August 20, 2009 –
Warschauer (left) and Rama discuss learning through video gaming.
The last SURF-IT lunchtime seminar of the summer featured the program’s two remaining student-staffed research projects.
First, education professor Mark Warschauer and doctoral student Paul Rama discussed their efforts to determine whether popular video games promote specific principles of learning.
Influential game researcher James Gee has posited that there are 36 principles of learning built into good video games, principles that are largely absent from the formal education system, said Rama. He, Warschauer and their SURF-IT students, Alex Taubman and Taylor Mar, have spent the summer observing users immersed in the games to determine which of these principles are really enhanced during play.
Rather than disclose the research results, which the students will present during the Aug. 28 final SURF-IT session, Rama shared with the audience elements that shaped the project. One of those is a concept known as the digital divide. While the term once referred to the gulf between the “haves” and “have-nots,” it now involves analysis of those playing the games – their socio-economic status, gender and ethnicity, and how they have implemented the technology. “It’s pretty much equal now in terms of access to technology,” Rama said. But researchers are analyzing other factors, like “use of technology, support of the technology and [how] the technology is used for social inclusion. What are the implications of this information?” he asked.
Three games – World of Warcraft, Lineage 2 and Everquest – have been subjects of the most studies. “But these games are being played by those who have had the technology for a long time,” Rama said. Other games – Wrestling, Madden and Grand Theft Auto, for example – are often played by those at the lower end of the digital divide. They haven’t been studied to the same extent, so it is not known if they contain the same learning principles.
Warschauer followed Rama’s talk with some advice about graduate school for the SURF-IT undergrads. He commended them for their undergraduate research efforts, saying it was the best thing they could do to prepare for a graduate education. “Grad school is not about courses, but about becoming a good researcher,” he said.
He advised them to apply to several programs, choosing schools on the strength of the program itself, the participating faculty and the reputation of the university. He also counseled them to solicit strong letters of recommendation from those who can address their academic ability and to be mindful that a well-prepared application with a concise statement of purpose is “very, very important.”
Finally, he urged the students to be gracious, even in the face of rejection. “You might want to apply there again in the future,” he reminded them.
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In a live demo, students Jason Tran and Taylor Mar send an audio message to program director Stu Ross.
Most radios are hardware-based. The antenna, mixer, modulator and amplifier are all built into the device’s hardware, making modification difficult if not impossible. But UCI researchers Hamid Jafarkhani and Homayoun Yousefi’zadeh are building a software-defined radio under a grant from Boeing, Inc. that can be modified simply by rewriting the software.
In the day’s second presentation, Jafarkhani, who is mentoring SURF-IT student Jason Tran, explained that the radios will be used as part of a MANET – a mobile ad hoc network that is capable of delivering real-time audio and video as well as non-real-time traffic efficiently.
Ph.D. candidate Ala Khalifeh observes.
The MANET is a network built without an existing infrastructure, which relies on the radios themselves, also known as nodes, to deliver the data from point to point. The system can be implemented in emergency environments or in areas lacking a base station or other infrastructure. Each node can send a signal 100 meters to another node, which relays it to yet another node; the network is scalable and can utilize as many nodes as necessary.
Khalifeh explains the MANETs can operate independently of a fixed infrastructure.
Doctoral candidate Ala Khalifeh told the audience that audio transmission over ad hoc wireless networks is an emerging technology, one that is fraught with potential errors. The digitized bits sometimes are flipped from ones to zeros, and packets are often dropped.
In addition, wireless environments are subject to a lot of interference. “They’re noisy and sometimes the signal itself will be reflected by the environment and you will receive multiple copies of the same signal, which interfere with each other,” he said.
Part of the project involves designing error-prediction algorithms that can be incorporated into the software. Other advantages include easy adaptability.
Antennae can be added and components can be changed. “If you need a certain type of modulator, you can program that with a computer. Suppose tomorrow you want to try [a different] modulator; instead of buying new hardware, you can just change the software itself,” said Khalifeh.
The voice transmission system is comprised of a software-defined radio connected to a laptop that serves as the transmitter; it captures the signal and converts it to a digital format. A second laptop receives the transmitted signal. Researchers are also testing the system’s robustness by adding computers to the system to simulate the additional interference that would be present in a wireless network.
They are also working on transmitting live video, an element of the project that “still needs refining,” according to Khalifeh.
