Game On - Is the Future of Learning Playful?
Are computer games the holy grail for educating a digital generation? Or are they a red herring that we should ignore while we get on with the serious business of raising standards?
Drawing on evidence from classroom teachers using games, from practical attempts to create new games for learning and from the latest academic research in the field, this presentation will provide an overview of the current ‘state of play’ in the area of games and learning and examine what lessons we can learn from games play for the design of learner-centred and collaborative learning communities.
What Kerry Facer said:
“I’m not going to talk about games as “chocolate covered broccoli“, games as motivation.
When we are bringing these technologies we can’t just think about us doing things better. It’s not just about efficiency, it moves goals along.
It asks us how do we have to change in order to meet our present and future goals. This is not a technologist determinate environment.
Learning with games outside schools
Computer games are almost the defining technology for youth. Games are coming out of the bedroom, going mobile.
Key argument from researchers - “little learning engines” - new models of learning.
- Goals, tasks and immersive motivational
- Flow, incremental and personalised challenges
- Multi-modal learning, rich resources to support understanding and engagement
- Simulations, complex relatinships to supportthinking skills and strategiesThese arguments have been around a long time.
In the 1990s, researchers began looking at:
- exploration of alternative indentities and realities
- knowledge building communities (as much money is put into this as producing the games eg. magazines sharing tips etc.)
- online games - 51% of children paly these games when they go online
Games are powerful personal collaborative online learning spaces. All of the research says that elements that are attractive in games is good learning practice.
Implementations for education:
rethink the identity of the child on schools
rethink learning relations
rethink educational goals
rethink the organisation of schools
Researchers have decided that it too hard to work with schools anymore.
Sites of creative practive - ‘machinma’ - creating new forms through games resources.
Caveats:
Research based - who included?
A lot of research is with high users of games.
Not all games, but ’some games’
Violence Health and Cutural Stereotyping
- the ‘Emily Dickinson game’ / ‘the movies’
There is a bit of a fight going on.
59% of teachers wanted to use games in schools
53% of these for motivational reasons - worrying
49% main barrier = access to equiment
but 71% of teachers don’t play gamesCan you use mainsteam games in school, not for motivation but for curriculum goals
Games used:
Rollacoaster Tycoon
Knights of Honour
Sims 2
Lessons so far, full report in August
Teachers either massively enthusiast or extremely sceptical.
Some are too hard and take long to learn
They need to be rich
relevance to educational goals
age appropriateness
cultural issues
technical issues - school computers not designed for this sort of use eg. graphics.
Examples:
Susan, Rollercoaster to teach forces in KS3 Science
She ran a pilot, pupils produced a handbook for other pupils
Project rollercoaster motion onto screen; they then work out the laws of motion
Mike, Knights of Honour
Thinkng skills, decision making, working with information, comparing game with other sources of information.
Teachers need support - from SMT, both technical, and cultural from other teachers. Time to play the game, and the freedom to pilot things out and for it to go wrong.
Finally some theoretical issues - create reflective space for educational thought about the pedagogy. Teachers were suffering about not having a language to talk about learning.
What happens when the school culture meets the game culture?
Games cultures change, they get better. The role of the teacher makes the implicit knowledge explicit. But what can happens is that the games stop being games. Most important think is that the identity of the gamer changes to the educational pupil. This is fundamentally different.
LET’S CLAIM THE RIGHT TO EXPERIMENT!
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This is a really interesting area. Can’t wait for this one.
I have an area which lists lots-a-games that could be relevant to educators and educatees which lives at http://www.shambles.net/games/
But what I do NOT have are any examples of Web 2.0 games .. and in fact I’m not sure what a Web 2.0 game would look like anyway. Possibly one that is highly collaborative … which makes me think that MMOGS might be part of the Web 2.0 generation except they have been around for a time.
Despite all this I reckon you could teach the whole of the National Curriculum using ‘Lemmings’ anyway
So … any pointers between “Games” and “Web 2.0″ would be appreciated.
Thanks ….
An interesting question. Presumably a web 2.0 game would involve people collaborating and introducing new elements or rules at a rapid pace. If you take a modelling game like Sim City, for example, the entire appearance of the game, as well as the economics etc, could be transformed within a week.
Or perhaps what would make a game Web 2 is a facility for commenting on strategies and adding new strategies, not as an external thing but which becomes part of the game scenario itself, ie a game version of a wiki.
hmmmm…
UMMmmm .. I wonder, therefore, if a Web 2.0 Games have already been around for a number of years, but we called them “collaborative simulations” … or whatever the accepted/correct term is ….
Like llor http://llor.nu/ (although new)
Or some of the Economics Simulations
Or the Massively Multiplayer Gaming that’s happening in all of the cyber cafes in this part of the world (Asia) e.g.
World of Warcraft http://www.worldofwarcraft.com/
Sta Wars Galaxy http://starwarsgalaxies.station.sony.com/
(which leads to the next topic being “Gaming Addiction)
I was going to mention (as an example) the
… could be proven wrong here.
“The IT Manager Game : The Simulation of an IT Department” but I think that although people are being managed the manager is the only player
Googling for “Web 2.0 Game” (no quotation marks) resulted in the top of the list (of 7 million) being “The Web 2.0 Drinking Game - Justinsomnia” but I don’t think it’s exactly what we (I) are looking for here and is only for mature audiences … but could be a good one for the corner of the conference Bar.
I mentioned earlier that there is a Games section on the Shambles website. http://www.shambles.net/games
I’ve just created a new list (section) on that page called “Games Reviews” .. at the moment there is one entry in it … a website “Gibbity” http://www.gibbity.com/
This looks to be an excellent example of a web 2.0 site where the reviews are a result of collaboration .. “a people-powered, game discovery engine” … have a look … and hopefully add your own suggestions or votes.
Games are coming out of the bedroom, going mobile.
Sorry … I just couldn’t resist commenting
Hope the session went well
I think people have got a bit carried away with “Web 2.0″ hype and missed the point. Thats not to say there isn’t a lot of exciting developments on the web right now, but as educators, I believe we have a responsibility to not get sucked in by the latest marketing terms and labels for technology that is in fact not that new at all. As a Web Developer, I choose to use a technology based on its appropriateness for the task and the users, and I think thats what will push the industry forward…
my argument is echoed here and here
I’ll stop now as this has very little to do with the Games in Learning session, which I think was a highlight of the conference.
I think Kerry’s point here Chris was that whereas the traditional place to play computer games was in their bedrooms ie. on their playstations, xboxes etc.. More and more are purchasing PSPs and other mobile games devices as their main ‘play’ device. Whereas we have had mobile games devices before these were not the main playing machine for kids. Games therefore are becoming played more in a mobile environment - on the bus etc.
For a web based game have a look at
http://www.ogame.org
but be careful as it is highly addictive!
The game is interesting enough but then consider the forums that support it. In here you have diplomacy forums where the various alliances meet, talk, discuss, learn and then promptly declare war on each other
As well as users using teamspeak, msn and other forums in which to plan strategy and tactics.
This is collaboration on a massive scale. Note the fact that some of alliances are based in countries (eg the top alliance is made up of Polish only players), continents, gaming clans and some are institutions eg work places, colleges and some schools.
This session gets my vote as the most interesting of the conference.
While we are on the subject of gaming I would like to see more investigation into gaming communities in general. At any given moment there are millions of people plugged into Teamspeak or similar voice applications sharing information and experiences and although it may have been gaming that brought these people together what often forms are close nit self support communities which cover a wide variety of experience and interest. Unfortunately, most of these gaming communities are over 18 only. Children actually face quite a bit of prejudice in such communities often due to adult paranoia about being associated with them.