Learning Anorak... deified?!?!

I had to chortle. I have a Google alert set to look for references to Learning Anorak (well, I can't have you lot talking behind my back, now, can I?). Recently, this returned a reference to this post about Warhammer.

It seems the god of learning in this fantasy world is called Anorak, and it was he (he?) who taught the humans magic. Sadly, he was killed using the very magic that he had taught these ungrateful wretches.

But how deliciously ironic!

I only wish that there had been a picture to share with you. Failing that, you'll have to settle for my picture, as the living learning anorak ;o)

Different types of reasoning

I have shared before about my passion for cryptic crossword puzzles, codewords and other word games. But there are other games, too. And these I'm not so great at.

I enjoy Hexic, which presents you with a honeycomb of multicoloured hexagons, which you must manipulate to form clusters of three or more which then disappear from the screen. There's more to it than that with starflowers and black pearls to be earned. My spatial skills are not great, so I have never achieved a black pearl.

I also like to play Rotate Mania, which presents you with a grid of squares split into coloured sections (two, three or four colours). You must once again manipulate these to group together four or more quarters of the same colour and eliminate them from the board. The aim is to clear the board. I have never achieved that. Not once! A significant plus to this game (for me) is that it isn't timed! I hate it when a game starts counting down. I panic and don't achieve anything further.

But the game I am worst at is the one that is apparently responsible for the fact that the most common demographic for online gamers is middle-aged women: Bejeweled (heck, I even struggle with the fact that it only has one L!). Sheesh, was there ever anyone so sucky at a game? In this version, you get one minute. One. And the last 15-20 seconds or so involve a countdown. So I get 45 seconds (unless I remember to mute the sound). In this game, you have to switch 'jewels' around to create rows or columns of three or more, which explode and disappear from the board. I just can't see them. Sometimes, even when I click hint and the little arrow points at a jewel I should move, it still takes me valuable seconds to figure out what to do with it.

I wonder if this blind spot has any bearing on the fact that I also sucked at geometry at school, and am hopeless at chess. I knew the geometry theorems and could do the 'proofs' for those. But I couldn't look at a complex diagram and apply the kind of reasoning necessary to know that all the factors working together mean that angle C=97˚. Similarly, I know how each chess piece moves. I know the principles. I know about things like pinning and castling and that kind of stuff. But I can't devise a strategy in which all the pieces work together to capture the opponent's king while protecting my own. I can't think three moves ahead and play purely reactively, getting my *ss handed to me every time.

I'm much the same when it comes to pool. I can't plan what I'm going to do next and play the cue ball so that it winds up in the right spot for the next shot. I can only play one ball at a time and have to re-assess the table each time I pot one.

I've never been able to figure out which kind of -uctive (ad-, ab-, de- and in-) reasoning is which. All the explanations sound the same to me. As well as involving spatial awareness, do these situations all involve one of those -uctions? And, if so, which one?

Even some of the word games seem to fall into this hole. For example. I am hopeless at Scramble!

pic of the day - chüngel

This evening, I hosted a games evening for the ladies in our church. As well as the better known games like Rummikub and Balderdash, I set out our Chüngel board. Apparently the word chüngel is Swiss German for 'rabbit' - any explanation I gave as to why would be pure guesswork on my part.

We first came across this game when attending a staff Christmas do at John's boss's home in Cape Town more than 17 years ago. We enjoyed it so much, we vowed to buy one at the very first opportunity. Opportunities proved scarce as stockists of traditional toys and games in the UK told us we had dreamed the game up. One guy had the nerve to tell us that, if he hadn't heard of the game, it didn't exist!

We eventually wound up ordering one from Switzerland, where they are handmade. I'm not going to tell you how much it cost, but it was a lot. We decided it was an heirloom in the making and, if you should come and stay over with us at some point, you will be press-ganged into a game. I defy you not to have rather loud fun. My best friend astonished everyone by shrieking and banging her mallet as she played (she's not usually so much like me).

A lesson in humility

I've always been pretty good with words.

As I have mentioned on this blog before, I have been playing Scrabble since I was about 8 years old. My mom taught me, because in those pre-TV days (South Africa only got TV in around 1975), the long evenings were lonely for a divorced woman - especially one with children to consider. She also taught me how to do cryptic crossword puzzles.

So, over the years, I have grown accustomed to being considered something of a clever-clogs when it comes to word games. Not that I am stellar, or anything, just somebody not to be taken lightly. I have played several word games on Facebook, and usually feature in the top 3 among my friends. In particular, there is a game called Word Challenge where I had been enjoying top spot for some time with a score of 22,503. My closest rival was my good friend Frank with 21,554.

Then, at the recent Learning Technologies conference, I met Ben Chai. He sent me a Facebook friend request and so began a series of the worst hidings I have ever had in my life!

It's true, my injured right shoulder has meant that I have avoided playing any of the mouse-controlled games for a while (for some reason this is the most painful thing to do - I can shovel snow, but I can't make sustained use of a mouse), so I am a tad rusty. Nevertheless, being ludicrously competitive, I have accepted all his challenges, in spite of the fact that they have me moaning in pain. I tell myself that I could do better if only my shoulder were not an impediment. But I have to accept that, even at my best, there is no way I can match Ben.

Scramble is my weakest game, so the fact that Ben's scores there are double mine is hardly surprising. I'm not great at WordTwist, but I have at least been giving him something approaching a run for his money, there. He trounced me at Pathwords, which I'm pretty good at, but the biggest humiliation has been Word Challenge. How on earth does anyone muster a score of 64,402?

I know when I'm out of my league!

pic of the day - the current soundtrack

Our sons have recently purchased a copy of Fable II for the Xbox360. It seems to be an all consuming game, because they spend every spare moment on it. So, its sound effects form the background music to much that goes on in the Romeis household at present.

Of course, to my jaundiced eye, it looks exactly the same as any other 'shoot-em-up' game, but I guess they feel that way about a lot of the things I watch on telly.

Games and simulations - keep them consistent!

Over the course of our recent holiday, my sons spent a large amount of time playing PSP games. This is not unusual in itself. What is unusual is that I was in earshot much of the time and got to experience their frustrations by proxy.

I have recently been thinking about the use of games and simulations in learning - trying to figure out what place they might hold, etc. - so I was alert to their observations. I'm still not sure how to reconcile learner-driven just-in-time learning with the serendipitous, learning-by-immerson world of simulations, but regardless of how these things fit together, it has become abundantly clear to me that simulations must observe some rules:

• If the player is leading a race by 10 seconds, and the second-placed, system-controlled competitor is not catching up according to the images on screen, then the player must win. He cannot be pipped at the post by a competitor that was clearly eating his dust.
• When the player is in second place, the leading car must not straddle the centre line when cornering - it must take the inside lane as would be the case in real life.
  
• If getting back onto your motorbike after a spill takes 2 seconds when you are in third place, it must not take 5 seconds when you are in first.
• Clipping your wing mirror must not cause your car to roll 5 times and end up on its roof off the track. Especially not if it only does this if you are in the lead.

To summarise:
1. They must be more or less realistic within their own set of paradigms (perhaps believable would be a better word)
2. They must be consistent
3. They must not cheat!

I would have given up faced with the frustrations they experienced, and elder son's temper was tried to extremes at times, but he is a stubborn and determined child, and he persevered.

Meanwhile, I muttered into my pen-and-paper sudoku...