SXSW Panel: Can Wii Learn? Using Wiimotes in E-Learning
By jmj1. Tuesday, 11. March 2008, 22:56:06
This panel was my final one for the conference, and it was also the most technical. The panel chair—Patrick Sanchez, a systems administrator for Enspire Learning—began by outlining the technical features of the Wiimote. Those features, which I'm certain are familiar to most readers of this blog, are: a motion sensor, IR sensor, speaker, rumble, Bluetooth, and a few LEDs. While the device has a lot of functionality—panelist Chris Pittman of RFD pointed out that unlike the Xbox 360 or PS3, the Wii is completely open and hackable—there have not yet been many eLearning applications for the Wii. As an example of how easy it is to program the device, Pittman walked through a simple drawing app written in the Opera JavaScript API, and much of the discussion dealt with what applications might be possible with the Wiimote.During the introductions, panelist Brandon Carson of Sun described why he got into eLearning. According to him, when he started at Sun their education apps were of two types. On one extreme, the user was completely passive, just viewing materials (like videos). On the other, the user merely clicked through "slide-junk." After some research, he found that most of what they were doing wasn't working because it wasn't tied to performance or business outcomes.
This connection to real-world outcomes was a key feature of the discussion for all panelists. Carson pointed out that now, Sun is producing “collaborative learning” eLearning materials in social or informal settings (you can play some of Sun's eLearning games for new hires here). He claimed that eLearning designers seek four desired behaviors: attention, motivation, participation, and retention. According to him, in a good learning game design these four behaviors are not hard to achieve. What you basically look for is a flow state, which is described by Mihály Csíkszentmihályi as total immersion in an experience such that you can’t be easily distracted from that experience.The panelists seem to think that the future of Wii eLearning applications is completely open at this point. Sanchez noted that a study has shown that surgeons perform better on tasks after playing Marble Mania, and Pittman explained that he used to think Wii wouldn't be good for drill-and-practice math, but after Nintendo released Big Brain Academy, which sold 2 million copies, now he isn't so sure.
