October 2009 Issue

From the Editor's Desk

Game based learning
"When learning isn't fun, it's not learning"…
Roger Schank

All of us having grown up in an environment that’s hooked to video, television, gaming arcades,
internet, iPods and commercials in a global society, don’t you feel it’s imperative for learning
paradigms to change with times? The future learners could probably be engaged through fun in
learning arcades, Wi-Fi enabled learning caves, second life. Perhaps, it’s time to forge ahead
with purposeful learning sprint, experimenting and innovating new technologies and tools to make
learning effective, fun and relevant.

After gathering an experience for a long time now in soft skills training, I often keep wondering
if we could ever introduce game based learning to train the students in soft skills. It is of great
relevance that we explore the fact if the learners of the 21st century have different learning needs,
and require a different stimulus to motivate them towards lifelong effective learning.

Marc Prensky is an internationally acclaimed speaker, writer, consultant, and designer in the
critical areas of education and learning. He calls these emerging learners as “The Millennial(s),”
whose focus is not on the learning content; but, learning tools, that facilitate 21st century skills.
These digital natives, as Prensky observes, are growing in an era where knowledge and skills are
being acquired predominantly, through video games, e-mails, mobile phones, TV channels (including
MTV); than by book learning. He talks about six transitional imperatives that govern the future learning
process. According to him, learners have now moved from the era of conventional speed to twitch
speed, from step by step process to random access method, from linear processing to parallel
processing, from text based content to graphics based content, from work oriented learning to fun
oriented learning, from stand alone preference to a connected mode.

Games and simulations might make learning, not merely effective, but, engaging as well.
As Ahdell and Andresen point out, games and simulation sparkle interest through interesting
storytelling narratives, thereby enhancing engagement; but to be effective, learning content in games
have to be relevant and woven around strong context. Factors such as interactivity, flexibility,
competition, reality, drama effects and usability can influence user engagement while learning.
Exploring the effectiveness of learning content, Schank (1997) opines, that people remember
situations that turn out to be different from what they expected. Failing in interesting ways, Schank
suggests, should be a goal of any learning intent. And, where else, than through games and
simulations, can a facilitator embed failure-modes in learning? Children of this generation grow up
believing that digital technology is their birth right and its always better that we introduce learning
which is pulled by them and not as some thing pushed onto them.
 While the trainers concentrate on delivering content, the learners would want to be engaged.
While the academicians come up with teaching methodologies with a typical assumption ‘one size
fits all’, the learners might want lots of choices, while the trainers still think face to face teaching is
the best way to reach out to the students, the learners are already gearing up for e-learning,
handheld learning. There have been phenomenal advancements in every field but for education.
May be its time to turn around and face the future learning processes with all the significant features
required in the 21st century learning paradigms.
Game based learning can provide the requisite engagement with a degree of interaction and
flexibility and at the same time can be designed to be effective. Effectiveness attribute can be
retained by introducing goals and objectives for the learning processes, imposing certain rules,
measuring the outcome, and offering feedback. Klaus Mogensen (2009) states that the future of
learning would revolve around: improved technology, virtual reality, augmented reality,
amateuriazation and future competencies. And hence virtual classrooms, Wikipedia, open source
and You Tube might become the order of the day.
Padmaja Naraharisetty

Principal Mentor, Soft Skills.

 THOUGHTS TO BUILD ON
The God of “Small” Things
Napoleon Hill once said “If you cannot do great things, do small things in
a great way”. This got me thinking if “small” was really significant. With the help of the World
Wide Web which is always available at my disposal, I started my little research on the
significance of “small”. It has come as no surprise how these “small things“have been
changing and influencing our lives in many ways.
UNICEF is an organization which raises millions of dollars annually for children
around the world. It works with a simple principle that people who travel and have left over
foreign coins or notes would never use them again. UNICEF found a way to turn this normally
wasted money into millions of dollars for helping the underprivileged.
In the US presidential elections, more than charisma, it was a steady flow of funds
that was responsible for Barack Obama’s victory. He used the Internet to raise money like
no one could ever imagine. He turned his campaign website into a 24 hour deposit box that
filled up slowly but steadily as “small” donation trickled in. He raised half a billion dollars
online with 90% of the transactions coming from people who donated $100 or less, while
40% came from donors who gave $25 or less. No other campaign in the world has managed
to create an impact as big as this one.
Many successful businesses that we know of today, have started as “small” projects.
The Google Boys Sergy Brin and Larry Page started their venture as a project in Stanford.
Bill Gates did it in the early 1970’s. Walt Disney, the inventor of Mickey Mouse built his huge
empire with a small loan of $500. If you know where you are going it is of no significance
how small your start is.
You will never underestimate the power of “small things” and the big differences they
can make if you are sleeping with a mosquito around you. Gandhiji was the greatest freedom
fighter and he was not too tall. Kylie Minogue is short, but has done the biggest music
counters. And it is not the big, but the “small” screen that worked wonder for Ekta Kapoor
and her saas- bahu serials.
“Small things” can lead to greater endeavors. A “small leak” can sink a ship, a “small
invention” like the TV remote can change life forever. After all tiny drops of water and little
grains of sand make the mighty ocean and the pleasant land!
So if you want to go far and make it big, master the “small” first!

Vijaya Kalindi
Soft Skills Mentor
MSIT
 IN REMEBRANCE
Remembering Gandhi

Gandhi who chose a non-violent way of struggle to gain Independence for India,
the seventh largest nation in the world and her people, is widely regarded as one of the
foremost and most influential apostles of peace worldwide. He showed the citizens of
oppressed nations who were used to employing violent means of fighting their enemies,
a peaceful means of achieving the same without any bloodshed.
In the process, he turned upside down the moral advocated by the Biblical legend
of “David and Goliath” by proving that David could win over a Goliath of any size, without
even having to lifting a slingshot to aim the enemy. The methods of Non-Cooperation and
Non-Violence, that he advocated to fight for oneself, one’s people and one’s nation, are
considered to be watershed events in the World History, which was filled with countless
examples of millions of people losing their lives fighting for their freedom and rights.
The immense power and profound impact made by his ideas and principles
everywhere, even to this day, can be gauged from a reply that the world’s most powerful
man at the moment, US President, Barack Obama, made when he was asked by a young
American Girl that “If he were to choose a man, dead or alive, with whom he would like to
have dinner, who would it be?” and he answered “Gandhi. He’s my real hero.” and went
ahead to say that “The America of today has its roots in the India of Mahatma Gandhi”!!!
It must have been a strange sight for the Colonial British Government to see a
“half-naked fakir” (as Gandhi was referred to, by many of his detractors) leading a
“Salt Satyagraha” march by walking from Sabarmati Ashram in Ahmedabad to Dandi
and breaking the newly imposed Salt Taxation Laws, without lifting as much as a stick
to hit a British Policeman in anger! A Government that was used to violent Indian
revolutionaries of the likes of Mangal Pandey, Bhaghat Singh, Chandrasekhar Azad, etc.
found it absolutely difficult to control the growing popularity and influence of a
scarcely-clad man with a walking stick in his hand and a timepiece hanging to his dhoti,
who was beginning to make an impact never heard of before, in a way that they had
never heard of before.
Coming from a civilization that idolizes Krishna who guided a mighty war to help
five of his disciples win their kingdom back, against their enemies as depicted in the
Hindu Epic, Mahabharata, and considers war as a means of victory (where the good
wins over the bad in the end, like all our films show it), Gandhi’s principles were radical
to say the least.
Pushing the principles of “Non-Violence” and “Non-Cooperation” as the tool fight the
British colonial rule as opposed to a violent means followed by several of his contemporaries
is considered to be the very reason that the supporters of Netaji Subhash Chandra Bose
and those of Veer Savarkar, disliked in Gandhiji and often tried to oppose his moves.
It is a sad irony that the man who advocated and lived by the ideals of
“Non-Violence” his entire life, fell to three bullets fired by Nathuram Godse, who was angered
by Mahatma’s “passive attitude” which he felt had to creation of a separate Muslim Nation,
forever changing the geography and politics of the Indian subcontinent.
Today his principles have been successfully implemented by leaders like Nelson
Mandela (won independence for the “Republic of South Africa”) and Martin Luther King
(fought for equal rights for the Blacks in America) to achieve victory for their cause.
Critics of the selection process adopted by the Norwegian Nobel Committee regularly
make the argument that not awarding the Nobel Peace Prize to Gandhi is an unpardonable
historic mistake. But many practising Gandhians feel that the great man himself would have
been happier if he were to know that his principles has inspired countless others and
brought about a more peaceful world, than by being awarded with a Prize for a good idea
that had the potential but failed to be implemented widely.

Vinay Babu
MSIT 2nd yr
 Poet’s Corner
The Fountain
Waves rise and waves fall.
Light supersedes darkness.
Calm and storm,
Creation and destruction,
Birth and death,
This is the play of nature.
Be the witness of the game and create opportunity.
Nourish your life with ability and creativity.
Be selfless,
Serve the helpless.
Work better on your troubles,
Throw them into the river as pebbles.
Look around and walk along the road,
Though, not broad.
Get inspired from the turtles,
Overcome the hurdles.
Make your life shine,
Be on the cloud nine.
Sometimes you may experience a rift,
But, ultimately you will be blessed with a gift.
Make the success trophy your wonderful sight,
Run towards it with all your might,
And see your glory birds’ flight.
Dwell in your immortal life (the soul).
Act your part bereft of the dual sense.
Let the “Life” flow from the fountain;
The one Universal Truth,
In free and blissful course,
Self absorbed and self revealed.

S.A.Raghavendra Rao
MSIT alumni
(email: raghu.rec@gmail.com)
Convocation at IIIT Hyderabad
16th August, 2009
We are eagerly waiting to hear “Your Voice”!!

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