Participatory Simulations
MIT Media Lab

two little wearable computers
version 1.0 Ava Erickson and Jan Malasek

Participatory Simulations:

What interested me the most were hybrid squishy-computer simulations. You get real people to role play while they wear little computers around their necks. The computers interact while the people interact. This sets an entirely new social dynamics into play. Moreover the little computers record every transaction so that you can replay the entire event seeing every detail that was missed by the individual players. This is an eye-opener for realizing how local interactions motivate global patterns of behavior. --N.G.

Note: The terms games and simulations are silent about the medium on which these experiments are run. Is it run on a computer? Or is it run by real people playing different roles? For clarity I propose these clarifying terms:

• Squishy Simulations and Games - Those involving real flesh-and-blood people.
• Computer Simulations and Games - Those involving silicon digital computing devices (aka computers).
• Hybrid Simulations and Games - Those involving both...

Vanessa Colella

• Vanessa's Web Site
• Exploring Dynamic Systems through Real World Interactions
• Participatory Simulations: immersive learning environments
• Participatory Simulations: Thesis

Eric Klopfer

Uri Wilensky

• Uri's Web Site
• Learning Through Participatory Simulations: Network-based Design for Systems Learning in Classrooms
• The Participatory Simulations Project Network-based Design for Systems Learning in Classrooms
• The Participatory Simulations Project I
• The Participatory Simulations Project II
• The Center for Connected Learning and Computer-Based Modeling

Bradley Rhodes

• Context-Aware Computing (or, why context needs wearables and wearables need context)