This week's material covered how games are being used for educational purposes. After watching the videos and reading the articles in this week's section I couldn't help but feel somewhat removed from what apparently is going all around me. I had never heard of "second life" but apparently it is very popular and teaching people things over the internet community that were once taught in a classroom. Through "second life" players are able to become immersed in the learning material as they act out plays in digital English theaters or explore ancient Rome. There are also scavenger hunts that allow for students to explore definitions and find information on their own as apposed to having information told to them. Avatars can even be quizzed by their environment and different objects. The articles in this weeks section also showed examples of games that helped education on politics, fast food and even computer science. People can go to a political candidates' site and play their game that centers around health reform and hopefully learn about the issue. The McDonalds game I found very disturbing. It goes through the process of farming and delivering food to customers but conveniently excludes the part where the cute digital cows go into a Wonka-esque machine for processing and little hamburger patties come out. I'm not sure I agree with tailoring games towards kids that highlight products with health risks and lacking any nutritional value. The computer science game was a bit dull for me and basically just added up numbers. Then again I no interest in computer science.
I cannot think of any way that learning games could really help in the film industry as film is highly creative and too technical for simple games. I could maybe see how second life would be important in the film industry in getting information out or possibly even screening movies in the online community. I don't think I would have any interest in doing it but I'm sure there are filmmakers who would like to gain exposure by showing work over the internet community through second life or other avatar based games. I don't really think the time requirements for making films lends itself to being able to create an entire online social community. Film making is a very collaborative process where social interaction is very important. I think that online gaming or social media takes away from these aspects and detracts from the most important aspects of film making.
http://nwn.blogs.com/nwn/2010/08/falco-sl-machinima.html
I found a very strange link that pertains to film making within the online game community of "second life." There is a German film maker who takes footage from within second life and cuts it up into movies. The movies he makes are god awful and as soon as the first one started playing I broke out into laughter by the juxtaposition of serious dialogue coming out of computer characters' mouths but I have to admit it is clever in some weird way. There are a lot of people in this online game who would consume this bazaar content and appreciate it. I'm not sure I would consider this film making as much as animating but whatever. Interesting look into how games are evolving into the film industry and as far as learning goes, the editing of these movies can teach real life practical editing skills I guess.
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