Video Game Awesomeness Post 2

The sentence that flew out of my mouth after the twelfth time I died playing Call of Duty 3  was WOW, can I please go back to the days of Nintendo 64! To my expense, Call of Duty was my next single and multiplayer game pic. To play Call of Duty you have to use every single button and joy stick on the controller at all times. Needless to say there was a lot of discover learning going on the first seven minutes. I went into the game this time without any instructions on which button caused what action and the game was pretty overwhelming the first four times I died. The hardest part for me was having to do multiple things at once. For instance, using the left joy stick to walk while using the right one to move my vision from up and down, and from left to right. For me moving the right joy stick would work the opposite way I naturally assumed it would. If I moved the stick up my soldier would look down, and if I moved the stick down my soldier would look up! This was so frustrating and would be the main cause of my death almost every time. I did start to get the basics down after a while, but I never made it down the street without dying. I am also not positive if the people I shot at, or killed were actually on my side or not... 

Call of Duty is super intense because there are so many stimulants going on in the game that it made me a little bit frazzled. You really have to focus on your goal, which for me was crouching down, moving forward, moving my head side to side, and sort of aimlessly firing my gun. I was really proud of myself when I could run from one car to another firing my gun, and then getting low and popping back up to fire it again! Unfortunately though the more I played sometimes I would do worse than the time before. It was fun for a little bit trying to figure out how the game worked, but once I just kept failing over and over again without making a difference in the game I threw in the towel. I understand that the only way to continue to get better at this game was to fail, but there was not enough positive reinforcement to keep going. It just got really old really quick. I learned to play the game by discover learning, acceptance of failure to improve, and the cognitive process of filtering and integrating information very quickly. 

When I played the game with others I just felt even more lost. They kept trying to help me, and some times I would get excited when I did something minuscule, but I mostly felt discouraged because I was not able to help with the mission. I learned to play the game by discover learning, acceptance of failure to improve, and the cognitive process of filtering and integrating information very quickly. Playing the game with others also showed me strategy, teamwork, and communities of practice. To accomplish a mission there needs to be somewhat of a leader to strategize the next move, or to voice when to attack. Without the help of your teammates you have a much higher chance of dying, especially if you are new to the game, which brings me to communities of practice. Everyone learns new maneuvers, or strategic methods from the other players. Some have more skills than others and the passion that comes through in wanting to be successful at the game gets the players to work together.

Lastly the "potty" game I played and am now semi addicted to is Fruit Ninja! It is the most simple game and it entertained me for hours. It had all the correct stimulus motivation with the cool swiping sounds as you splice the fruit in half, to a crazy explosion if you accidentally sliced a bomb open. The  game taught me patience, quickness, and it is definitely strengthening my left hand! It also helps with hand eye coordination and I am determined to beat my high score even if I get frustrated! I get so excited when I think I am doing well its comical, but the game motivates me to keep going, which is what gamification is all about!

Video Game Awesomeness Post 1

Video and computer games have never appealed to me probably because it is hard for me to sit still for a long period of time, especially when I have no idea how or where to even start. My brothers are really into computer games, but from a distance it seemed like a waste of time compared to being active and outdoors. I knew this assignment would be hard for me to warm up to playing something like League of Legends, so I stuck to what I know, sports! For my first multiplayer game I chose FIFA 2011, and for my single player game I chose Skate 2. I was shown the basic control buttons for both games and just dove right in. Playing without any knowledge of the Xbox controls, even though I was informed on "what button did what," Discover learning played a huge role when it came to figuring out how to kick the ball with more force, or to pick up speed on the skateboard so I could jump onto a rail. Basically I had to press a bunch of buttons that gave me positive, or negative results to remember which buttons to use at specific times. 

Classical and Operant Conditioning also played a huge part in all 3 games I've played, the third one being my "potty" game, Spirit Stones. I quickly learned in Spirit Stones that even though there might be more dots of a certain color to get rid of, the dots of warriors with the lowest points needed to be attended to, or else they would soon be attacked. When I kept paying attention to the points each of my warriors had my team would get rewarded by being able to defeat the monsters faster and I could move onto the next level. In FIFA every time I hit the strike button, the ball would fly over or around the goal with way too much force, and not always in the direction I would think I was aiming. I started to press the strike button more quickly and with less force, and that solved the problem. Also every time I would go to slide tackle the opposite team, I would get called for a penalty. I knew I had to figure out a way to tackle the offender without getting a penalty, so I discovered that if I kept running alongside the player and then lightly pressed A, I would be successful! I have never used the slide tackle button since, unless I felt it was necessary. In Skate 2 I had a similar experience, every time I hit a random button when I was up in the air and I didn't fall, I was positively reinforced by the sound of the board sticking the landing, the points racking up, and the announcer yelling that I had completed a really awesome move! I would keep doing the same trick over and over until I could land it 7 out of 10 times.

What I learned when playing the multiplayer game, FIFA, was that there was a community of practice and strategy. When I wouldn't make a very good pass, or would miss someone wide open, my friends would tell me different tricks or buttons to press to make my pass better or more complete. Once it worked I would keep playing the same through ball every time I received the ball. Also when picking your teams you have to work together to come up with the best lineup against the lineup of the opposing team, which my friend are really into and I am hoping as I get better so am I.

I really enjoyed playing all three of these games! I may be getting a tiny bit addicted to Spirit Stones, and FIFA. It was definitely hard at first, especially with how fast paced the Xbox games are, but I enjoyed myself. I really like the multiplayer games, its fun watching how other people look view the game of soccer and it definitely teaches teamwork, skill sets, and the flow of the game. I am exited to see what else I discover in the gaming world.

Cadre Camp Reflection 3

Yesterday we had an overview of the action research section of our program, as well as what we needed to set up for the rest of the year. We were given options of different bog websites we could use, divided tasks such as social planner, and downloaded video software to our computers. We worked on the lego project as a whole, and Brian taught Channel and I how to edit videos into a movie. The lego project took most of our time and almost worked all the way through a few times!

I was extremely tired when every time we did a test run and made adjustments to the robot. My mind was exhausted from the entire week and got a little frustrated as well as delirious. I noticed that I would get extremely tired and then when the clock struck 9, I would be wide awake. When in the group circle that happened everyday after camp I became very fidgety if someone was talking more than what I thought was the appropriate amount of time.

Fidgeting around was due to the lack of interest that came over me after being in the same room for hours with unsuccessful robot test runs. My brain was so tired from being extremely frustrated that the lego man would only sometimes work, and fall down the wrong side of the shoot more of the time. I needed to do something active to take my mind off of the failed attempts, which is why I would be wide awake around nine. My mind was tired, but my body was restless.

Cadre Camp Reflection 2

Today we programed a computer maze using scratch as the project editor. we were shown very rapidly how to use it, and then paired off into twos to create our own. we were given two hours and then had to stop…but I did not stop because my partner and I was not finished and everyone else was. In the afternoon we met together with our groups form yesterday and were instructed to build a lego robot that was suppose to transport a lego man through an obstacle course. We worked on the robot for about two and a half hours and my brain felt totally fried. Our robot had to catch the lego man, drive up a ramp, an then shoot the man down a ramp. 

The programing activity was extremely hard for me. I have never done anything with computer programming before and either had my partner, which made things a little frustrating. The group across from us kept understanding the programming and every time they would figure something out they would get extremely excited, which made me even more frustrated. When we were suppose to stop and travel around to each table to play other groups games, ours was not finished and I stayed seated to frantically try to finish our maze. When we started to build the robot i started building the base and connecting the wheels to the base. Sometimes it was frustrating, but mostly had a lot of fun! The time flew by, and before I knew it two and a half hours had passed.

Reacting the way that I did to the programming exercise was mostly due to my brain being extremely worn out an tired. When I get really tired mentally, I tend to get frustrated really easily and want to take things into my own hands. I always resort to trying to do it myself because I think I can figure it out more efficiently myself, which is not always the case. I kept working on the maze instead of stoping when I was suppose to because I can get very competitive and I felt embarrassed that our group's was the only maze unfinished. I really enjoyed the lego assignment because after feeling defeated about the unsuccessful maze, I am excellent at building and being crafty. At first no one was listening to me, so I started working on the base myself, and then the rest of the group started to build off of what I made. At the end of the day, our collaboration made a very impressive robot, but I could not have done it alone!

Cadre Camp Reflection 1

I walked into the Cadre Camp room and immediately had 30 eyes staring at me while I took the first open seat I could find next to the first Cadre I met named Melissa. We were introduced to Bill as well as two student service representatives. Next we formed 4 groups of 4 based on a colored dot that was on the back of our name tag and were given an assignment to make an introductory video based off of the movie trailer The Goonies. After the videos we were given a carrot, a garlic clove, an onion, and some basil with very vague instructions on different ways to cut each item. Luckily Brian knew what most of the instructed words meant. Our last task was to draw a portrait of ourselves that involved our hobbies, or anything that we think describes our personality.

My first response to all of the eyes staring at me in the Cadre room was realizing how many different ages of Cadre there were and that the two boys at my table seemed very intelligent. This made me feel very nervous and a little inadequate for this program. When we got into out groups, I felt much more relaxed because my other three group members were very friendly and comfortable with themselves. This feeling continued and even began to grow during the video introductions as well as the cooking segment of camp because of how we all seemed to click and have a similar sense of humor. During the portrait drawing I was a tiny bit nervous to fully draw and explain some of the most influential and special parts of myself with people outside of my group, but I courageously decided to go all out and really show who I was.

The feelings of being inadequate and nervous came from not knowing if I had anything in common with the technology pros, and elementary teachers that I assumed made up the entire class. I assumed that I would be the youngest person in the Cadre, which also made me nervous that I would not be taken seriously. When I looked around the room and saw all of the different talents, ages, and personalities that surround me I felt a lot more at ease and became more confident that I could be apart of this program. I started to love my group because they made me laugh and it was so easy to talk to them, which is why I felt more comfortable drawing my portrait around them. When everyone was presenting their portraits I repeatedly when back and forth on how much I was going to reveal about myself because I was scared of how some of the Cadres, or the Professors were going to react. i feel good though about how much I revealed and how I still left some mystery for the Cadres who really wanted to get to know me could pursue.