I'll Keep on TRYING!!

This week, before I looked for cheats, I decided to play the game using "their" people. Maybe it would be easier. WRONG! I started the game using two roomates, Chris and Melissa. They asked me if I wanted to buy a home? "Yes," I said, "we need a place to live." Well, I am still looking for my home. I searched, and searched all over the grounds and there were no buildings at all. Ok, then I'll try building a home. I began hitting buttons, and before long I had a pile of dirt. Now what? I'll try building up some walls. I started hitting some more buttons, before long my home had walls that were actually fences! Alright, where is the delete button? I cannot find it anywhere. So I carried on. Now I have this wonderful pile of dirt with fences around it.
(Ha-Ha!) I think I need some landscaping. Some flowers here and a couple of bushed in front of may pile of dirt. WOW! Look what I have created? NOTHING!! Hey, how are my girl's doing? Melissa is friendly and speaks well to her friends, Chris is crying and moaning. Does anyone have a job? Maybe that's why I could not buy or build a home? Guess what I decided to do? Just like Laurence, I hit the quit button. Ended that mess. I just did not know where else to go.

Next week I need to ask for HELP! Maybe my son or daughter could spare an hour to show me a thing or two. This week I am walking away as frustrated as I felt on the first week. I did not have the opportunity to get on the computer during the week. I am feeling very behind and lost. I recently read an article that said you need to spent at least 25 hours on a game to begin to understand it. For me, that might be more like 50 hours!

"Digital Immigrant"

I really enjoyed reading the article "Emerging Technologies" this week. The first couple of sentences made it all clear to me. I am a "Digital Immigrant". There, I said it and I believe it. Talking about technology to my own child, ages 21 and 16, and my classroom students, age 9, is like talking in a whole new language. They look at me like I am strange, and I look at them like they are from another planet! Most of the times I don't even understand the terminology they use. I hate feeling lost on my own computer. "The Sims" game is helping a little, but there is still so much I need to learn. This week I continued making my family miserable. The reason I think that I like to make my family unhappy is because it is easier than trying to make them happy. At first the dad did not even have a job. Well, I did not know that the dad need to look for a job in the paper. I did not even know where the paper was. (There were several of them on the front lawn!) I have decided to start to "cheat" just a little. The next time I go on "The Sims"
I am first going to look on google for some clues that might help. This "Digital Immigrant"needs
help!

Save "The Sims" or not?

James Paul Gee learned that video games create what psychologist Eric Erickson calls psychsocial moratorium-which is a learning space in which the learner can take risks where real-world consequences are lowered. I believe that is what was happening to me the last time I played "The Sims". I create a family of three people. Each person had a problem. The mother, Claudette, was lazy and did not want the responsibility of cleaning up any messes, hers or anyone elses. The dad, Pierpont, was depressed and did not want a job. Everytime I tried to sent him out to look for empolyment, Pierpont would reply "no, I am too depressed to look for a job." Claudette and Pierpont had one child, a daughter. Now what was her name? Oh yeah, Hazel. Hazel was the saddest of them all. All she did was cry. I was really starting to enjoy the Clark's (my video game family's last name) misery. No, I WAS enjoying their misery. I was laughing and enjoying the sad background music and the Clark's miserable voices. I even had them start to abuse one another. A slap here or a tease there. Who cared? I didn't. There are no video game police. Or are there?

On Thursday night I started playing "The Sims". My daughter was in the room with me. She could not believe what I had done to my family! She grabbed the mouse out of my hand, and within a few minutes, my family was happy again. The mom and the dad were both working and getting money for their work. Without money, my family had little furniture, no food in the refrigerator and no socialization. Hazel was off to school. At the end of the day, all three of them ate dinner. Now all was grand according to my daughter.

They next time I get back on "The Sims" guess what I will probably do? That's right. I will either create a new family or use one of my old families and start to make things miserable for them. What will happen anyway? Will the die? Will they disappear? Oh well. If they do, I will just start all over again. Stay tuned for next week's episode of "The Sims".

Slowly, but surely!

Today I actually enjoyed by time on "The SIMS". As I mentioned before, I created two families. One of those families is rather disfunctional. No one likes to clean up after they eat or shower. They don't even talk nice to one another. Of course, those are the comments I am giving them. I had the mom, Claudette and the husband, Pierpont slapping each other around. The sounds alone had me laughing. Then I notice the background music was sounding very sad and morose. I could not really understand why? Then I realized that my whole family seemed to be very sad and morose. They needed to eat more and have better relationships with other people. I actually liked working with a difficult family. Believe it our not, they made the game much more interesting to play. I can't wait to continue to destroy my family. It all sounds crazy.

Success!

Saturday morning and I am feeling better today. This time I was able to create my own family, The Clark's, and I did not lose any of them. I created a dad, Pierpont. A mom, Claudette, and a daughter Hazel. I used one of their homes this week. The next couple of weeks, I would like to build my own home. The Clark's home needs a help in decorating. I am working on it. This week I some how managed to have a TV in the front yard. Not sure how it happened, but hopefully, for me, I will begin to get better at this game. After last night's disaster I had little hope. Today, I am feeling just a bit more confident. I am keeping the faith.

HELP!

OK-now I know why computers and I DO NOT GET ALONG! After spenting about 1/2 hour setting up my SIMS family, giving them names and biographies, I hit a button and I lost it all! Oh yes, all of it. Computers are so frustrating for me. So then I decided to come to my blog and type a short message, and the computer kept on saying that Google had a server error. Please try again in 30 seconds. Well, of course after several tries I realized that it was not working for me. SO.....I shut down my comoputer, waited about 10 minutes, then came back to my blog. Thank you computer, for allowing ME to do my assignment.I'll come back later to try again. Right now, I am to aggravated.

Simsville

Well, it's Wednesday night and I decided it was time I went back to "Simsville" (The Sims) tonight. I can't believe how much I forgot since I was on it last. Not only did I loose alot, but now I have more questions like...what is my purpose in this game? Is it to control the people? Buy a house? Build a neighborhood? And once I by items and put them in my house, how do I turn them in the right direction? I did buy so much tonight. I even bought a hot tub. Well, better luck next time for me. Keep your fingers crossed. This is going to be a long haul.Debby

How Do I Learn Best....

I know we all learn in many different ways. But as for the way I feel I learn the best, I believe that would be from hands-on learning. I remember in high school, listening to a teacher lecture on a skill and thinking, "what is she try to say?" Then we would practice the skill together in class and it all made sense to me. Let me be more specific, I remember in science class watching the teacher do a lesson on water absorption. We spoke about the different materials we were going to use. They were a piece of paper, a piece of wax paper and a piece of tin foil. We had to predict which one of these materials would water absorb into and which one would it not absorb into. After the predicts were made, we were actually able to do the experiment and see for ourselves. After the experiment, it all made perfect sense to me. See was believing for me!

"The Sims?"

You know what? This gaming stuff is not easy at all!! I went back in to The Sims tonight. I started looking for my first family, the Clarks. I could not find them anywhere so...I created a new family, The Koss family. This time I only created Ken and his wife Kandy. Last time I had some children in the mix but too many people made it more confusing for me. After I created my new family, I went to the neighborhood and wanted to build myself my own home. I can't find the right comments to build my own home. I think I bought the land, but that is it. Maybe I have no money and I need a job? Oh, and guess who else I found in my neighborhood? The Clark family! What do I do now? I have two families and only one home. I really feel like in order to learn and understand these games, you must play them at least eight hours a day! Each time I get back on my game, I feel very frustrated. It does not come natural to me. I decided to take a break for tonight. I hate to sound so hopeless, but this gaming is tough work!!