Part I: Shoehorn Approach

I currently have two Japanese language memorization programs on my iphone, one for Kanji and one for vocabulary. Both programs (Japanese Flip and Kanji Flip) feature the same programming feature where when you correctly identify an answer, you see that question less often. However, if you answer a question incorrectly, you would expect to see that question again very soon. It's great except that it's difficult to know what kind of progress you've made. Moreover, it offers little encouragement to come back and continue your work. This is where video games come in... and the shoehorning of those elements come in. The two problems I mentioned are two problems that plague bad games and for those that have those problems solved, elevate the best games. For instance, a sense of progression is often achieved by a leveling system in video games. As you complete tasks, missions, etc, your game character gains experience points and levels up. Sure I'm slowly gaining in my Japanese ability as I use these two applications, but a nice progression bar with information on questions answered correctly would be nice. To bring it a step further, I would like to see abilities added as you level up. For instance, perhaps the player would gain experience point bonuses for each question answered in a row and at level 5, the player gains the ability to skip a question in order to preserve that streak. Another approach would be the inclusion of items. Get to level 2, win a new theme for your application. Get to level 4, win a little piece of candy. Answer ten food vocab questions correctly and you unlock a miniature chibi slice of pizza. Whatever... These types of hooks have been used in RPGs for quite some time with great success. Educational programs should be taking advantage of those ideas as well.

Video Games and Education... holding hands

I don't mean in the moral way (although they often try), but in the I'll sit down and dedicate my life to something for 20 hours kind of way. My time in education has made it pretty clear to me that students can often have a difficult focusing on their work for long stretches of time. For some, short stretches are a real challenge. Now, I remember myself as a child dedicating hours and hours to what can fairly be called some of the worst video games on earth... terrible, horrible, awful pieces of entertainment. However, like I said, hours and hours of dedication. So, I'm curious how education could have harnessed those hours I spent on Alfred Chicken for SNES and turned them into something useful. I've got a few ideas.

More to come...

Barbecue Sauce Execs

I have a larger post in the works, but ponder this for now....

Do you think the executives at Barbecue Sauce companies just sit in the board room and say, "hmmm, we made big inroads on ketchup this month and all signs point to the trend continuing in this fashion. If we keep this up, we'll be the number one condiment by the end of the year." They pop a bottle of champagne and celebrate....

Florida v. Powell and Miranda

I think most people believe that the Supreme Court decides an issue and never goes back to it. That my not be true, as the only evidence I have is that most people recognize the case Roe v. Wade, but if asked about Planned Parenthood v. Casey, relatively few would have any idea what that's about. That's fine, but generally that is not the reality with most issues, which brings me to this post. Today, the Supreme Court is hearing oral arguments in Florida v. Powell where Powell, Florida, and lower courts around the country are waiting for clarification on whether it is sufficient for police to tell suspects that they have a right to speak to a lawyer before questioning and that they may use that right during questioning, or must they specifically inform them that they have a right to counsel during the interrogation itself?

Powell was a felon in possession of a firearm. When arrested and interrogated, he made several incriminating statements, including that the he owned the weapon found on him. These statements were introduced at trial and he was found guilty.

“You have the right to remain silent. If you give up this right to remain silent, anything you say can be used against you in court. You have the right to talk to a lawyer before answering any of our questions. If you cannot afford to hire a lawyer, one will be appointed for you without cost and before any questioning. You have the right to use any of these rights at any time you want during this interview.”

That is the exact text of Tampa's Miranda warning and was used before Powell's interrogation. The defense believed that because the warning did not explicitly state that Powell had the right to an attorney during the interrogation, his statements should not have been eligible to be submitted as evidence.

My Take:
I am sure that there are times when police improperly obtain information from suspects that should not be allowed to be used as evidence in a trial. However, I do not believe that this is one of those times. This man is guilty. He voluntarily admitted that he owned the weapon. He wasn't told that he could consult an attorney during the interrogation explicitly, but he was told explicitly that he could consult a lawyer prior to the interview and he didn't. Finally, as I have put in bold above, that warning does state that a suspect may use the rights at any time.

The actual decision won't be handed down for quite some time in this case, but I'll make sure that I follow up on it.

Eshort: Some stuff

Just for everyone's information, every post that I write (with the exception of this one) are products of the time between 6 AM and 6:40 AM.

Also, why at coffee shops when you tell them that you would like room for cream, which they know because they asked me, do they put the top on the frickin cup. You know I'll just need to open the dumb thing again. grrrr.....

Modern Warfare 2: I hate it and love it

Modern Warfare 2 has done something that I've wanted to organize for a few years now and I can't help but be a little jealous. As a gamer (yep, I'll admit it even though I'm a bit fearful of the assumptions that are carried with that title), I've seen the evolution from playing with your friends in a room on a 24" TV to the introduction of high speed internet and HD televisions in all of our homes. With that came a general decline in the time being spent chatting with your friends while shooting each other with a Klobb in Goldeneye. That always made me sad. However, I was certainly willing to settle for its replacement by online gaming, especially since college equally lowered our time playing together.

Well, here's where MW2 has succeeded where I feel I've failed. Last night I had a blast playing with 4 of my close friends playing the game online with voice chat (again, the stereotypical nerd scene comes into view: headset, controller, TV). These friends and I love to be together, but I'll be honest that none of us are crazy about sitting on the telephone and chatting, so we rarely get a chance to talk other than email and text. Gaming has changed that. Yes, this time is being used to play MW2, but it is also being used as time for conversation like others would do at a coffee shop or at a bar. Moreover, the benefit extends further in allowing our group, which is stretched across the states of Minnesota and South Dakota, to interact all together despite our location.

The reason I'm a bit jealous and angry towards MW2 is that I've wanted this to come to fruition for years. It has periodically with Halo 3 and a few other titles, but for some reason MW2 has put fire in my friends' boots. Personally, I don't even think the game is that great. It's fun, but it can often be frustrating if you aren't a pro at the game. Yet, the experience is still a blast when played together as most games are. Kudos MW2.

Eshort: Dream

This morning I dreamed that I went downstairs and got a snack. Then I woke up and tried to grab the snack off of my night stand... lesson: always have a snack with you in bed

Rudolph the Sexist Reindeer

Two quotes from the Christmas special:

Mrs. Donner wanted to go along too, but Donner said, "No. This is man's work."

They were sad at the loss of their friend, but they decided that the best thing to do was to get the women back to Christmas town.

Gotta catch em all

So yesterday morning I was reading this week's TIME magazine and it had an article about the largest crackdown of dog fighting in recent history. The article featured the story of what happened, but it also had full colored photos of all the dogs. It was sad, but cute.

A little later in the day, I was reading with a student who I don't typically work with (two of my case load students were absent). He had brought a Pokemon book to read. Here's kind of how it went:

Ash: Pikachu, I choose you!
Rival: Fire thing, I choose you!
Ash: Use Lightning Bolt!
Rival: Use Flamethrower!

(A few pages later)

Rival: I don't care about being friends with my pokemon... All I care about is catching them all...
Ash: No way... There's nothing more important than being your pokemon's friend and learning from them.

Okay... this is from the kid who just sent his little electric puppy on a killing spree against another puppy that shoots fire. Nice friend...

So I wrote this over two days and it has gotten to be a bit long. To sum up, pokemon is raising a generation of dog fighters. The end.

Hello Triangle Man

So last night I was playing Assassin's Creed 2 and I took a moment to stop and think about how far games have actually come in terms of visual technology. The game takes place in 15th century Italy in Florence, Tuscany, and Venice. And... in expected nerd fashion I had just finished what was essentially a dungeon and emerged at the top of a building in Florence. The game's camera was intentionally tilted upward toward the sky and my view was blinded by the setting sun. I walked forward and tilted the camera down and realized that I could see the entire city of Florence from this point. That's not all that impressive, however the fact that all that I could see were places that I could actually go is impressive. Every home, church, tent... all the way to the city walls are places that my character could go and interact with.

This is where I really began to think about how far games have come and I organize the evolution in a simple way. In the NES days, you had the simplest form of visual graphics. Little colored squares were organized on screen to make what was suppose to be your character and environment. If you were playing a superman game, your mom was likely to walk in and say, "Who's that blue and red blob on the screen?" Well duh mom... it's superman. However, that didn't last long because once the SNES and Genesis came along, gamers were finally able to identify the characters and things they were using... for the most part. Then came the N64. We've finally made it to the third dimension. However, in order to achieve this the graphics had to take a bit of a hit. That often meant that your characters looked like they were made out of triangles.

Mom: Why is that triangle man fighting that triangle man?
Me: Sigh... isn't it obvious... the triangle kingdom is experiencing a triangular coup and....

Okay... so it wasn't that bad... but still... most of those games looked awful (However at the time I as well as many others probably would have praised how good these games looked). As new systems have come out, games have progressively gotten better in a linear fashion up until where we are now. Mario 64 also had some moments where you could look from a high point and see an entire level that you were free to play in just like Assassin's Creed 2... which is cool if you're cool with a world made out of triangles.