aplica los videojuegos de MYST a la enseñanza.
Creativity – 18th May 2005
Transcript of presentation 7
Using Myst to develop literacy and communication skills
Tim Rylands
Hello, good afternoon and yes, I am a humble primary school teacher who was very flattered to be nominated for the Becta ICT in Practice Awards and more importantly, completely stunned to have won. I am going to talk to you about just one of the many things that we do at our school that I’ve been involved in developing and that’s the use of games in the, a series of games called the MYST games. You’ll have to bear with me for a moment because, as with all computers, as Jessica in my class once said, ‘computers overcome most problems unless they electronically refuse!’. So if something goes wrong in this process I do heartily apologise.
I’d like to explain how I used the games – and on that point. For those of watching at home now, my glamorous technical assistant is coming and putting in the sound module, thank you. And for those of you at home, you’ve missed the popcorn. [Laughter]
I started off by using the first game in the series, MYST, which for those of you who might have played the games is great but perhaps not the most visually stimulating, but moved on to Riven, the second in the game, which is an absolutely stunning world of supreme realism and yet fantasy, through MYST III – Exile and Uru, which is a game that runs alongside all of these and MYST IV – Revelation which came out last year and I’ve got my fingers crossed for the autumn when we have the last in these series of games called End of Ages.
I’m going to show you a little bit of MYST III – Exile and I thought I’d take you for a walk, otherwise you are not going to understand exactly what we’re talking about.
So I’m going to start a new game and here we are:
“Breathtaking isn’t it?”
The amazing thing about these worlds is rather than a slide show we can actually move around, navigate through these worlds and explore them. There are characters and here is one:
“We call it Tomahna, we moved here after Atrus had finished writing Releeshahn, he wanted us to have a new home too.”
And the amazing thing is I can completely ignore her and look away and the only thing you can’t spot in these games is your own feet. It is a first person game but let’s head through the door.
This is the beginning of this game, there are many different places I can take you to and as I’ll talk to you later on this fantastic writing throughout the games and many wonderful places just to walk through and I think you’ll feel already that you’re there aren’t you?
“Well my friend, I see you found the Releeshahn book. Catherine tells me you have been here for some time, I’m sorry if I kept you waiting. Since we’ll be gone a few days, I need to secure some of my things. And I also wanted to bring you this, it’s a journal I kept while I was writing Releeshahn, I thought you might find it interesting to read.”
That’s Rand Miller, the [inaudible] of the game and we are going in through a little fly through to see an island that we could walk around. These games were not designed for the education market, they are just to be played, to be enjoyed at home.
Somebody is running away from us, should we follow him? Yes? What’s your mother told you, following strange men! Right, come on then, we’ll go up the stairs. Just after lunch climbing ladders, now here we go. Shall we go across that bridge? Yeah, right, here we go and let’s see if he’s there. Oh, the heartbeat going now, and again the sound effects, the music, something really to talk about and discuss with the children. Oh it’s locked, right. We ran across that bridge just now and crumbs, there was no hand rail, you are a brave lot. Right, let’s just wander across, back through the bridge and then down on to the beach and at this point I would like you to take your shoes off – metaphorically please, Mrs – and just put your feet in that sand and that grass, what does it feel like? It’s hard, sharp, the sand though is warm and I do apologise if at any point I am making you feel sick with the speed that we’re walking through. I think you will see completely awe inspiring worlds. Down the steps, let’s go, let’s check first of all. As we head down these steps now, oh there is a hand railing on this one, I feel more confident going down here now except for this rather ominous noise.
Now these games are completely peaceful. There is the occasional – surprise! But it’s nothing, it’s … ah, beautiful. There’s nothing really too frightening. Shall we go in? Shall we go in? [Yes] Oh hard luck, we’ll move on. Right, having seen the games I think you almost, you don’t need to hear me say anything. I use the games through to inspire children’s speaking and listening, their writing skills and their general confidence in literacy. There are characters in the games but they are peaceful and if anything they tend to run away. There are some good female characters that act as very good role models for the girls in the class and they’re not all pumped up pneumatic ladies running around stealing things from tombs. [Laughter]
The games are very heavily book based, in fact the worlds are written into existence and there are many examples of some very high quality writing that we can pick apart and analyse and hopefully emulate. I encourage my children to keep writing journals where we nick the best bits basically, writing down anything that either I model or things that they hear from other children in the class and they are constantly writing so in lessons we become word magpies, stealing the best ideas and again in lessons, I discourage the children from putting their hand up and 30 children can actually carry out a lesson with speaking and listening skills that my colleagues are quite envious of. We have a go at what I call ‘verbal jazz’, making it up as you go along, walking through the worlds and describing everything you see and the children are constantly writing, scribbling away at great pace and above all it’s a good laugh.
I’m going to take you to see a lesson that we did, again in Exile, in that little part that you watched and I think you’ll see the children completely immersed and involved in what we’re doing:
“It’s calm, good, and lightening. Like ink dropped into water wouldn’t you say, something like that, look at the way that water’s moving. Can anybody give me any similes or metaphors for those, well look at the colour of that rock.
A white heart streaked with scars like a gaping wound.
Say that again – streaked with?
Streaked with scars like a gaping wound.
Scars like a gaping wound – yes.”
Except a doctor friend tells me that scars only form when wounds heal but we’ll give him it won’t we?
“The memories flood over me too fast, they race around inside my head, filling my soul with despair. That's really good use of the comma there isn’t it? And the more I think about how nothing can be done, comma, how no one can be alive outside his shield …”
Now this was done by my learning support assistant so you’ll have to forgive the odd comedy moment.
“I want somebody to have a go at doing a running commentary. As we go on we are going to walk through and somebody can have a go, who fancies having a go at doing a running commentary?”
I’d be scared of me if I was in my class I think!
“.. into the cold brown metally tracks to meet a throbbing noise in my ears of drums beating – boom-boom, boom-boom, boom-boom – and looking like tight buildings …”
Nicely done, well done.”
And that fantastic smile … just amazing.
“Sorry Claire, what was that?
… using something to get somewhere to do what we need to do.
We saw something because look, it goes into the water.
Oh look this is the bit where it goes …
Shall we press it?
Yeah!
Oh it’s lunchtime.
Oh no!
Well done, excellent.”
And I just have a couple of examples of children reading short extracts of their writing and we all filmed part of a large amount of writing that they did. Here’s just three:
“Ahead of me was a vast barren desert surrounded by cliffs, scarred and battered by ages of wind and a creamy blue sky as still as a rock. I turned, startled by the soft voice behind me, there was a small room dappled by sunlight streaming through the glass, a tile floor worn by ages of feet, two doors surrounded by lush plants swaying in the gentle breeze. The doors had been carefully made and intricately crafted with great care.”
For this filming we used a very clever blue screen.
“Wind chimes were singing their song when suddenly over the wind I heard a soft voice. ‘Breathtaking, isn’t it?’ it said. I turned, a beautiful woman was there holding a baby. As she stopped talking I realised where I was, outside it was as barren as a desert but in here beautiful greenery was growing, plants hung from the roof and light came in through the stained glass windows”
“The carpet was an amazing design, the lights light blue, blazing around the room. The whole study was the tidiest place I have ever seen. There were unfinished books though, lying on desks and on the floor.”
We used the very clever blue screen method, sorry Blu-tack method. We actually blew up a picture and stuck it on the wall and they sat in front of it, so it’s nothing technical. [Laughter]
I could show you, hundreds is an exaggeration, tens of films, many films that the children made and I am also very fortunate now that people are sending me films and writing from all over the place. We had a little bit of a flurry on our website after a CNN article that went up and had 12,000 visits in one week and thankfully lots of emails as well from all round the world, including people sending me their descriptive writing.
I think you can see from that lesson that the idea really is it’s a shared experience. I’ve been quoted as saying it’s safer than going on a school trip and a lot less insurance but I’m not advocating completely living in a digital world but it is a wonderful way for children to have a common experience for which to discuss.
One of the strong themes is that yes, we do a lot of descriptive narrative, describing the things that we see but you can get some many things, for example paragraphs.
To my left, stepping forward and each time, each place, each tiny little movement, picking up an object, can be the start of a new paragraph and that takes a great big part in slowing the pulse rate down in children’s writing because they can head off from one country to another and back again and – just slowing it down, perhaps just walking up to something, touching it, picking it up. And so much more. There is a whole number system that runs through the games and we are trying to analyse those. Artwork, look, putting themselves – it is a first person game but she has put herself into the game. Writing instructions on how to operate something. Postcards from different places. A ‘For Sale’ sign for that house that you saw. Map making, so as we solve the problems and wander around, trying to actually see it in a 3D way.
What was this? Ah yes, tips on how to grow some of the plants that are in different places. My big interest, I write rock music for children. There’s ‘A Load of Rubbish’, a musical with characters like Greta Garbage, Dustbin Hoffman, Slimy Minogue and others and the one that we recorded at school which is called ‘A Brand New Page’. I am only mentioning those in a commercial basis. [Laughter]
I'm saying that okay, I have a fair amount of experience of programming music but along with Joe Moretti who is here from Bath Spa, we’ve been working on a thing called ‘The Music Key’ which Joe has got out at the moment which carries on all the way through secondary schools in programming music and one of the things that we’ve had a look at, we’re working on the primary package, is taking films from the MYST games and putting music to it.
Music excerpt played.
And using the two simple software as well we have had children making midi tracks to go with PowerPoints and still images.
I’ll talk to you about Riven briefly and how we can link it with the proper stuff, as in the literacy strategy, but one of the things we did was linking work with looking at the Hobbit and I took the children into the first part of the book and we were looking at conditionals, if there’s something it might be, however it could be and what we looked at was the Hobbit’s hole and what we could tell about the Hobbit from his house, even though he wasn’t there. Then I asked the children as a homework to design a door and everybody bought their doors in and we swapped doors. What’s behind the door? What’s behind the door, what can we tell from it? So we looked at and we played a game of, what’s that programme with Loyd Grossman? I can’t remember the name. Through the Keyhole! We played of game of Through the Keyhole, we walked through, what could we tell about the character who lives in a house like this. [Laughter]
From the doors what we could actually tell about the nature of the people that lived there and such, so coming up to the door, what it feel like, the texture and in Riven there are many mysterious doors. That one for example that we just opened is made to look like you shouldn’t get in until one of my boys said, but there’s no lock on it, Mr Rylands. A simple observation and the idea then that, you know, it’s riveted etc.
I’m not saying it’s the ultimate way to achieve anything but it can become an extremely immersive environment, I’ve recommended it for staff to use as a way of relaxing after you’ve done your marking, just to head off and go into a game, it’s good fun.
© Becta 2005
http://www.becta.org.uk/etseminars
Myst en la escuela, Un profesor utiliza la saga Myst en sus clases
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