introduction to games in education mark wagner coordinator educational technology
TRANSCRIPT
Introduction to Games in Education
Mark Wagner
Coordinator Educational Technology
What is Hard Fun?
“It’s hard. It’s fun. It’s LOGO.” (1st Grader)
“I have no doubt that this kid called the work fun because it was hard rather than in spite of being hard.” (Seymour Papert)
“How do we make writing become hard fun?” (Seymour Papert)
Seymour’s gears…
Welcome and Introductions
Name Site Grade / Subject What were your
gears? What are your
students’ gears?
Overview
Piaget, Papert, Prensky
and more…
Purpose/Rationale
Digital Natives & Digital Immigrants (Prensky, 2001) Incidental vs. Intentional Learning (Jonassen, 2002) enGauge 21st Century Skills (NCREL, 2003)
Digital Age Literacies Inventive Thinking Effective Communication High Productivity
Constructivist Learning Environments… Context, Choice, Collaboration (Wagner, 2005)
Relevant Theorists
Jean Piaget (1929 to 1976) Seymour Papert (1980, 1993, 1996) Marc Prensky (2001) James Paul Gee (2003, 2005) Clark Aldrich (2004, 2005) Graduate Students…
Jean Piaget
Cognitive Structures & Schemes
Functional Invariants Adaptation Organization
Adaptation Assimilation Accommodation
Stage Theory
Seymour Papert
Mindstorms, 1980
The Children’s Machine, 1993
The Connected Family, 1996
www.papert.org
Marc Prensky
Digital Game-Based Learning, 2001
marcprensky.com
games2train.com
James Paul Gee
What Video Games Have To Teach Us About Learning and Literacy, 2003
Why Video Games are Good For Your Soul, 2005
Clark Aldrich
Simulations and the Future of Learning, 2004
Learning by Doing, 2005
Learning Circuits
Virtual Leader
simulearn.net
simSchool
simSchool.org
Graduate Students
Nick Yee Kurt Squire Constance Steinkue
hler Fiona Littleton Mark Wagner And more…
Share Resources
Share new or striking ideas from your own… Reading Listening Viewing Experience
Break - 5 minutes
Hands On
Experience an Educational Game
The WFP’s Food Force
Richard Halverson (2005)
“Nowhere is the current generational gap in technology greater than in game literacy, and while asking school leaders and teachers to play commercial video games may be a stretch, integrating game-based learning experiences in their professional development may help them see the merits of gaming from the inside.”
Reflection Questions
What was your experience like as a player?
What relationships do you see between this game and the theories we discussed?
Break - 5 minutes
Games in Your Classroom
What can you use on Monday?
Web-based Games
Browser based
Mostly FREE
Engaging and content related
Great for younger students
Commercial Off The Shelf (COTS) Games
Teachers may not be able to develop a cutting edge game, but many games can be repurposed.
“Instead of embedding a game into learning, it is possible to embed learning into a game.” (Downes, 2005)
Civilization III
Real Time Strategy Systems Content Social Studies
Concepts Complexity, flexibility,
replayability Failure and choice Kurt Squire’s
Dissertation (2004)
Kurt Squire (2005)
25% complained the game was too hard, complicated and uninteresting.
25% loved playing the game,thought it was a “perfect way to learn history”, and a highlight of their year.
Students played the game in different ways, leading to highly different understandings.
Playing games does not appeal to everyone, and no one game appeals to all gamers.
Making History
Designed for education!
Assessment features
Successfully piloted
Unreal Tournament
First Person Shooter
Mod-able
Used to teach chemistry!
Neverwinter Nights
Role Playing Game (RPG)
Toolset for user-made content
Teachers can be gamemasters (GMs)
MIT’s Revolution Mod
MMORPGs
Massively Multiplayer Online Role Playing Games
Context, Choice, Collaboration
Guilds!
Teen Second Life
13-18 year olds
Avatar customization
User created content
In game economy
And More…
Age of Empires Age of Mythology Rise of Nations Morrowind The Sims SimCity etc… Zoo Tycoon etc…
Myst …
Designing a game?
Benefits of design Deep understanding
of the subject required and developed
Variables identified Relationships
between variables identified
Inventive thinking
Benefits of implementation Technical Literacy Effective
Communication High Productivity
Think, Pair, Share
What are some possible uses for games in your class?
Lesson Planning
Outline a lesson plan incorporating a game into your class.
What would a state of the art instructional video game look
like? (Gee, 2005)
Just do it! (Aldrich, 2005)
“[Teachers] can nudge. They can implement. They can make case studies.” (2005)
Games in Education, Part II
Social Constructivism: Dewey
Vygotsky
Bruner
Serious Games Games for Change May 9th, 2006 - http://register.ocde.us
