This point is pretty much the central theme of Ted Nelson’s 1974 classic ‘Computer Lib‘ – with “You can and must understand computers NOW” emblazoned on the cover.

It has resonance today with the flurry of recent activity highlighting the need to drastically improve computing education in the UK – Next Gen and Royal Society reports, recent government statements, and so on.

Appropriately, CodeAcademy have declared 2012 to be the Year of the Code – the year in which everyone should try to learn and program.

Here are some good start points for complete novices:

http://codeyear.com/ – CodeAcademy’s Code Year site. This uses interactive online lessons that build your skills with JavaScript – the scripting language used in web-browsers (and some other places besides).

Even more basic, the School of Webcraft will introduce you to HTML – not a programming language as such, but the basic markup language used to create simple webpages.

One of Stanford’s free courses is CS101, and this will introduce you to some of the fundamentals of computing and will allow you to practice programming online. The course starts in February, so still time to sign up. I think this course will be using Python – another easy to learn, beginner friendly language. The course leader, Nick Parlante, also runs the CodingBat site which has a range of programming challenges that can be completed online to test your skills in either Java or Python.

There are many other free online courses on computer programming, from a wide range of institutions and available through iTunes U, YouTube or elsewhere – but what these courses offer is exercises you can complete online and the opportunity to learn alongside other learners and mentors.

Download here the whole Call for Papers as PDF.

Submission Types

• Full Technical Papers (10-14 pages)
• Short Technical Papers (4-8 pages)
• Poster Papers (max. 4 pages)
• Demonstrations / Interactive Installations (max. 4 pages)
• Industry Full/Short Papers, Posters, Demonstrations (same page restrictions as above)
• Tutorial / Workshop submissions (max. 4 pages)
• Doctoral Consortium submissions (max. 4 pages)

Submissions must be in Springer LNCS format. All submissions will be reviewed by the conference’s international program committee. Accepted papers will be published as technical papers, poster papers, demo papers or extended abstracts. Authors might be asked by the program committee to resubmit their paper in a different category. Extended versions of selected papers will be invited for a special issue of the “Entertainment Computing” journal.

Important Dates

March 10^th, 2012 Workshop proposal submission
April 1^st, 2012 Full/short paper submission
May 20^th, 2012 Notification for full/short papers
May 30^th, 2012 Poster/demo/installation/doctoral consortium submission
June 15^th, 2012 Notification for posters/demos/installations/doctoral consortium
June 22^nd, 2012 Camera ready submission (all submission types)
Sep. 26^th to 29^th, 2012 Conference: University Bremen, Germany

Topics

We invite authors to submit original papers, posters or demos in all areas of Entertainment Computing including (but not limited to):

Technologies for Entertainment Computing

• Computer Graphics
• Digital Audio
• Human Machine Interfaces
• Artificial Intelligence
• Integrated Development
• Computer, Video, Console and Internet Games

Design and Creative Environment

• Game Design
• Interactive Sound
• Graphic Design
• Art and Novel Media
• New Genres of Entertainment Technology

Advanced Applications and Platforms

• Augmented, Virtual or Mixed Reality
• Ubiquitous / Pervasive Entertainment
• Entertainment and Ambiant Intelligence
• Robots and Cyberpets
• Mobile Entertainment
• Self-Reflecting Entertainment Computing

Application Domains of Entertainment Computing

• Games / Serious Games
• Interactive TV and Cinema
• Edutainment
• Authoring and Communication
• Healthcare
• Simulation
• Digital Entertainment and Sports
• Digital Entertainment and Pleasure
• Games for Special Audiences / User Groups (elderly, childern, people with mental or physical disabilities)
• Human Computation Games

Theory

• Impact of Entertainment Technology on Users and Society
• TransMedia, Art and Entertainment
• Methodologies, Paradigms, Tools for Entertainment Applications
• Narratives / Digital Storytelling
• Social Impact, Social Networking, Sound and Music

Technical Papers

Technical papers are the main medium for presenting new research results to the community at ICEC. Submissions should describe novel unpublished work relating to one or more of the topics listed above.

Papers must be submitted in the Springer LNCS format (see below). Papers must be written in English. As to account for the expected variety in submissions to this multidisciplinary conference, paper lengths may vary within a certain limit. Short paper submissions have to be between 4 and 8 pages in length. Full paper submissions have to be between 10 and 14 pages in length. In any case, reviewers will be instructed to judge the contribution of a paper relative to its length. Typical contributions presenting significant research advances/results should be around 12 pages in length (Full Technical Papers). Contributions presenting more focused approaches/results should be around 6 pages in length (Short Technical Papers). Papers with exceeding length relative to their contribution will be rejected. All papers will be reviewed by the ICEC 2012 program committee. Accepted papers will be divided into two categories, long presentations and short presentations. The committee may accept papers conditionally or for a different category. Authors may be asked to either shorten or lengthen their paper accordingly. Authors may also include a video (optional) in their submission. Video files should be at most 50MB in size. See the general submission information for more details about preparing your submission.

Posters

Posters provide an interactive forum in which authors can present work to conference attendees during special poster sessions. Posters provide an opportunity to describe new work or work that is still in progress and will be more lightly reviewed than papers. A poster submission should be in the form of a four-page paper in Springer LNCS format, describing the research problem, contribution, and value to ICEC attendees, submitted as a PDF file. Authors may also include a video (optional). Video files should be at most 50MB in size. See the general submission information for more details about preparing your submission. Posters will be displayed on cork boards during specific sessions. We expect to be able to accommodate posters of up to 3 feet by 4 feet (portrait format), so we suggest using that size or smaller. Additional details concerning the poster format will be made available following author notification.

Demonstrations and Interactive Installations

Peer-reviewed demonstrations show early implementations of novel, interesting, and important entertainment computing concepts or systems, or can serve to showcase commercial products not previously described in the research literature. At the ICEC, demonstrations also encompass interactive works of art or installations of interest to the entertainment computing community. Demonstrations should be brief, so that they can be shown repeatedly. We particularly encourage demonstrations with which attendees can interact. A demonstration or installation submission consists of: 1) an extended abstract that should be no more than four Springer-format pages in length, 2) an accompanying video which should be at most 50MB in size, and 3) a supplement document with a list of a) technical requirements including electrical and connectivity needs and b) space requirements including display and footprint needs. By default, demos will have a table, chairs and internet connection available. By their nature, interactive installations are intended for larger, potentially public spaces. We will try to accommodate for the needs of these types of installations, but please include a minimal set-up so that we know the range of requirements that we will need to meet. Successful demonstration/installation submissions will be contacted by the chair to confirm the availability of the requested resources. The abstract, digital video and requirements supplement must be submitted electronically.

Industry Papers / Posters / Demonstrations

Industry papers, posters, and demonstrations are intended to increase the knowledge transfer between academia and industry in entertainment computing. While regular contributions are mainly reviewed for their scientific novelty and contribution, industry papers should focus more on practical solutions and results that are of immediate interest to the industry or especially facilitate communication between industry and academia. Possible examples are (but are not limited to):

• Novel and interesting applications (both commercial and non-profit)
• New frameworks, tools, or libraries
• Business models (especially for serious games)
• Development best practices
• Novel input devices

Industry contributions should follow the same guidelines as regular contributions in terms of layout, pages, additional material etc. (see above). We specifically invite industry members to consider submitting a poster or demo to present live working systems.
If you work in the industry and would like to make a submission, but you are not used to working with scientific paper templates and publication procedures, please do not hesitate to contact us for assistance.

Tutorials / Workshops

We invite proposals for workshops that will be held in conjunction with ICEC 2012. We invite proposals in all areas of entertainment computing (see conference topics listed above) and particularly welcome proposals that will focus on and promote discussion on new and emerging trends. Workshop proposals are restricted to four pages in length (in the Springer LNCS format) and must include the following information:

• Contact information (name, affiliation, address, phone number/fax, and email) of the workshop organizer(s)
• Relevant CV information of the workshop leader(s)
• Workshop title
• Workshop objective
• Background/relevance of workshop topic
• Expected workshop outcomes (publications, activates, “take-home” skills development, etc.)
• Names of potential workshop participants and expected number of participants
• Workshop due dates (schedule of submission and review of submitted material for your workshop)

Workshops can be scheduled for either half a day or a full day (please indicate your choice). Please submit your workshop proposal via the electronic conference system.

Doctoral Consortium

The ICEC 2012 Doctoral Consortium provides an opportunity for doctoral students to explore and develop their research interests in an interdisciplinary workshop, under the guidance of a panel of distinguished researchers. We invite students who feel they would benefit from this kind of feedback on their dissertation work to apply for this unique opportunity to share their work with students in a similar situation as well as senior researchers in the field. The strongest candidates will be those who have a clear idea and an area, and have made some progress, but who are not so far along that they can no longer make changes. Also, as well as stating how you will gain from acceptance, both you and your advisor should be clear on what you can contribute to the Doctoral Consortium.
The Consortium has the following objectives:

• Provide a supportive setting for feedback on students’ current research and guidance on future research directions
• Offer each student comments and fresh perspectives on their work from researchers and students outside their own institution
• Promote the development of a supportive community of scholars and a spirit of collaborative research
• Contribute to the conference goals through interaction with other researchers and conference events

Current graduate students pursuing a PhD project who would benefit from detailed workshop discussions of their doctoral research should submit a single PDF file consisting of:

1. A 4-page extended abstract of your thesis work in Springer LNCSformat. Clearly specifying:

• Originality of the work with respect to current concepts and techniques
• Importance of the work with respect to fundamental issues and themes in entertainment computing
• Results to date and their validity
• Contribution of the work (expected and/or achieved) to entertainment computing

2. Your CV
3. A one-paragraph statement of expected benefits of participation for both yourself and the other consortium participants (i.e., what will you contribute as well as gain).

Submission Guidelines

Papers and abstracts should be submitted through the submission web site in PDF format. All materials will be reviewed and processed electronically. The information about the work and a contact author’s email address, mailing address, and phone number must be submitted through the submission website by the deadline (see above). Submissions should not be anonymized for review. Movies or other materials can also be submitted through the submission web site. The movies must not exceed 50 megabytes in size. Any additional materials must also be received by the deadline. All submissions will be reviewed by the ICEC 2012 program committee.

Of course, software development (including game development) is already part of the Scottish Curriculum for Excellence – but the greater challenge comes with developing teacher skills and knowledge and getting the technology in place to support the curriculum. According the Ian Livingstone interview on Today, only 3 of 28,000 qualifying teachers in England in 2010 had Computing Science degrees (seems a dubious statistic myself, not sure what the origin of the stat is), so there will be significant need to support and develop teacher expertise. If schools are merely given the option of including programming, then relatively few may benefit from what has been announced as a very major shake-up.

I’ll leave final words to Prof Steve Furber (who as one of the creators of the BBC Computer, was responsible for the introducing many British school children to programming in schools):

“We look forward to hearing more about how the government intends to support non-specialist teachers who make up the majority of the workforce in delivering an excellent ICT education without official guidance on lesson content,”

Sarah identifies many of the reasons why VW have slid in popularity and hype. I think learning technologies (and the people interested in them) are still prone to hype and despondence -  augmented reality and gamification to name two of the more recent hype cycles. As the dust settles, there will still be people using VW in education – though unlikely as widely as the hype was leading us to believe.

Sarah’s article does a very good job of explaining some of the key reasons why the recent Second Life centric wave of hype burst – as virtual worlds re-emerge it will presumably be with less wild enthusiasm and a more pragmatic and realistic basis.

Get your SuperNews here:

http://dl.dropbox.com/u/2080114/ARVEL%20SuperNews%20Fall%202011.pdf

Meanwhile, a quieter way that Stanford appear to be commercializing their free offering… by inviting top performers to submit CVs, which Stanford then forward to companies looking for talented employees. Recruitment agencies generally make their money when they provide CVs of people who end up being hired – and here Stanford might make a small, but no doubt useful, pot of cash based on their free offering.

I think few UK universities seem to be institutionally aware of what is going on here – most are still focussing primarily on the campus based student (where the campus may not actually be in the UK…) and trying to get the maximum in fees for students attending courses. Meanwhile the US based private universities are looking at the margins available on extending offerings to massive numbers home based students at low individual costs, exploiting systems that remove much of the costs associated with teaching and supporting those students. Automate the testing and evaluation and support self-organising study groups, removing the burden on the tutor altogether.

I think universities are going to have to face this head on, acknowledge what is going on and work out exactly what their strategy is to survive the next few decades: When education is free, and certification costs are marginal, what are people getting for their money when they attend university? But I don’t currently see this happening – at least not in the UK, where everyone is too distracted over current issues surrounding fees.

But perhaps the most interesting point about the MIT offering is at the very end of the Chronicle’s article:

The core idea of OpenCourseWare—free online content—spread far beyond MIT. The institute hopes this project will also catch on elsewhere. To help make that happen, it will release the MITx open-learning software at no charge, so other educational institutions can adopt it.

Depending on what the software does, and how adaptable it is, other universities will be able to follow suit – but few have the MIT brand to attract students.

http://www.virtual-worlds.net/vw2012/

Dear colleagues,

We are delighted to announce and call for papers for the Third International Conference on Virtual Worlds (VW’2012) which will be held from July 3 to 5, 2012 in Paris (La Défense).

Background

A Virtual World can be defined as a computer-simulated environment with its own physical and biological laws, populated by dynamic interacting entities such as artificial creatures and human avatars. Whereas Virtual Reality largely focuses on the design of 3D immersive spaces, and Artificial Life on the modeling and study of life-like systems, Virtual Worlds embrace both dimensions by synthesizing an entire digital universe. Their design and realization requires competency in various fields from Virtual Reality and Physics to Artificial Life and Ecology, Computer Graphics, High Performance Computing, and more.

Virtual Worlds have many applications in 3D simulation, computer games and online business. However, the approach is still broader and more fundamental. It also addresses the crucial problem of elucidating the constitutive principles by which large numbers of interacting elements can self-organize and produce emergent phenomena as they are observed in the natural world. Therefore the study of Virtual Worlds is particularly concerned with the formal basis of synthetic universes and offers a promising new way to contribute to the understanding of Nature and of complex systems in general.

Subjects

Topics of interest for the conference include, but are not limited to:

Virtual World applications

-           Video games and entertainment

-           Educational, medical and business solutions

-           Virtual economies

-           Social and philosophical implications

-           Virtual Worlds and Ecology

Virtual World technologies

-           High performance and low latency solutions

Virtual and Augmented Reality

-           “Avatarization”

-           Human-machine interfaces

Virtual World fundamentals

-           Artificial physics and chemistries

-           Complex systems, emergence, self-organization

Artificial Life

-           Artificial life and ecosystems

-           Evolution, co-evolution and adaptation

-           Collective intelligence, cooperation, communication

Artificial creatures

-           Avatars

-           Virtual creatures

-           Intelligent agents

-           Conversational agents

Submissions

The Program Committee of VW’2012 is looking forward to high quality papers on substantial, original, and unpublished research.

Full papers may be submitted electronically from 16 October 2011 to 16 January 2012 via the conference website.

All submitted work will be assigned for double blind peer review. Authors of accepted papers will be asked to register to the conference and present their work.

Papers must be submitted in LNCS format and be up to 10 pages in length including abstract, figures and references. Formatting instructions are available at :  http://www.springer.com/lncs

Short papers (4 pages including abstract, figures and references) can also be submitted and selected ones will be presented as posters during demos session.

Artistic and technical demos are also welcome and can be submitted by contacting alainlioret@gmail.com before 12 December 2011.

Final demos has to be set up before 05 May 2012.

Important Dates

Paper submission deadline:               16 January 2012

Notification of acceptance :                05 March 2012

Early registration before :                   15 March 2012

Final paper deadline:                          05 April 2012

Conference days :                              03 July to 05 July 2012

Demos and Posters

Short Paper submission deadline:     16 January 2012

Notification of acceptance :                05 March 2012

Early registration before :                   15 March 2012

Final poster and demo deadline:        05 April 2012

We look forward to welcoming you at the conference!

Steering Committee

- Alain Lioret,  Université Paris 8 (Chairman)

Contact : alainlioret@gmail.com

- Jean-Claude Heudin , Institut International du Multimédia (Co-chairman)

Contact : jean-claude.heudin@devinci.fr

- Stefan Bornhofen, EISTI (Co-chairman)

Contact : sb@eisti.fr

- Jean-Claude Torrel, Institut International du Multimédia (Co-chairman)

Contact : jean-claude.torrel@devinci.fr

Provisional Program Committee

Bruce Damer, DigitalSpace, USA

Jeffrey Ventrella, CDM, Vancouver, Canada

Sébastien Barot, Bioemco,  France

Evelyne Lutton, INRIA, France

Emmanuel Cayla, ESTP, France

Kevin Korb, Monash, Australia

Marc Métivier, Univ. Paris Descartes, France

Tom Barbalet, BIOTA, USA

Frederic Fol Leymarie , University of London, GB

Pierre Berger, Paris ACM Siggraph, France

Penousal Machado, University of Coimbra, Portugal

Jon Mc Cormack, Monash, Australia

Maciej Komosinski, Poznan University, Poland

Mathew Lewis, Ohio State University, USA

Robyn Taylor, Alberta, Canada

Simon Richir, Ensam Angers, France

Marc Ebner, Univ. Tübingen, Germany

Gerald de Jong, Darwin @Home, USA

Joseph Nechvatal,  BIOTA, France

Alan Dorin, Monash, Australia

Daniel Thalmann, EPFL, Suisse

Nadia Magnenat-Thalmann, Miralab, Suisse

Tatsuo Unemi, Tokyo, Japan

Leonel Moura, Portugal

Joseph Nechvatal, School of Visual Arts, USA

During gameplay, students naturally produce rich sequences of actions while performing complex tasks, drawing on a variety of competencies. Evidence needed to assess the competencies is thus provided by the players’ interactions with the game itself (i.e., the processes of play), which can be contrasted with the end product(s) of an activity—the norm in educational environments.

This presentation will describe the design and development of evidence-based assessments (embedded in a game) to measure 21st Century competencies. When embedded assessments are so seamlessly woven into the fabric of the learning environment that they’re invisible, called ‘stealth assessment’ (Shute, 2011; Shute, Ventura, Bauer, & Zapata-Rivera, 2009). Stealth assessments within games provide a way to monitor a player’s current level on valued competencies. That information can then be used as the basis for support, such as adjusting the difficulty level of challenges or providing timely feedback. One to two examples of the approach will be provided, time permitting.

Audience members are encouraged to participate and contribute.

More details, including link to local times for your time zone from the Transforming Assessment site: http://www.transformingassessment.com/

The event closed off with an awards ceremony awarding prizes to some of the institutions and individuals who submitted case studies to “Best of the West” – a collection of examples of effective and innovative practice, to help share knowledge and expertise across the region.  There are about 50 of these, and they are well worth a browse – covering a wide range of tools and technologies across a range of disciplines in FE and HE. My own case study – Using Web 2.0 Tools to Develop and Support a Multi-Campus Class – has a bit of everything bar the kitchen sink, as I used a bunch of different resources and technologies to allow me to develop new materials for a multi-campus class with limited time. The class finished after writing up the case study, and I’m pleased that it received some of the most favourable feedback I’ve ever had from students. Re-writing the module as it was being taught was undeniably hard work – but the technologies and resources used both made it easier and made it better than it would have been otherwise.

On Friday I was extremely surprised to find out that my case study was one of six shortlisted in the Teaching and Learning category of the awards – and somewhat taken aback when I was awarded a Highly Commended prize. As you can see by the breadth of my smile here.

My short piece for EDUCAUSE Review “Second Life is Dead. Long Live Second Life?” is now online. I’ve had a few emails from different folk, generally in agreement. No hate mail yet

In the same week, I learned that Computer Games and Instruction, edited by Sigmund Tobias and JD Fletcher, is now available. I co-wrote a chapter in this book with Jon Richter on Multi-User Games and Learning – trying to encapsulate this broad, broad area in a single chapter, quite a challenge. The book also contains chapters by James Paul Gee, Chris Dede and Kurt Squire amongst others – so we are in very good company. I’m looking forward to receiving my own copy, but for now I have to settle for scanning the pages available via the Google-books preview (available from the book page, here)

Table of contents below.

SECTION I: INTRODUCTION TO COMPUTER GAMES

Introduction, Sigmund Tobias and J. D. Fletcher

Searching For the Fun in Learning: A Historical Perspective on the Evolution of Educational Video Games, Alex Games and Kurt D. Squire

Using Video Games as Educational Tools in Healthcare, Janis A. Cannon-Bowers, Clint Bowers, and Katelyn Procci

After the Revolution: Game-Informed Training in the U.S. Military, Ralph Ernest Chatham

Multi-User Games and Learning: A Review of the Research, Jonathon Richter and Daniel Livingstone.

SECTION II: REVIEW OF THE LITERATURE AND REACTIONS

Review of Research on Computer Games, Sigmund Tobias, J. D. Fletcher, David Yun Dai, and Alexander P. Wind

Reflections on Empirical Evidence on Games and Learning, James Paul Gee

Developing a Research Agenda for Educational Games and Simulations, Chris Dede

Comments on Research Comparing Games to Other Instructional Methods, Marc Prensky

SECTION III: COMPUTER GAME ISSUES

Multimedia Learning and Games, Richard E. Mayer

Action Game Play as a Tool to Enhance Perception, Attention and Cognition, Ashley F. Anderson and Daphne Bavelier

Developing an Electronic Game for Vocabulary Learning: A Case Study, Michael L. Kamil and Cheryl Taitague.

Instructional Support in Games, Henny Leemkuil and Ton de Jong

Implications of Constructivism for the Design and Use of Serious Games, Jamie R. Kirkley, Thomas M. Duffy, Sonny E. Kirkley, and Deborah L. H. Kremer

Implications of Game Use for Explicit Instruction, Putai Jin and Renae Low

Cost Analysis in Assessing Games for Learning, J. D. Fletcher

Using Computer Games to Teach Adult Learners Problem Solving, Joan (Yuan-Chung) Lang and Harold F. O’Neil

Gender and Gaming, Elisabeth R. Hayes

Computer Games and Opportunity to Learn: Implications for Teaching Students from Low Socioeconomic Backgrounds, David Yun Dai and Alexander P. Wind

SECTION IV: EVALUATION AND SUMMING UP

Stealth Assessment in Computer-Based Games to Support Learning, Valerie J. Shute.

Computer Games, Present and Future, Sigmund Tobias and J. D. Fletcher.