We’re exploring Here!

If you had a rich malleable canvas that could flip rules on their heads and expose truths we take for granted, wouldn’t you use it? Jasper Schellekens writes about the games delving deep into some of our most challenging philosophical questions.

The famous Chinese philosopher Confucius once said, ‘I hear and I forget. I see and I remember. I do and I understand.’ Confucius would have likely been a miserable mystic in modern mainstream education which demands that students sit and listen to teachers. But it’s not all bad. Technological advancements have brought us something Confucius could never have dreamed of: digital worlds. 

A digital world offers interaction within the boundaries of a created environment. It allows you to do things, even if the ‘thing’ amounts to little more than pressing a key. Research at the Institute of Digital Games (IDG) focuses on developing a deeper understanding of how these concepts can be used to teach through doing by looking at people interact with gameworlds, studying how games can impact them (Issue 24), and designing games that do exactly that. 

Doing it digital 

Two millennia later, John Dewey, one of the most prominent American scholars of the 20th century, proposed an educational reform that focused on learning through doing and reflection instead of the ‘factory model’ that was the norm. Dewey’s idea was embraced, and has become a pedagogical tool in many classrooms, now known as experiential learning.

Let’s not pretend that Confucius was thousands of years ahead of his time—after all, apprenticeships have always been an extremely common form of learning. But what if we were to transplant this method of experimentation, trial and error, into a digital world?

It would allow us to do so much! And we’re talking about more than figuring out how to plug in to Assassin’s Creed’s tesseract or getting the hang of swinging through New York City as Spiderman. While these are valuable skills you don’t want to ignore, what we’re really interested in here are virtual laboratories, space simulations, and interactive thought experiments.

Games make an ideal vehicle for experiential learning precisely because they provide a safe and relatively inexpensive digital world for students to learn from.

Think of the value of a flight simulator to train pilots. The IDG applied the same idea to create a virtual chemistry lab for the Envisage Project. They threw in the pedagogical power tools of fun and competition to create what’s known as serious games.

Serious games are at the heart of many of the IDG’s research projects. eCrisis uses games for social inclusion and teaching empathy. iLearn facilitates the learning process for children with dyslexia and Curio is developing a teaching toolkit to foster curiosity. However, the persuasive power of videogames stretches further than we might think.

In a videogame world, players take intentional actions based on the rules set by the creators. These ‘rules’ are also referred to as ‘game mechanisms’. Through these rules, and experiential learning, players can learn to think in a certain, often conventional, way.

Which brings us to HERE.

Prof. Stefano Gualeni is fond of using games to criticise conventions: in Necessary Evil a player takes on the role of an NPC (Non Player Character) monster, in Something Something Soup Something the definition of soup is questioned, while in HERE Gualeni breaks down what ‘here’ means in a digital world.

What’s Here?  

HERE sees the player explore the philosophical concept of ‘indexicality’, the idea that meanings depend on the context in which they occur. A fitting example is the extended index finger, which means different things depending on where it is placed and what movement it makes. Point one way or another to indicate direction, place over the lips to request silence, or shake it from side to side to deny or scold. 

The game explores the word ‘here’ in the digital world. It sheds light on how much we take for granted, and how a lot of concepts are not as straightforward as we think. 

HERE you play as ‘Wessel the Adventurer’, a cat of acute perception that is sent on a quest by a wizard to find magic symbols and open an enchanted cave. Playing on the tropes of role-playing games, the expectations of the adventurer are thus framed in a conventional manner, but not everything is as it seems.

By subverting players’ expectations of role-playing games, they will have the opportunity to discover what they have been (perhaps unwittingly) taught. They will be confronted with a puzzle involving the many versions of ‘here’ that can co-exist in a digital world. Among their prizes is Gualeni himself performing a philosophical rap. 

Explorable Explanations 

Experiential learning isn’t the only way to learn, but video games, with their interactivity and ability to manipulate the gameworld’s rules with ease, offer a ripe environment for it. The digital realm adds a very malleable layer of possibility for learning through doing and interacting with philosophical concepts. HERE is not alone in this approach. 

Words often fall short of the concepts they are trying to convey. How do you explain why people trust each other when there are so many opportunities to betray that trust? Telling people they have cognitive biases is not as effective as showing them acting on those biases.

Explorable Explanations is a collection of games curated by award-winning game developer Nicky Case that dig into these concepts through play. The Evolution of Trust is one of them, breaking down the complex psychological and social phenomena contributing to the seemingly simple concept of trust in society. Adventures in Cognitive Biases is able to show us how we are biased even when we don’t think we are. HERE delves into our understanding of language and the world around us, showing us (instead of telling us) that learning doesn’t have to be boring. Now go learn something and play HERE.   

To try the game yourself visit www.here.gua-le-ni.com

Blockchain: Not just bitcoin

Blockchain is still a big unknown, even for some professionals. Blockchain and the Distributed Ledger Technology (DLT) have been made infamous by Bitcoin, a digital payment and peer-to-peer monetary transaction system that bypasses banks and third party endorsements. But DLT and the Blockchain protocol can be used for other purposes.  Blockchain’s greatest strength lies in its decentralised architecture. It allows transactions to be shared openly across independent nodes, verified by encrypted checksums that give each closed block a distinct, indelible signature. All these connected transactions, chained within a common system, make tampering practically impossible. Blockchain is irrevocable, affordable, flexible, and secure.  

But what about other applications of these concepts. What if we were to apply such technology to every data exchange? Data and information in the digital age is spearheading the evolution of services and product development, serving a continuum of user demands at all levels and scales, boosting research and innovation applications. Indeed, data is nowadays considered a key ingredient for competitiveness, and this is not about to change anytime soon. 

Prof. Aldo Drago

The greatest bottleneck is data sharing. Data production is growing and covering many realms but unfortunately most of it remains locked up in closed databases, enterprises, and institutions. Unofficially it is estimated that the world generates 16 zettabytes of data annually (that’s 16 billion terabyte laptops), but only 1% is analysed. The problem is that data is withheld by data collectors who consider data hoarding to be a right. Where data is released it does not usually flow to users. As a result, we now have institutions running massive centralised databases, often conducting data archaeology, compiling it at local, regional, and global scales. They address the needs of different user groups, but they also impose licensing procedures that ultimately restrain the power of free data flows, establishing unnecessary monopolies.

Blockchain can unleash the full power of data by providing a system for seamless, efficient and secure data transactions. It can lead to so many applications, such as eliminating the need for shipping documents in the transportation of goods, and making the freight and logistics industry more time and cost efficient. Data could be funnelled into artificial intelligence systems to create high performance human-machine interfaces, self-automated robots, cars, and ships. These devices, with information from big data, would be able to learn from their mistakes and autonomously adapt to changing environments. In medicine, large data sets would prove priceless in drug and treatment design, doing away with the constraints of limited sample sizes. The application of such technologies is limited only by our own imagination.

A new digital revolution is looming ahead. Are we ready to be amongst the first to take this leap into the future? 

Author: Prof. Aldo Drago

The Maltese Time Machine: Magna Żmien

As I write this article, a box full of 8mm film has just been delivered to our studio. On these tapes is local home footage featuring carnival celebrations from the 1960s, a visit by the UK’s Queen Elizabeth II, and an assorted series of family events recorded around the Maltese Islands. These films are valuable historical records opening a window onto the unfiltered and uncensored perspective of Maltese citizens.  Magna Żmien is a Valletta 2018 project coordinated by artistic director Andrew Alamango and a collective of like-minded individuals. The purpose of the project is to collect and preserve historic Maltese content recorded on home sound, image, and video equipment over the past century. Left neglected, these personal documents containing evidence of Malta’s changing landscapes—physical, social, and political—might have been lost and forgotten. Instead, the team is reusing them, reinterpreting them through art. 

Armchair Voyager Wistin (Jacob Piccinino)

The move to digitise and make available fading analogue memories is physically manifested through ‘The Magnificent Memory Machine’—the Kapsula Merill, designed and built by Matthew Pandolfino, Andre Vujicic and Late Interactive. In the driver’s seat is Armchair Voyager Wistin (Jacob Piccinino). Behind the scenes is the professional studio that makes it all happen, digitising open reel tapes, audio cassettes, vinyl, Super 8 and 8mm film, photographs, negatives, and slides at high resolution. Since February 2018, we have digitised over 2,000 items from 51 different donors, in addition to receiving a further 600 digital files from private collections.

An eager viewer going back in time!

The collected material has many stories to tell. Our performance events throughout 2018, including at Science and the City and Malta Café Scientifique, only scratch the surface when it comes to the sheer volume of material we have been allowed to copy by donors. 

One thing we often encounter is the personal voice message—greetings between diasporic Maltese. Dating back to the 1950s, these appear most frequently on open reel and audio cassette tape, but also on special vinyl discs. One particular recording is by a man named Charlie who recorded his message in a Calibre booth on a platform at London Waterloo station. In the message, Charlie sends wishes to his family and regales them with tales of all the football matches he is attending, one of which he is particularly excited about: England vs East Germany. Some minor detective work has revealed that this recording was made on 24 November 1970 when England beat East Germany three goals to one. 

Messages such as these may seem inconsequential, but of all the voice recordings we have heard, they are perhaps among the most honest. Recorded in a busy, alien environment under strict time constraints, the speakers didn’t have the luxury of retakes before their voices were forever fixed on vinyl. 

Magna Żmien will continue to collect sounds, images, and videos like these, and present its research in innovative contexts beyond 2018. We want to continue engaging citizens in the technical and cultural components at the heart of our project. Agreements are also underway to establish a formal association between Magna Żmien and the National Archives, ensuring the longevity of this material as public documents are accessible to all. What we collect, after all, belongs to the Maltese people at home and abroad. The recordings contain an essence of our national identity that cannot and should not be lost.  

For more, visit: www.magnazmien.com 

Author: Andrew Pace for the Valletta 2018 Foundation

Player 1: ready to learn

Can digital games form part of the answer to dwindling attention spans in the classroom? Sara Cameron attended the ‘Playful Learning in STEM’ Seminar at the MITA data centre in June to hear entrepreneur Dr Lauri Järvilehto’s thoughts on the matter.

Our attention is constantly bombarded by the likes of mobile games, social media, Netflix, and Google. Adults are having a tough enough time focusing, let alone children sitting at their desks trying to wrap their heads around algebra and particle physics. Textbook lessons are fighting a losing battle with personalised entertainment. But there is light at the end of the tunnel. Dr Lauri Järvilehto, co-founder and chairman of Finnish startup Lighteneer, believes his team might have a solution. Games see kids experience progressive challenges. Children, as players, use diverse problem solving abilities, then receive instant feedback, satisfaction, and a sense of achievement. To ignite that same fire for games in learning, education needs to tap into that world and harness what makes it special. The feat, Järvilehto explains, is finding balance. We need games that contextualise mathematical or scientific concepts, allowing players to master these concepts, all while being engaged and having fun. A tall order.

Gamification has the potential to ease the introduction of subjects that are normally considered complex. It can make them more approachable, allowing students to grasp the basics before undertaking formal learning to further deepen their understanding.

‘Our thinking is that great learning games can work as the first spark for the love of learning in future generations. They can convey the awe and wonder you see shining in the eyes of our scientific experts as they tell us about the wonders of particle physics,’ says Järvilehto, speaking at a seminar called Playful Learning in STEM organised by the Science Centre (Ministry for Education and Employment) in collaboration with Malta Information Technology Agency and the Valletta 2018 Foundation.

But whilst digital learning is becoming all the craze, Järvilehto warns that educators should be wary of jumping on this trendy bandwagon. Technology is not a cure-all; there is no magic wand. Lighteneer aims to develop games that complement, rather than compete with, formal learning. He also believes that, even with an abundance of tech-based tools, an engaging teacher is still the best way to improve education and inspire the next generation. Games should be used as an initial spark to reel students in at the outset. ‘Perhaps kids will soon grow to think about particle physics and atoms as something as cool as collecting Pokémon.’ Game learning can be the key to unlocking students’ potential, offering a more accessible route to developing an understanding of complex topics.

To keep up with a fast-changing digital world, we must acknowledge its challenges and adapt. Games can’t solve this puzzle alone, but used in the right way, they can be a tremendously useful addition to a teacher’s toolbox.

  Author: Sara Cameron

The new digital divide

Unequal access to technology and the Internet is traditionally termed the ‘digital divide’. Both are expensive, which leaves some people behind. Today the situation has changed, with 98% of minors having home Internet access in Malta. Government targets digitally-deprived students by investing hefty sums to have tech at school. However, there is a new digital divide within formal education, and this time it is not about who uses technology but how they use it. 

What is the attitude toward the technology that is being used in class? What is the goal that students are using that technology to accomplish? You can have countless schools on the receiving end of whole shipments of tablets and laptops, but the sad reality is that without an effective strategy, they are unlikely to reap the full benefits of that investment. 

Dr Philip Bonanno

If technology is placed within a system that ignores students’ needs and is unresponsive, if not completely resistant, to new teaching and learning methods, the result is completely counterproductive. A teacher’s frustration with students being distracted by their devices is an everyday occurrence, and it needs to be addressed. The question is: Is this a technology-related problem or a more profound issue related to how humans discover and understand knowledge? Are these pedagogical conflicts arising from the presence of technology in class or from an epistemological clash between teachers’ and students’ beliefs about learning and knowledge sharing? 

If we define pedagogy as ‘guidance for learning’, we need to provide guidance for a variety of learning methods. By focusing only on the ‘chalk-and-talk’ method of teaching delivery, we may actually limit access to different ways of acquiring knowledge. Besides using technology to enhance teaching, digital tools and resources need to be used to empower students: first to take over the management of their own learning, and second, to pursue different technology-enhanced learning avenues for acquiring, creating, and sharing knowledge. This gives the student better skills in digital and information (critical) literacy, in collaboration, and in networking, hence preparing them for the world of work. 

To make this happen, challenges await both teachers and students. Teachers need to welcome new forms of learning, offering guidance and support rather than simply ‘giving students all the information they need to know.’ Students, on the other hand, have to overcome the mental conditioning that links learning directly to teaching so they can stand on their own two feet. 

Students and teachers need to work together to adopt a more independent and customised approach to learning, enhanced and transformed through technology.  

Author: Dr Philip Bonanno

Entering the Age of the Blockchain of Things

What happens when you put smart washing machines on a blockchain?

In writing this article, Dr Joshua Ellul and Prof. Gordon Pace explain their investigation into how to combine the interconnectedness of all things promised by the Internet of Things with the trust promised by blockchain technologies.Continue reading

Transcendence through Play

Even though philosophers like Kant and Schiller of the aesthetic tradition never had the opportunity to troll some noobs in Call of Duty or slay a dragon in Skyrim, their views on the concept of play can be critical to our understanding of how the player relates to the game world. Dr Daniel Vella explores the work of aesthetic and existential philosophers. Words by Jasper Schellekens. Continue reading

Usability – the frustrated user

Dr Conrad Attard

Today we can say ‘there is an app for everything.’ Android and iOS boast over 3.5 million and 2.2 million apps on their platforms respectively, each of them fulfilling a role, be it social, utilities, entertainment, gaming, productivity, commerce, and much more.

As users continuously feed personal and work-related information into their smartphones, from calendar entries to sign-ins at favourite restaurants, apps are becoming more personalised, learning more about their behaviour.

So what role does usability play in the digital world? The term usability is part of a broader term referred to as ‘user experience’. Usability assesses how easy it is for people to use interfaces. Developers are expected to create apps that people need, but they need to keep in mind that if that app is difficult to manoeuvre, their target audience will stop using it. From users’ perspective, too many apps these days are failing to add enough value, seeing adoption drop off quickly.

At the workplace, employees are expected to learn and use software applications. A lot of these are now available through mobile devices that need to be connected. However, studies conducted in different scenarios such as airport environments and healthcare show that people are struggling to adopt technology.

However, studies conducted in different scenarios such as airport environments and healthcare show that people are struggling to adopt technology.

Most people access apps related to public services on their smartphones and tablets so that they can submit e-forms and conduct work of that sort. Unlike with leisure apps and games, the choice in this field is limited to the apps provided by the public entities themselves. As a result, users or employees of companies become frustrated when apps are not designed effectively.

More usability experts are needed to improve the way apps are designed. Well-designed apps empower people, seeing them become more confident with technology they are unfamiliar with. Better apps contribute to addressing challenges people face when they can’t keep up with the swift advances of the digital world. The use of digital tools that are easy to learn and easy to remember allow users to create, understand, and communicate while continually developing their digital skills. Usability not only boosts digital literacy, it also bridges the gap between tech-savvy users and those we risk leaving behind.

Further reading:
C. Attard, G. Mountain, and D. Maria Romano; ‘Problem solving, confidence and frustration when carrying out familiar tasks on non-familiar mobile devices‘ 

Author: Dr Conrad Attard

Level up! Upgrading game-based learning

Suggesting a teacher might start the lesson by telling students to launch Pokémon-Go on their tablets might sound crazy, but this could be the new way to engage a generation of technophiles. Dr Vanessa Camilleri writes about the potential impact of gaming in the classroom. 

Continue reading