Week 5: Educational Technologies Blog

THIS IS A LINK TO HITMAN 2016:

https://hitman.com/

This week I talked about Hitman 2016 as a video game that can be used to learn cognitive skills needed to accomplish a goal. Th goal being killing a target. Certainly this is a really interesting concept, and there is much debate about the value to these types of games, but I will take a stand and say that the game is simply more than just about “killing.” It involves various skills, roles, and decision making for how to carry out your mission. Think of it as a game where your project is to “assassinate” someone, and the choices you make really impact and influence how that is carried out.

Hitman is a third-person stealth video game in which players take control of Agent 47, a genetically enhanced, superhuman assassin, travelling to international locations and eliminating contracted targets. As in other games in the Hitman series, players are given a large amount of room for creativity in approaching their assassinations. For instance, players may utilise long-ranged rifles to snipe a target from a long distance, or they may decide to assassinate the target at close range by using blade weapons or garrote wire. Players can also use explosives, or disguise the assassination by creating a seemingly accidental death. A common method to approach a mission is to incapacitate other characters and wear their outfits as a disguise, which allows the player to gain access to restricted areas more easily. Actions of the non-playable characters influence the game. For instance, players can gain more information about the position of their target through listening to a nearby news reporter (Hitman (2016 video game), n.d.).

In class, this game could be used as a primer to AI, or for project planning. In a project planning class, you have to make sure you have all the right tools for the job. In the game, there are various side missions for which you can carry out. However choosing them can have an impact on how you assassinate your target, or simply escape undetected. Additionally, there are also challenges which increase in difficulty which allows the player to choose different ways to kill and different areas to explore.

In AI, we might see how each of the NPC (NonPlayer Characters) reacts to your disguises, or what you are doing in certain restricted areas.

THIS IS A LINK TO EARTH PRIMER:

http://www.earthprimer.com/

What’s the best way to teach a kid about the forces that shape the Earth? You could let her read about the subject, or give her some diagrams to look at. Alternatively, you could just let her have a go at doing the shaping herself. That’s the thinking behind Earth: A Primer, a new interactive book for the iPad. It covers the basics of geology—how volcanoes form, how erosion works—but instead of simply telling you about these processes, it actually lets you control them (Vanhemert, 2015). Earth Primer feels like a curiosity. It is part textbook, part-toy, but perhaps not enough of either to find a huge audience. It is, however, an instantly intriguing thing, and I do not doubt a handful of learners will come across it and think, “Wow, Earth is pretty cool. Who knew.”

To use Earth Primer in Class, use it as an exploration application. Earth Sciences is a subject which covers various aspects of the science of the earth. Image if all of that was condensed into a simple app, where exploration and sandboxing was the name of the game. Simply by allowing students to explore how the earth reacts to weather conditions, or how earthquakes form, even about oceans could they get a better understanding of the earth.

References

Hitman (2016 video game). (n.d.). Retrieved from Wikipedia: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hitman_(2016_video_game)

Vanhemert, K. (2015, February 3). A Gorgeous Geology App That Explores New UX Territory. Retrieved from http://www.wired.com/: http://www.wired.com/2015/02/gorgeous-geology-app-explores-new-ux-territory/