technology can sometime let you down too. I can’t quite keep count of the number of times the Internet connection went off, or Ppt slides were not loaded properly, or files not saved properly.

But it’s good to know that questions have been raised and educators will continue to see what ways can best be used to help people learn and enjoy learning.

Gaming addiction became the centre of attention this week when Singaporean MP, Ellen Lee from Sembawang GRC, shared in Parliament how her nephew became a cyber addict and is now in ’debt’, having lost $80, 000 of virtual currency to a bully who stole his assets after forcing him to reveal his game password. (This of course, brings forth another issue about virtual assets and if any legal protection is offered.)

Her story threw up other stories that were shared about youngsters dropping out of school and sitting in front of the computer for more than 12 hours a day, playing hugely addictive games like World of Warcraft and MapleStory.

Not only does the gaming addiction affect the lives of the players themselves, they often also destroy the lives of hapless and helpless parents who know little about the games and even much less about how to prevent or stop the addiction in their children. (Though incidentally, there was mention of a girl asking for help for her father’s addiction!)

It’s no wonder that with such destructive effects of gaming, it’s been likened to fire: “It can be a good servant or a bad master” says Mr Thomas Chong, director of education initiatives of Infocomm Asia Holdings, a leading game publisher.

The negative effects of cybergaming have made many question the benefits it’s touted to have and if those outweigh its problems. Proponents of gaming such as Marc Prensky who wrote the book, Don’t bother me, Ma; I’m learning, tout the positive educational and social effects of gaming. However, I’m sure many who know the gaming addicts would beg to differ with his views.

Thankfully, the concept of cyberwellness seems to be catching on. According to the Internet Safety Zone, cyberwellness ”is a holistic term which encompasses not only concerns around safety and security online, but also considers people’s psychological and emotional well being, along with stage of development with specific regard to the range of issues that may affect children and young people in their use of new mobile and internet technologies”.

Gaming addiction prevention and cure is certainly part of cyberwellness. Thankfully, there are groups that are now forming and being set up to look into this. They include Touch Community’s Plant Crush Cyberwellness Centre and Fei Yue  Community Services Project 180.

Thanks to such centres that recognise that gaming has more than play-ful consequences, more young people can get some help before their virtual cybergame problems become all to real.

The old adage of moderation in everything certainly holds true here.

There’s no doubt that gaming has captured the hearts and imagination not only of  children, but adults as well.  

In an interesting article entitled Gaming? It’s no child’s play, we are told the virtues of gaming. Very much like what Marc Prensky (the guy who popularised the terms digital natives and digital immigrants) has said in his book, “Don’t bother me, Ma. I’m learning”, gaming has come a long way in shedding its image of schoolboys hanging around LAN clubs and playing games, to becoming an activity that is seen to have educational and lifeskills training!

There are currently an estimated 100 million gamers worldwide, according to Mr Eric Lesser, associate partner, IBM Institute for Business Value. And according to two studies conducted by IBM, MIT, Stanford University and Seriosity (a software start-up), “online games can help tomorrow’s workers become better corporate leaders as the workspace becomes more distributed, collaborative and virtual in nature.”

It seems that playing massive multi-player online role playing games can actually help you to pick up interactive and communication as well as leadership skills as you interact, collaborate and compete with thousands of other gamers, on a global basis!

And with things being played out in real time, players need to make snap decisions and adapt to the ever changing environment. And such skills honed in the virtual game worlds can have real benefits and it’s suggested that employers of the future look out for people who have played games as they have picked up those requisite skills.

Hm..so it’s no longer taboo to put gaming or playing games as one of your interests in your resume!

But of course, the consequences of  ‘game over’ in the virtual and real worlds have vastly different consequences and that’s something players need to be made aware of.  “Leaders in the future will need to be able to tolerate and manage informed risk to be successful in an increasingly fast and complex environment,” said Mr Lesser. 

In another interesting article, Avatars without borders, we learn that the creator of Second Life and IBM have joined forces to enable people’s animated online personae, aka avatars to rmove freely from one virtual world to another.

Currently, avatars are stuck in the world they inhabit, so an avatar in Second Life has to stick around Second Life worlds. Given that people spend so much time and money customising their avatars, getting new wardrobes, hairstyles, gestures, etc, they don’t really want to repeating the processes in multiple virtual worlds. This creates an obstacle to the full potential of the online universe to allow for avatars to socialise, advertise, do business and make money. 

“We don’t think the future of virtual worlds is going to involve a lot of ’siloed’ experiences competing against each other. The future is going to involve going from one world to another, ” says, Mr Yoon of Linden Lab. According to Gartner research firm, 80 per cent of the people using the Internet will have alter egos in virtual worlds by 2011. IBM also has its vision of a “3D Internet” that includes companies using virtual worlds for tasks such as recruiting, meetings and employee training. Hm..imagine your avatar going for an interview online in your future virtual company! Better start practising your online interview skills! And make sure your avatar can fly straight!

So, once again, the gaming and virtual worlds are having more and more impact on the real world we inhabit. It’s no wonder some are beginning to not know where to draw the lines.

The desperation of gaming addicts continues to astound.

Last week, a Sec 4 student, Syafic Hussin,  pleaded guilty to housebreaking and theft, and hurting a 19-year-old youth who woke up and found Syafic in his room, trying to steal from him.

Why did Syafic do it? He stole because his parents had refused to give him any more money to buy accesories and game cards for his online games.

Syafic had also stopped going to school to play on the computer all day. He only paused for meals. He enjoyed role-playing games and felt a sense of thrill to be in character. I wonder if his act of violence has anything to do with his role-playing games.

Reading about this case, I can’t help but recall another act of desperation by another gaming addict, Garyl Tan, who was caught mooching (tapping illegally into others’ broadband access) as he cycled around his neighbourhood with his computer trying to find an unsecured network.

With gaming becoming more popular, especially with large scale events like the the World CyberGame Championships being organised, I think that more and more youngsters will fall into gaming addiction. Just like other addicts such as gambling and drug addicts who have received much attention and hence help, there needs to be some focus on gaming addicts too, so that we don’t end up with more Syafics and Garyls in our midst. 

New Media is constantly evolving. Each day, new forms of using New Media emerge as well as new forms of New Media!

In order to keep up with all the developments as well better my understanding of New Media and its related issues, I’m looking out for seminars, conferences and workshops on New Media organised for this or next year. It would be great if they had a slightly more educational than technological slant, as I’m more interested in the various issues related to the use of New Media than the technology behind it, though I’m aware, often the two are related.

If you do know of any good seminars, conferences or workshops coming up, I would appreciate it if you could drop me a line or leave a message in the Comments box.

Cheers! 

There’s been greater interest in digital media as Singapore recently announced its new Media Fusion 2015 masterplan which “aims to create 10,000 new jobs and value-added contribution of S$10 billion by year 2015.” The plan is meant to help “propel Singapore’s media industry forward in the digital age, as part of the creative economy and aligned with the growth formula of World Singapore,” according to the article, Singapore’s New Media Push.

Not only that, there is an overseas push for MDA’s IDM plan as well, as the masterplan ”includes plans to push Singapore companies overseas” with “a very export-driven strategy”, which includes helping some of the smaller companies here grow and make their mark on the international scene as well. 

All this spells further developments in the area of new media development and IDM - something for us to watch out for and be prepared for!

When we talk about the digital divide, we often talk of the gap between those who are technologically advanced, as opposed to those who have less oppotunity or access to technology.

At one level, we can talk about the digital divide between the richer developed countries and the poorer less developed ones who don’t have the infrastructure for a digital lifestyle.  

But that may be changing, as on another level, as a recent survey by communications planning firm Universal McCann shows, “netizens from China, South Korea, Malaysia and the Philippines have the most active blogospheres.” The survey also found that Singapore holds the 8th place as most avid bloggers in the world.  In addition, not only are some of the less developed countries more actively blogging and reading blogs, they also participate more in social and new media such as podcasting and sharing of photos and videos.

Thus, perhaps it’s time to rethink what constitutes ‘first world’ status and challenge traditional definitions of ‘first world’ and ‘the digital divide’.

On another level, I would like to add that the digital divide can be seen on a more personal basis, in terms of the gap in technological know-how and tech-savvyness between the younger and older members in a household. This is turning the age-old adage of ‘older and wiser’ on its head!

Mark Prensky has coined the terms ‘digital native’ and ‘digital immigrants’ to describe the two groups, and I think it’s important that both parties learn to bridge the gap, so mind the gap! 

What a pleasant surprise!

An excerpt from my blog posting last week on the issue of sexual predators using the Internet to trick gullible young students into meeting with them was featured in the weekly column on the blogosphere in Digital Life, the IT supplement by the national paper, The Straits Times!

I’m glad that the posting has made more people aware of the dangers of the Internet. I know some teachers have accessed the blog post as well, and it’ll be great if students were reading and learning from it as well.