This is the final post in a series about how to conquer the technological hurdles, and teach a digital game in your class. If you haven’t already you might want to start at the first post. If you have read the first two, then you should be ready for this last post, on what you need for the “in-class” part of teaching.

Preparing for Class

One of the challenges to teaching a game in class is the difficulty of “refering to the text” during discussion or lecture. While if you are teaching a novel, or an article from a book you can say, “turn to page 42″ (and assuming students remebered to bring their books) this should be a relatively pain free procees. But with a digital game this is simply not the case, as unless you are teaching in a classroom with a PC for every student, with the game installed, or teaching a class on the Nintendo DS and every student has one, “having the text in front of you” is really not practical. Even film class is a bit easier here, as you can always excerpt stills or now with DVD easily advance to the portion you want to show. With digital games this is not as easily done, and to make matters worse, you cannot be assured that every student will have seen the “scenes” you might want to refer to. So here are some ways to get around that:

Preparing Digital Slides:As with a film one of the things you might want to do, is show “frames” of the digital game, or screen shots from gameplay that will allow you to focus the disscusion or demonstrate a particular feature. If you have a PC and are playing the game on this platform, you can always take screenshots of the portions of the game that you want to talk about. But there is a short-cut for this, and it works even if you are not playing on a PC. Fortunately, many people have already taken screen shots of whatever you want and posted them to the web, all you have to do is locate the ones you want and save them to your computer (more on how to get them into the class in a moment). The site I find the most useful for this is Gamespot. For just about any popular game they have reviews and loads of screen shots published. You can also look for specific sites for the game you are teaching. For example if you are teaching Grand Theft Auto you can always go to GTA Forums and find a picture of just about anything in the GTA world you want. Again Wikipedia is a good place to start as they might have a few screen shots, but more importantly they will have links to other sites which will have the images you want. Because I can’t be sure of what students have seen or not seen in the game, I pretty much bring screen shots of anything I know I will want to address. (Quick Hint: If you want a screenshot for which you are unable to find a picture you can always try posting to the discussion board for the respective games, and asking a “gamer” for help. I have had succes in asking for experinced gamers to send me a particular image I was unable to locate.)

Getting the Screenshots to Class: Back on one of the first posts on this blog I covered how to use a how to use a flash drive for presentations, so I want go over the step by step here, but the flash drive is the key to teaching these texts in class. With a flash drive you can take all the images you want to class, plug your flash drive into the computer, and scroll thru all the images (assuming that your classroom has a computer which projects onto a screen—if not you might have to make arrangments or actually print out copies of the images to overhead slides . . .). I save all of the images into one folder labeled with the name of the game and the date of class (for example GTA3-10) and have each image labeled sequentially with a number followed by a short description that would allow me to “know” what the image is (for example 1CJmohawk, would be CJ with a mohawk). The reason I label them with a number first is that most slide show viewers will order the slides and allow you to cycle thru them from lowest to highest, this way you can plug the flashdrive in and do a slide presentation of all the images in order, or just select a particular image.

Bringing a Platform to Class: You could always subvert this process, and just bring a machine to class, and plug it into a television. But my experince is that this is just asking for trouble, as who knows if the TV cables will be there, or if you bring your own cables if they will be the right ones. But if you do this, you can always save the game at certain spots that will allow you to immediately “jumpt to” the aspect of the game you want to address.

That’s everything I can think of for now. For other who have taught games in the past, feel free to add your comments/tips below. For those who are thinking about teaching a game and want more directed advice, add your comments or email. I am more than happy to answer questions or problem solve.

I was at Best Buy looking at monitors with someone the other day (looking not buying, as you can get better tech prices online-personally I buy from (Newegg but that’s not the point). I saw they had Flash Drives on sale. Now before on this blog I have talked about the importance of having one of these to help you with so many tech issues, from transporting data, to checking email on any computer, and giving problem free presentations. I have been wanting a larger one lately so I can pull off some sweeter hacks and demonstrations for classes. They had a 2GB one on sale for $44, so I thought sure. . . this was a mistake. Why? The drive was a u3 drive. I didn’t know about the problem with these things and it took me a couple of hours to fix it. So here is my advice: If you are going to buy a flash drive get one that is not u3, if you already have one, or find one on the cheap keep reading as I am going to explain the steps to fix this. But first let me explain what the problem is with these “smart” drives is, and why you have to fix them, they pose a particualr problem for academic uses.

What is u3?

The makers of u3 call it a “smart drive,” a way to carry on a flash drive all of your preferences, a few key programs, documents, data etc. This way you can, “plug into any Windows 2000 or XP PC, and work.” Basically they are marketing the techniques I talked about earlier here of putting small applications onto a flash drive so that you can hook into any computer and make it work the way you want. Especially useful for working on community computers where you are not allowed to change the settings. For example, you can carry firefox as a web browser on your flash drive, that way you can have all you bookmarks, and tab browse on computers where the only broswer is the woefully inadequate Internet Explorer. This is a great technique. And the promise of u3 is that they make this really easy by having a small part of the flash drive pre-installed with software that helps you do this. The problem: This is a Lie! It doesn’t Work!

Okay without getting to technical, (if you want more in depth explanation go here). But basically it comes with an autorun program pre-installed, it tries to run this every time you log into a windows machine. (On a philosophical level this is bad as no company should produce software that installs and runs without you first accepting-this is how spyware gets started.) Now the huge problem for academics is that not all windows machines can run the program that it tries to run. So when I first tried to put my new flashdrive into the office computer on campus, nothing happens, the computer can’t see the flash drive, or worse, it causes the computer to “hang“. If a machine doesn’t let you access the toolbar (many don’t) the program can’t run. Here’s a brief note to the makers of u3:

The ”u“ in ”USB“ stands for universal, the idea is that I should be able to plug my flash drive into any computer and have it work, by trying to make this thing ”smart“ you have taken away the whole reason I use a flashdrive!.

It is no longer universal. What is more, everything u3 does can be done without u3. And sometimes computers will recognize a u3 drive and sometimes not, so you might think everything is okay, and than one time when you are trying to print the chapter of your dissertation for a meeting with your advisor it won’t work. And, here is the real kicker, the drive does apparently leave ”traces“ on the computer, that means you are not completely operating safely.

And to make this quadruply heinous the evil developers at u3 won’t let you erase this piece of crap autorun software. It is write protected, which means you have read only privileges. I thought the problem would be simply fixed by erasing and reformating the drive, no such luck.

Let me say again, Evil, Evil, Evil, this can only cause problems as you try to use your drive across a range of institutional machines. Never fear though, there are steps for fixing this.

How to Fix a u3 drive.

Basically the fix here is to wipe the drive and start out fresh. This way you have a real univerisal flash drive and can actually plug into any computer. Initally the developers of u3 wouldn’t let you unistall the part of the flashdrive that is causing all of these problems, luckily enough people seemed to have complained and they have now made an unistall program available. The problem is that you need a PC to do this, so if you own a Mac you need to find someone with a PC. A community computer might not work as you need to run the uninstall off the main hard drive, and often community computers don’t let you do this.

• First back up all your data as this process will completely erase the disk, but this is good as it will make the drive actually universal. So save all your data you want onto your desktop in a folder titled ”Flash Drive“ or something.
• Second go to the uninstall webstie at u3. They will ask you to fill out a form as to why you are uninstalling their software. The final box is for comments. If you are so inclined you can cut and paste the following into the box:
  

  
  
  I am unistalling this crap piece of software because it is autorun and automatically installs without asking my permission. Second, it doesn’t work on all computers. Third, it is not secure. In short, it sucks! In fact I recommend that whoever thought of this idea be promptly demoted to mail room clerk in charge of licking stamps and since most stamps are now peel and stick this will ensure that they never create such another horrible product. Thanks.

• Third, once you go thru all of their steps it will download a program called unistall.exe.
• Fourth, with your flashdrive in the port run this program. It will now ask you again if you sure you want to do this. I wish this also had a comment box. I would write: You have asked me this four times already, of course I want to make my flash drive work correctly.
• If you are having problems getting your computer to recongnize your flash drive you can hold down “Shift” key as you put the drive in, this will prevent (this time only) the autorun program from loading allowing you to run the install and wipe the drive.
• Note for Mac Users: If you are only using the drive on a Mac you will be okay. Although everytime you put the drive in the computer you see two drives: one a cd, the other the flash drive, and you always have to eject both. To make sure you can run this drive on a PC you should do this uninstall.

I realize this might seem hard to get done, and it is a bit tricky, but if you are going to use one of these U3 drives it is essential

Difficulty

Here is the first post in the semester long series about using blogs in the classroom, if you haven’t already please read the introduction as it will give you a better sense of what this is all about.

I thought I would start by sketching out the technical tools, programs, web services etc. that Jenn has decided to use, as well as provide some background on those decisions. If this is not all clear here, please have no fear, I intend to develop this all in much more detail later. For now, though this should give a general layout to how this is going to get done. Keep in mind the general philosophical/pedagogical principles here throughout: 1. This is going to be done with open source tools. That is no Blackboard, WebCT, or other paid software applications. This makes the students blogging “open” rather than closed (to reflect Jenn’s—and mine—educational view). Also it makes it hopefully free for the students. 2. We need to make all of this cross platform, students could be expected to have both Macs and PC’s—Jenn and I both use Macs, but the common computers at Saint Rose are PCs. 3. Jenn wants students to really blog, that is not post written assignments to a blog, but rather engage throughout the semester in a sustained writing project that reflects writing in this new medium, not just carries over old writing practices onto the web. Again this is just an overview of the tools, I will go into much greater detail on each later.

The Tools

• First Up—a Blogging Platform: The first thing that the class will need is a place to host the blogs. Again, Course Management Software like WebCT or Blackboard is moving towards incorporating this in their packages, but these really aren’t blogs, they are just online student writing that looks like a blog. There are many free places that host blogs, which students could utilize and maintain if they want after class is over. And again if the idea is to get students to experience how writing changes across context, the writing needs to take place in that context. Jenn could use Live Journal, WordPress, or Blogger just to name a few. All of these offer free hosting. In the end Jenn decided to go with WordPress. There were three key reasons for this choice: 1. The web interface for setting up and customizing the blog is particularly easy. 2. It plays well with other programs (particularly Flock—more below on why this is crucial.) 3. And this is the key, the one that tipped the balance so to speak: RSS. WordPress makes RSS syndication easy, it is actually already set-up when you create a blog. If you are not familiar with RSS this is what is going to allow Jenn to easily read all of the blogs, and solve the problem of students feeling as if what they write is not being read.
• Second: Flock. This is really the key piece to the blogging puzzle. Part of the way that Jenn is going to be able to monitor 60 something student blogs is by using RSS (if you are not familiar with RSS don’t worry it will get outlined here in a later post). But it was also important to figure out a way to encourage students to read each other’s blogs and have students feel that they are being read (these are two of the pedagogical concerns often cited by those who have already used blogs in the classroom). RSS helps to solve both of the problems, since everyone in the class will be getting a look at everyone’s posting’s for the week, without having to rely on them clicking thru 20 links. (Again more on this later, but the way information is written and read has drastically changed in the last few years, and while most students know how to use a web browser few know about RSS-so this also serves the important pedagogical function of information literacy.) One of the other barriers to blogging in the classroom is the concern that navigating the technology will take away from time spent writing, that is students will dedicate an hour for the homework, and spend 30 minutes figuring out how to do the writing instead of actually doing the posting. Flock helps solve this problem, in addition to having an RSS reader built in, it has blogging software. Students only need to select “New Blog Post” from the menu and a window opens that operates like a word processing window. Type in the window, hit return and send the posting to your blog. Again really simple for students who are not as tech savy. Finally Flock makes it really easy to incorporate info from other websites into your posting, basically highlight and click. As one of the things that Jenn is going to be doing is having students read and respond to news articles, this feature makes it easy for the students. Jenn’s class could use a separate RSS reader, and let students blog thru web interface, but Flock makes this all way easy. And here is the kicker, it runs on Linux, Mac, and Windows. It is probably worth the time if you are interested in blogging in the classroom to go over to Flock and take a look around, especially look at their blog, their annoucements and most importantly look at the Tour as it has an interactive video that demonstrates all of this much better than I can in words.
• Third: Flash Drive or Laptop: Students enrolled in Jenn’s class are going to be required to bring one of the following to the third class (this is the one where she will set them up in the computer lab): either a 256mb flash drive, or a laptop. Requiring a laptop for class would re a ridiculuos expectation, in fact one is apt to encounter students who rely on the public computers. So by doing things the following way Jenn can make sure every one has access to the tools. Those with laptops will bring them to class, and install Flock and go thru the set-up in class on their own computers. If they have a desktop at home they will install all the software onto a flashdrive, take it home and all they need to do is plug the flashdrive into their desktop and they are set. Those without their own computer can carry their flash drive around plug it into any PC and do the writing for class. Flash drives have gotten relatively inexpensive ($25 for one this size, so it is roughly the cost of a textbook) and will be useful throughout their college careers for transporting papers etc. so the cost is not too much of a concern. Also any campus bookstore will carry these.
• Fourth: NetNewsWire (Jenn only). While students will read the blog posts thru the RSS in Flock, NetNewsWire is a bit more robust and can handle the workload of monitoring 60 students a bit easier, also there are ways to sort the feeds (assignments) easier in NetNewsWire that will make her job drastically easier (like always looking at them in the same order, not just whoever posts first). There is a free version of this program NetNewsWire Lite, as well as several other RSS readers, this is really a matter of preference and choice. The set-up for this (which I will again get into in later posts) will work pretty much the same across a range of readers, so if you have a different preference, or work off a PC it should be pretty easy to do in your RSS reader of choice.

So. . .

Here is what I would recommend as applications for students (especially undergrads) and just to appease everyone, I will try and do this with reference to Mac and PC. (I am going to keep the Humanities bias though, as that is what I know best.)

And to make things even snappier, I am going to recommend apps that would fit onto a flash drive. Why? This would give students a set of apps they could use, without having to buy their own computer. This would allow students to run programs off public computers.

Every student needs a word processor to start. Go with AbiWord. Why? It is small, free and will get the job done. If you have room (don’t need to fit this on a flash drive) go with Neo Office, and/or Open Office. (There is also a portable openoffice.) Unless you can get it for free no reason to get MSWord, for several reasons: 1. Almost all community computers will have this available to students to use. 2. It is not small enough to be portable. 3. It is a large clunky program that has far more features than you will probably need. 4. It is expensive.

Almost as important for students is a web browser (Maybe even more important.) Here there are many choices but go with firefox. Why? First you need a browser with tabs. Firefox does this as well as any of them. Firefox is small, open source, fast, and free. You can also extend, and add plug-ins to firefox for your specific needs. I carry a copy of firefox on my flashdrive so I always have a good browser (this is super handy for those moments when you end up on a computer with restricted access and only internet explorer.)

A way to handle email: Thunderbird. Most students will have email access provided by the university, web mail access probably. This is woefully inefficent, and doesn’t keep addresses. To be successful in the future most jobs will require that students be able to navigate, and process large quantities of email. Getting students to use a mail application is the first step in this. While you are at it, get yourself a gmail account, that way you can keep your address after you leave school.

The astute reader will notice that basically I have just copied the apps that belong to the Portable Apps Suite. Well. . .why reinvent the wheel? and these apps are free, work, and are small. I think there are probably better ways to do most of this, with other apps, but those cost money, and the advantage gained is not worth it. (Until you get in a position like grad. school where you need something with more umpf.)
A way to take notes:
Many people recommend Freemind this is a mind mapping program written for most platforms, and its free. I personally don’t use a mindmapping program for notetaking, so I don’t have advice on how to use this, but maybe in the future someone will want to give a write-up on how they use this.
I am going to cheat here a bit, and suggest a program that only exists for the Mac, Voodoopad. You can get the Lite version for free. This allows you to write and take notes in your own personal wiki format. I don’t know the PC version, if someone does maybe they can recommend it below.

A way to stay organized:
One of the largest problems I have seen with students transitioning to college is learning how to plan and organize their week/semester. Get an account over at Google Calendar. Now start writing everything down. (You could also use Sunbird if you don’t want to use the web.)

A way to process all of the information on the web:
Making predicitions about the future of information processing is a bit risky, but for now it seems like RSS will be crucial. Right now second to email, I think learning to explore, organize and sort all of the information on the web is probably the key skill we can teach students. Get an RSS reader and start using it to process all of the information out there, stay tuned to blogs that interest you, learn a word a day, or heck . . .whatever. I use NetNewsWire, but RSS Owl should work for most purposes, and it is free, and available across most platforms.

This should provide you with 80% of what you need as a student. (Like I said above there are probably several tools that are discipline specific that would help depending on your circumstances).
This cost should be minimal-the price of a good flash drive-and with access to public computers fulfill most of your basic college computing needs. Unless of course you are in graphic design or CS in which case you need a host of other apps.