Sha-Hui's Space

Perfect World Online (PC/MAC)

2006-12-14T09:31:00.000-08:00

Title of Game: Perfect World Online (free)
Type: MMORPG
Language: Traditional Chinese
System: PC/MAC
Attraction: 1. Different types of avatars. Instead of a few choices, the player can create private images in details. 2 Flying and swimming: The players can fly in the sky or swim under the lake. The flying methods are different for different races. Angels can fly in the sky with wings. Human can fly by standing on swords. Devils can fly by riding pets, such as stingrays. Meanwhile, any male who can fly are able to hug female avatars to fly in the sky. (or just walking on the ground…) 3.Animal figures: Some races can become tigers or foxes. 4.Modern clothes: The players can also wear modern clothes in the game, such as wedding dress, bikini, and so on.
Personal Opinions: I like this game a lot because of the avatars creating freedom and the players are able to fly in the sky. The style of the images are commonly welcomed by Asian players.
Related Website: Perfect World Online Ps: This game also has International version. That’s free, too. However, the language should be still Chinese.^^!

Second Life (PC/MAC)

2006-12-14T08:48:00.000-08:00

Title of Game: Second Life
Type: Online RPG Environment
System: PC/MAC
Attraction: The players can create many virtual things in the virtual world. They can even have a private house or island. Players have a lot of freedom in the game.
Defect: Serious text demanding. This game is not easy for a new beginner. However, the most serious problem is its text demanding. It is hard for people whose English is not good enough, such as me. I feel difficult to get involved in the game.
Obtained Skills:1. Language.= =!! This is for sure; although, this may not be one of the goals of this game. 2. Communication with the other people. This game requires people to communicate with the others.
Possibility in Edu. Field: Instruction lesson. Online school.
Personal Opinions: I really believe that people who don’t like to communicate with the others online may not get involved in the game. Actually, this game is more like an online environment. People can get together to do and share something. However, it is not easy to be familiar with the game.
Questions that I am thinking: What type of people would like to get involved in this game?
Related Website: Second Life Official Web

Gran Turism 3 (PS2)

2006-10-23T07:29:00.000-07:00

Title of Game: Gran Turism 3
Type: Racing
System: PS2
Attraction: Just like the regular car racing game. However, it has a very special mode, Simulation Mode. In the Simulation Mode, the player has $18,000 to buy a new car and reconstruct it with different tools. The player can get information about car brands in “Car Dealer.” S/he can buy different tools in “Tune Shop” to reconstruct the car. The player can test the function of the car in “Machine Test.” However, if the player wants to attend different classes of games, s/he has to get different licenses in “License Center,” just like in the real world.
Defect: In some interfaces, the introduction texts are too small to read.
Obtained Skills: Hand controlling & Knowledge about racing rules and cars, including mechanical knowledge.
Possibility in Edu. Field: Simulation Mode can be applied to teach mechanical knowledge.
Personal Opinions: The Simulation Mode is very interesting. If the text words could be bigger and my English is better, I believe I can really obtain lots of knowledge about racing rules and cars, including mechanical parts. It makes me feel like that I am going through the whole process in the real world if I want to become a racing driver. I believe this mode could be very useful in educational games.
Related Website: Download the Gran Turismo 3 A Spec (Playstation 2) ringtone for free

Dream of Mirror Online Free (PC)

2006-10-10T07:52:00.000-07:00

Title of Game: Dream of Mirror Online Free
Type: MMORPG
Language: Traditional Chinese
System: PC
Attraction: The game is well known by its rich plots. A player can explore a fantasy world not only by killing many monsters but also experiencing different small stories by themselves. The stories in the game could be very funny. The players can sense the humor of the game design team. Meanwhile, many stories in the game are also touching with kind of sadness. Another attraction is that the players can fly on sword, just like traditional Chinese fantasy novels. Also, the players can have their own pets, which are quite popular in MMORPG, at least in the East Asia.
Possibility in Edu. Field: Attractive plots always interest people. If an educational game could successfully let the learners feel like exploring a new world by themselves, the learners may be interested in playing the game continuously. The attraction of this online game could be applied in teaching history. It would be extremely interesting if the learner can enter a virtual world and experience the history events.
Personal Opinions: The flying system is really cool to me. The game design group has great humor. They are also good at creating moving and touching plots.
Related Website: Dream of Mirror Online Free (English version)

Tekken 3 & Soul Caliber II-Fighting (PS2)

2006-09-25T07:02:00.000-07:00

Title of Game: 1. Tekken 3 (PS) 2. Soul Caliber II(PS2)
Type: Fighting (Combat Game)
System: Sony Playstation 2 (PS2)
Attraction: This kind of games could be attractive to people who just want to entertain. Violence and speed seem to be important elements in the games. The characters in Soul Caliber II are quite beautiful and with personalities.
Defect: Very hard to be applied in Edu. Game….= =
Possibility in Edu. Field: …No idea…
Personal Opinions: I am very interested in the “New Game Mode” in Soul Caliber II. There would be a Kung-Fu master, and the player needs to follow the instruction. The player can do anything, but only gets feedback when s/he does the right action. This is pretty cool.
Questions that I am thinking: Could fighting games be applied in educational field appropriately? If so, how?
Related Website: Soul Caliber II-Offical
GameSpot-Soul Caliber II

ps: The picture is from GameSpot. It is the instructional shot.

Wario Ware Inc: Mega Party Game$ -- Party/ Mini Game(GC)

2006-09-24T20:07:00.000-07:00

Title of Game: Wario Ware Inc: Mega Party Game
Type: Party/Mini Games
System: Nintendo GameCube (GC)
Attraction: This games collected many mini games. People can play with the others and compete against each other. The tempo of the game is very fast, and the images are funny. The players can really entertain by the game.
Defect: Sometimes the players don’t need to really figure out how to play the game; instead, just press the button ASAP.
Possibility in Edu. Field: This game could be designed to train children’s controlling ability on body, especially eyes and fingers.
Personal Opinions: I think this game is really suitable for party time. Several friends get together and enjoy a good time…It’s a cute game.
Related Website: GameSpot-GameCube:Wario Ware Inc: Mega Party Games$
ps: The picture is from this website http://www.gamespot.com/gamecube/puzzle/warioware/index.html

Huang Yi Online-- MMORPG (PC)

2006-09-24T15:35:00.000-07:00

Title of Game: Huang Yi Online
Type: MMORPG
System: PC
Attraction: 1. Beautiful images and setting 2. Rich scenario: Many RPG game describes a story to the players. The players may feel like entering another fantasy world. 3. Free choices for strategies: The players have almost complete freedom for choices in the game. For example, they can choose which mission that they want to complete at first. Actually, they can also decide not to complete some missions. It doesn’t really matter. 4.Competion: In RPG game, especially in the online environment, the players can compete against the computer or other players. Sometimes, making one’s character stronger is also a kind of competition among the players.
Defect: In this game, the rule of sharing “experience points” by team is not good enough. Usually, the players in a team don’t need to help with each other. Instead, what they need to do is make a team and stay in the same map. Then, they can get more experience points by that. People can really learn cooperation.
Obtained Skills:
Possibility in Edu. Field: The features of RPG game could be similar to adventure game. Therefore, a designer may create a visual world for learning. Inside the world, the players have enough freedom to explore different experiences.
Personal Opinions: MMORPG game has always been my favorite type. I love beautiful and detailed images. I need to feel like I am in another fantasy world (scenario). Meanwhile, I also like to chat with different people online. All of these can be obtained in MMORPG game. Malone pointed out keeping “presence of uncertainty” is helpful to make games challenging. The four ways are Variable difficulty level, Multiple-level goals, Hidden information, Randomnes. All of these can be accomplished in MMORPG game.
Related Website: Huang Yi Online

The function of my final project

2006-05-01T22:35:00.000-07:00

In fact, my final project is based on a "blog" environment. However, I still can't find a blog which has similar functions and interface to my design concept. I really don't know how to set up a blog and change its functions by myself. Therefore, I would just use Dreamweaver to display my design ideas. It could be a little strange for you to use it as a blog. However, it's still a web page. This is for sure.

The second part of last class

2006-04-26T07:42:00.000-07:00

The second part of last class is very useful for my, especially about how to plug video clips into my website. My final project is about how international students reflect to the life and the culture in New York. Therefore, they may upload the videos to the website. However, I may only show how it should look like in my website. I have heard that some latest blogs allow the users upload video clips whereas most of them do not support this service. Anyway, I still have a lot of work to do.

The second part of last class

2006-04-23T20:29:00.000-07:00

The Second part of Last class

2006-04-23T19:44:00.000-07:00

The second part of last class is very useful for me, especially about how to plug video clip into my website. My project is about how international students reflect to the life and culture in New York. Therefore, video would be an important method for them to display what they think. As for me, I also like to take pictures and make shots for what I am interested in New York. However, I may be only able to display the result what I hope my website looks like. I could not know how to build a server which really allow the users to upload their videos so far. (I know some ;atest blog spaces have this kind of function.)

About graphic design in WWW

2006-04-14T11:25:00.000-07:00

Well, this posting is not directly related to our class. However, I really feel that I want to learn more about graphic design in WWW and viusal design principles. I want to take courses about these two topics. Nevertheless, I don't know which department and which course may be suitable to my needs. About graphic design, I want to learn how to creat a more beautiful and comfortable interface of web page. I want to know the theories or principles at the same time. As to visual design, I want to know basic principles about how do people feel and react to different images and colors in flat objects or on the web site. I am interested in this field. Does anyone know about the related information of NYU?

Thanks for your suggestions

2006-04-14T09:57:00.000-07:00

Thanks for all of your suggestions for me so far. They are really great and useful for me. I will try to search some web sites which are similar to my ideal design. I would also try to make the site map as clear as possible because it is important for navigation.

Reflection to "Web Style Guide"

2006-04-07T17:18:00.000-07:00

Recently, I go back to read the article “Web Style Guide” again because I need to re-consider the style of my web site. There is a part about clear navigation aids. In my project, I need to provide lots of information and diverse aspects about New York, it could be a problem for users if I did not set the information architecture well. I hope my users would get clear ideas although the information provided is rich. Therefore, that is the reason why I set up a button “Site Map” in my project.

Reflection to "Attractive things work better"

2006-04-07T16:29:00.000-07:00

Chapter 1: Attractive Things Work Better
So far emotion is still an ill-explored part in educational design. However, I indeed agree with the author that emotion plays a critical role in daily lives. Attractive things always make people happy. When a watch look beautiful and seems “well-designed” in the appearance, people usually believe that it must be better than the “ugly” ones. Nevertheless, as far as I mentioned in my post before, the definition of beauty could be different in different cultures. Web-based environment is a world-wide environment. The design of the web site should have its own style and be accepted by people from the world. How to design it in a proper way is still a problem for me.

First problem about my final project

2006-04-07T15:40:00.000-07:00

The first problem about my final project is how to creat my homepage. In fact, I have my desired graphic design for my homepage; however, I really do not know how to make it. I wanted to seperate my homepage into 3 parts, actually, 3 frames. I want the homepage to be colorful. Nevertheless, so far I still don't know how to make it.

Reflection to" Recipe for a Successful Website"

2006-04-02T10:27:00.000-07:00

"Recipe for a Successful Website" by Nathan Shedroff
This article is really interesting and “yummy.” It uses recipe as a metaphor of website, and introduce the important ingredients of a successful website. It lets my easily understand why those elements are important to a successful website. For example, the author mentions that people should use only fresh ingredients for cooking; therefore, a designer should not use out-of-date information as the content. I really enjoy reading this article.

Sha-Hui's Final Project-NY Observer

2006-04-02T09:55:00.000-07:00

**This project is design by Chiu, Sha-Hui & Hsu, Hsin-Ying & Teng, Ya-Yun
Background and Problem Description
Cross-cultural communication is deemed to be a major concern in today’s multicultural society (Zapf, 1991) because it helps to promote internationalization. It is important for international students to develop positive international thinking during the period of their overseas study. We believe that web-based learning technology not only can help to create an online cross-cultural learning community for international students but also is an appropriate learning medium for them. Studies indicate that international students have excellent IT skills, including the use of computer and online information resources (Purmensky, 2005; Hughes, 2005). Additionally, they tend to be motivated by feelings of isolation and alienation to use the Internet to seek for social support. Based on the above points, we came up with the idea of creating a web-based online community of cross-cultural learning for international students. Through this project, the NY Observer, we hope to help build cultural bridges and promote global understanding.
Target Audience
The main target audience in this NY Observer project is the international students in New York City. Additionally, we target only undergraduate and graduate international students in colleges, for two reasons. First, international students in this stage are more able to reflect on the new cultural experiences as well as on their home cultures, compared with those in high schools or earlier stages. In addition, they identify themselves as a member of their home cultures rather than those who come in an earlier age and might assimilate more easily into the new cultures.
Educational Goals and Objectives
The NY Observer project is built under the ideal of constructivism. The learners are supposed to construct knowledge and have diverse learning experience. However, we still find that it is necessary for the designers to set educational goals for this project.

Under a learner-controlled environment, we hope that this learning community can encourage learners to record their lives as an observer living in New York, and provoke discussion as well as interaction between learners. Through comparing and contemplating diverse points of view, the increasing awareness of culture diversity can lead the learners to respect different culture and then to value the rich heritage within their own culture.
Interaction Design
According to our design, the web site affords many opportunities for interaction between users and web site.
1. Login in─ Whenever a member logs in the web site, s/he would be able to enter the interface web page of his/her personal blog. All of the members can blog their feelings by text. They can also upload pictures, drawings, voices, video clips, and even combined media to express what they experienced and felt.
2. Beginner─ In the web page of “Beginner,” the new users or new members can see an instruction to the functions of this web site. There is an index for different functions of the web site. The users may click any items to see the relevant instruction, which may be shown by text or Flash.
3. Search engine─ Through “Search engine,” the user can type a key word and find relevant articles in the web site.
4. Dr. Culture─ Basically, “Dr. Culture” is an online cultural counseling services provided by experts. Whenever the members ask cross-cultural adjustment questions, we may ask experts to answer the questions. Then, we will answer such a question in the web page of Dr. Culture.
5. Vote & Talk─ In this section, the web site automatically provides an issue for users to vote and to create discussions ob board periodically.
6. Tool Box- FAQ─ We would post the suggested answers to some frequently encountered questions of international students in this section.
7. Tool Box-Link─ In this section, the user can find some relevant web sites about cross-cultural learning. They may also find a lot of useful web sites, in which a lot of information about New York would be provided.
8. Upcoming Event─ This section could be linked from the homepage. We would announce the latest news about our web site in this section.
9. Contact─ Through the “Contact” link on the home page, every user can E-mail us their feeling and opinions about the web site. At the same time, they can also E-mail us to ask any question which are related to our cross-cultural topic.

Reflection to "A Unified Theory of Design"

2006-04-02T07:47:00.000-07:00

A Unified Theory of Design
In this article, the author discusses information design, interaction design, and sensorial design. All of them could be very important. However, I am interested in the discussion of sensorial design. The author mentions visual, auditory, tactile, olfactory, and kinesthetic senses. Tactile, olfactory, and kinesthetic design are rarely used in the design. One of the reasons could be that the technique is difficult. It reminds me that my relevant experience in Disneyland. There is a cartoon movie about many characters throwing pies to each other. At the same time, the audiences can really smell the flavor of pies. It’s really great. Another show about little mermaid would display many bubbles both in the screen and in the real space. That kind of special effect is really powerful to the audiences.

To sketch a "storyboard"

2006-03-16T08:10:00.000-08:00

Jane Stevens "Storyboarding"
Even though this is not the first time for me to draw storyboards, I still feel this article is very useful for me. I also like the links in this article. Through the links, I saw many great wonderful and creative battens in the web site of Institute for Interactive Journalism. Seeing real examples is always very helpful to my learning.

Prospectus Draft for my Final Project

2006-03-08T11:47:00.000-08:00

Problem descriptions:
The fever for learning Chinese as the second or the third language has risen in recent years. Chinese has become a very important foreign language to learn in many Asian countries. Besides that, learning Chinese has become more and more important in Europe. Therefore, there is a need for instructors to design learning courses for non-Chinese speakers.
Target audience:
Anyone who is eager to learn Chinese could be the target audience. However, the web site is designed for those people who have at least middle level in Chinese. (The level would be identified in more details according to the statement of China government.)
Learning objectives:
As far as I am concerned, facilitating reading skills may be my learning goal. Therefore, I would design different objectives for guide learners how to read Chinese correctly and more effectively. At the same time, I would also want to help them read Chinese articles with more comprehension.
My background knowledge in Chinese learning area:
Since Chinese is my first language, the general knowledge about Chinese is not a problem to me. Meanwhile, I also have experience for learning foreign languages, such as English, Japanese, and French. Therefore, I understand the difficulties for people to learn foreign languages. However, I would try to find more date about learning Chinese as the second language because every language has its own characteristic. There are still differences between learning English as a foreign language and learning Chinese. I would also ask some Chinese teachers, who have experiences in teaching foreigners Chinese, about their experiences and thoughts.
Level of audience technological proficiency:
The target audience at least has the basic knowledge about how to use Internet since this curriculum is a web-based learning environment. Meanwhile, the target audience had better to like using Internet without any negative anxiety or fear. Otherwise, they may not learn in an active ambient environment. (The other specific standards about how to define learners’ technological proficiency are not written in details yet. I still need to ask the teacher if there is any specific standard for such a definition.)
Note: This project would be coordinated and finished by me and Chia-Yi Chen, an ECT student.

Reflection to "Anchored Instruction"

2006-03-07T06:01:00.000-08:00

Bransford et. al "Anchored Instruction"

In this paper, Bransford et. al introduce the idea of “Anchored Instruction.” Basically, it presents an anchored problem situation to students. With that problem solving situation, students would value what they learned and have opportunities to transfer their inert knowledge into problem solving. In other words, this kind of instruction would facilitate them to identify problem situations. Meanwhile, this process helps students construct related schemas. In the paper, it also talks about what is a good anchor. First, the anchor should be “intrinsically interesting.” Second, it should enable students “to deal with a general goal.” Third, an effective anchor would also “help students notice the features of problems situation that make particular actions relevant” (p. 14).
I am quite interested in this instruction even though I knew anchored instruction before. However, this paper analyzes the reason why students would value the information they learned more through anchored instruction. That is my favorite. In fact, this paper also provides many ideas for teachers to think about how to create a learning environment where students would value what they learned and transfer the knowledge into actual usage. This is really an useful paper for me.

Reflection to "Nine Ways to Reduce Cognitive Load in Multimedia Learning"

2006-02-19T15:24:00.000-08:00

Mayer, R. E. & Moreno, R. "Nine Ways to Reduce Cognitive Load in Multimedia Learning"
In this paper, Mayer, R. E. and Moreno, R. discusses nine methods to reduce cognitive load. In cognitive theories, they have two basic assumptions- dual-channel assumption and limited-capacity assumption. In order to achieve meaningful learning, it requires that the learner must engage in the learning process. However, the capacity of learner for cognitive processing is limited. Whenever the capacity is overload, it would interfere the learning processing. Therefore, how to reduce cognitive load is important for meaningful learning. The authors suggest nine load-reducing methods: Off-loading, Segmenting, Pretraining, Weeding, Signaling, Aligning, Eliminating redundancy, Synchronizing, and Individualizing.
In fact, I am impressive about Off-loading. Although this is not the first time for me to hear the term; however, this theory is quite different from the way applied in Taiwan. In America, there is no on-screen text on TV. (Of course, people can choose to watch on-screen text at the same time.) Nevertheless, there is always on-screen text on TV in Taiwan. (Although people showed that because some special reason at the beginning. ) It has been a habit for audience to read on-screen text when they are watching movies.
Adapting to the movies without any on-screen text is really difficult for me. But I also agree that I can pay more attention to the scenarios without text.
Ps: However, I still think that Chinese characters are very different from English words.

Reflection to Bransford's "The Design of Learning Environments"

2006-02-11T19:33:00.000-08:00

Bransford, J.D., et.: The Design of Learning Environments
In this chapter, the author discusses four kinds of learning environments: learner-centered, knowledge-centered, assessment-centered, and community-centered environments. However, I am interested in the instructional design when being applied into different cultures.
The author mentions the different learning attitudes of Japanese and American students. It’s an important point to me since I am an international student. The way American students learn is quite different from the students in my country. Some of the teaching strategies may be useful in America, but could be not that effective in my country because of different cultures. At the same time, the styles of web sites that most of Americans like are different from the flavor of my culture. Therefore, if I want to design a web site for a lot of people from different countries, what should be the main concept for my web site design? I wonder…

Reflection to Collins' "Design Issues For Learning Environments"

2006-02-05T08:10:00.000-08:00

In Allan Collins’ article, “Design Issues For Learning Environment,” he discusses many important components when a designer designs a learning environment. Basically, there are four general topics that a design needs to consider: (1)goals, (2) learning style, (3)sequence, and (4)methods.
In learning goals, the author talks about memorization vs. thoughtfulness. Collins says that the advantage of memorized skills can be useful to free people’s minds for thinking. I really agree to this point. According to some readings I read, people can only deal with a limited amount information at a time. Therefore, if some information occupy too much space of a person’s mind, it would be difficult for him/her to comprehend other information.
However, according to constructivism, learning things in a “meaningful” way is very important, and a learner should construct and build his/her own knowledge construction. In that case, what kind of decision should a designer make, memorization or thoughtfulness?
Well, I believe a learner should learn the real meaning behind knowledge at the beginning. Nevertheless, like what Collins believes, “Gaining automaticity is crucial if one is going to use a particular skill a lot. But if one will hardly ever use a skill, then memorization is not worthwhile.”(p. 2) I think this point of view is worth for a designer and an educator to consider.

Reflection to "Design of Everyday Things"

2006-01-31T20:47:00.000-08:00

In Norman’s article, “The Design of Everyday Things,” he discusses a lot of important components about design. For example, the author said that a good computer program should have the advantages of visibility, constraints, affordances, natural mappings, and feedback. I really learned a lot from this reading. However, there are two interesting points that I want to discuss here.
First, he said, “The best computer programs are the ones in which the computer itself disappears.” Sometimes, some programs are designed in an amazing but complicated way. Users may be surprised and feel interested in the program, but also feel frustrated after they fail to use it in a joyful way because the use of the program is not friendly. This is a question that a talented designer need to think about when s/he designs a product.
The second interesting point is that Norman mentions the dilemma about the design of the button of a mouse. Fewer buttons can simplify the use while more buttons can assist to do more things with fewer actions. Sometimes, I believe, there is no “perfect” design in certain situations. One advantage could be a drawback to different users.
In sum, a designer should not design a product just from his/her point of view. Think from a user’s view is important.

Theories of Learning &Their Application to Technology

2006-01-24T08:30:00.000-08:00

Sha-Hui's Space
In Richard E. Mayer’s article “Theories of Learning and Their Application to Technology,” he describes several learning theories and analyzes their merits and shortcomings simultaneously. This article lets me have more ideas about thinking process when human are learning.
In this article, Mayer discusses learning by memorizing (rote learning) and learning by understanding (meaningful learning). To some people, meaningful learning seems much better than rote learning. They may think that rote learning is not useful at all in the modern society. However, I don’t agree with them. I believe that both of these learning methods are useful. Wertheimer also supports that “learning by memorizing enables reproductive thinking… whereas learning by understanding enables productive thinking.” Therefore, the most important thing to me is how instructors apply these two teaching methods appropriately. I’ve seen some people try to teach learners everything just by meaningful learning method. They believe that learners should always apply constructivist leaning method no matter what they are learning. The result of that is quite awful. Learners’ performance is much worse than the learning which is emphasized with rote learning.
Actually, this is really a useful article to me. My favorite part of this article is “Implications for the design of multimedia instructional messages.” In this part, Mayer not only compares information delivery view and constructivist view, but also sites some studies about the results and effectiveness when people apply these two theories. This is practical and helpful to me.

Sha-Hui's Space

2006-01-21T14:20:00.000-08:00

Sha-Hui's Space

The first posting from myself

2006-01-18T16:43:00.000-08:00

Hi, everyone

This is my first English blog, and this is my first posting for this blog.
I will use this to learn more about blog.
I also want to communicate with a lot of new friends.