Last chapters of book

When designing an interface, make sure you represent the activity so there can be learning taking place. Keeping the interface simple but challenging is key. Opinion bars let the end learner rate what they are reading and doing at each point.
Three things that most likely will happen to the creator of a game are: 1. You will put the wrong amount of time into some parts that should have been used on another part. 2. You will realize that you’ve left out an important feature that is just too expensive or time consuming to fix. 3. Someone will point out something that you’ve failed to add that would have totally enhanced the game.
The first games made the user happy by scoring high points and beating fellow players. The points were incentive enough to keep playing.
Gameplay includes it all – graphics, story, interface, plus more. When working with a group, a unifying idea brings them together. After racking up points was the incentive, making it to the next level was the goal of every player. The Virtual Leader game takes many hours to move through. Some moved through it and enjoyed it and others couldn’t do it. There are many long term issues to be worked out with simulations. A huge issue is how much do you guide the user?
Evaluating simulation based content is not easy either because unlike with books, magazines, and TV, you can’t skim through a simulation. There’s always the fear that people will try to beat the simulation instead of learning from it. The three stages of playing a game are: frustration and misery, you have a great time; then gaming begins. The future of all students is in the hands of the simulators. Once it’s realized that this is where the future lies, students will be excelling and learning so much more than they do now. I think they are just waiting to be unleashed!

Presentation notes

I worked on my presentation last night and was able to get it up and running. The bad part is that it's very simple. I wish I had more knowledge and could add much more. I need to get rid of my fear of the whole thing. I put in some wrong numbers and the whole thing disappears! Then I am afraid to do that again! The information on the board is very hard to read with its small sized font. I don't know how to remedy that other than making the board gigantic. I also have a question that sounds ridiculous if you know the answer. When each person does something to my board like types on it, does everyone see the same thing? or is it just for that person and others don't know changes are being made? I'm wondering this for test taking.

Final Project Proposal

I've decided to do my project about making all kinds of drinks for the beginner bartender. Simple Bartender's Guide to mixing drinks. My target audience would be people who have not taken classes in mixology but want to start out in simple bartending. Anyone can use this; a teacher can use this in a class also. All you have to do is access the board in Second Life. The board will already exist and the teacher or beginning bartender can just access it.
I would like to have a "search" bar with numerous spaces for searching for ingredients so if someone knows a few ingredients, they can type it in and pull up drinks that contain them. This could also be used as a teaching tool for remembering what goes into a certain drink. This could work with groups also. It would be nice to have the teacher list ingredients and the group says what the drink is or writes it in chat and then the real drink is shown.
There could be roles...someone is the bartender and someone is the patron. The time spent here will depend on how much time a person is willing to spend reading drink lists and learning. A teacher could assign times and watch the groups or however many people trying to get the ingredients right.
A test could be devised that groups take on their own and submit the answers to the teacher. It could be a one on one test also or by group with each student having a time limit to submit their answers via chat or voice.
A session will be brought to a close once the teacher feels the learners are at the correct level to be graded or let go. Studying can be done at any time by learners, which makes it a good tool.
I'm not sure if this could be done in real time by any other means that would be as good as SL, other than by sitting in a classroom.
The obstacles I envision are getting the search buttons to allow for multiple ingredients in order to find the right drink. I need the skills of adding media to a board and being able to work with it. I am excited to think that this will possibly work!