Naace Conference Blog

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 strategies

These 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 games

Can 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!