Group Presentation on Education and Interactive Playspace

by Aslin and Samantha

October 16th, 2008

 

 

Learning Spaces: More Than Meets The Eye

•    With the advent of technology comes a shift from classroom to learning space as technology is incorporated in teaching and learning.

•    Can you think of the kind of technology that we used today pertinent to our experience as a student? Name a few?

•    What will learning look like in the future? Possible mode of delivery?

 

 

Games!

     “a free activity ... [in which] one proceeds within its own proper boundaries of time and space according to fixed rules and in an orderly manner”

          - Johan Huizenga, Homo Ludens (p.13)

• Why study games? Economic, Social Significance
• Characteristics of Games: Rules, Goals, Creativity, and Interactivity

 

 

James Paul Gee

• What Video Games Have To Teach Us About Learning and Literacy, 2003
• Focus on interdisciplinary field devoted to studying language, learning and literacy in an integrated way from cognitive, social and cultural context

 

 

 

Have you ever played a video game?

Is it easy?

How do you get someone to learn something long, hard, and complex and yet enjoy it

"Since games are often challenging, but do-able, they are often also pleasantly frustrating, which is a very motivating state for human beings"

 

 

36 Principles of what we can learn from video games

The 36 Learning Principles are:

1. Active, Critical Learning Principle

2. Design Principle

3. Semiotic Principle

4. Semiotic Domain Principle

5. Metalevel Thinking about Semiotics Domain Principle

6. Pyschosocial Moratorium Principle

7. Committed Learning Principle

8. Identity Principle

9. Self-knowledge Principle

10. Amplification of Input Principle

11. Achievement Principle

12. Practice Principle

13. Ongoing Learning Principle

14. "Regime of Competence" Principle

15. Probing Principle

16. Multiple Routes Principle

17. Situated Meaning Principle

18. Text Principle.

19. Intertextual Principle

20. Multimodal Principle

21.

22.

23. Subset Principle

24. Incremental Principle

25. Concentrated Sample Principle

26. Botton up basic Skills Principle

27. Explicit Information on-Demand and Just-in-Time

28. Discovery Principle

29. Transfer Principle

30. Cultural Model about the World Principle

31. Cultural Models about Learning Principle

32. Cultural Models about Semiotics Domains

33. Distributed Principle

34. Dispersed Principle

35. Affinity Group Principle

36. Insider Principle

 

 

Active, Critical Learning

• Good games are learning machines. Built into their very designs are good learning principles supported by cutting-edge research in cognitive science.  
• Many of these principles could be used in schools to get kids to learn things.
• Example: Scrabulous (this is not a good example!)
• Since good games are highly motivating, we can learn how motivation is created and sustained

 

 

Learning & Identity

• Learning a new domain requires user to take a new identity
• When assuming an identity, good video games capture players attention through “Identity”
• Example: Solid Snake in Metal Gear Solid or Elder Scrolls III: Morrowind
• What do we learn from assuming a character? We learn through the creation of self.

 

 

Ongoing Learning

• Good games create “experts” by giving players well-designed problems where they can form good strategies through practice which turns to routine
• Throwing new problem at users forces them to undo their now routinized skills and think again before achieving, through more practice, a new and higher routinized set of skills. 
• Good games repeat this cycle over and over again - this is how experts are produced.

 

 

Multimodal

• Meaning and knowledge are built up through various modalities  such as images, symbols, interactions, abstract design, sound, and even beyond keyboard and mouse.
• National Research Council of Canada is also conducting such research.

   

Explicit Information on Demand & Just-in-Time

• Good games give information "on demand" and "just in time"
• People are quite poor at understanding and remembering information they received.

• Example: System Shock 2, spread out information throughout the game itself. As you move along, you can gain access to more information that is otherwise not accessible.

 

 

Conclusion

1. Video game is good, even the bad ones

Schools, Workplaces, Family and Academic institutions have a lot to learn from gaming industry

Current Research on video games as an educational tool

 

 

2. Conclusion

Wait! You did not discuss violent games at all?!

“ It is a conceited effort, meaning you've made the choices for example earning a living through crime. Such choices make the game partly mine and not just the designer’s.  Games allow you to accept a given assumption (I have to earn a living through crime) and then see how you personally would think, feel, and act”

 

 

Readings and Sources:

www.academiccolab.org/resources/documents/Good_Learning.pdf

www.gamezone.com/news/07_03_03_06_17PM.htm

gameslearningsociety.org/people_geej.php