Games

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Games LearningSummer 2003
Kurt Squire University of Wisconsin-Madison Educ
ational Communications Technology Curriculum
Instruction
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Educational games in context
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Bell Labs Science Films
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Edutainment
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Edutainment?
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State-of-the-Art Gaming
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Modeling, Visualization, Microworlds
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Students
Subject-AreaFaculty
ComparativeMedia Studies
Playful Learning Consortium
Learning Sciences
GameDesigners
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Game Designers

• Bryan Sullivan (Ironlore / Age of Empires)
• Doug Church (ION Storm / Thief, Deus Ex)
• Eric Zimmerman (gamelab / Sissyfight 2000 / Lego)
  
• Brenda Laurel (Purple Moon / Rockets adventures)
• Chris Weaver (Bethesda / Morrowind)
• Alex Rigopulous (Harmonix / Frequency)
• Kent Quirk (Cognitoy / Mind Rover)
• Matt Ford (Microsoft / Asherons Call)
• Steve Meretzky (Infocom / Hitchhikers Guide)
• Ben Sawyer (Digimill / Virtual U)
• Brian Moriarty (Infocom / Loom)

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Microworlds
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Games-to-Teach / Playful Learning
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Microworlds
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Cuckoo Time!
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Cuckoo Time!

• MisconceptionsPower-ups Scientific
  VariablesMultiplayer

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Cuckoo Time!
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Cuckoo Time!

• Microworlds
• Failure
• Power-ups
• Multiple Use contacts
• Collaborative games

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Cuckoo Time!

• Lectures
• Problem Sets
• Written Assignments
• Assessments
• Construction Kits

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Supercharged!
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Supercharged!
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Implementation findings

• Engagement
• Boys heavily competitive
• Held girls interest longer
• Drew in unmotivated students
• Managing frustration
• H.S. students did not intuit desired strategies
• Less willing to engage in hard play
• attributed to too educational.
• Learning
• Interpreting game events non-spontaneous
• Misinterpretations
• Design Findings
• More structured teaching with game
• Embedded coaching

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Learning Results

• Misconceptions about distance
• Misconceptions about fields
• Force as balancing tensions

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Learning Results

• Misconceptions about distance
• Misconceptions about fields
• Force as balancing tensions

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Sample Findings

• Supercharged
• Interviewer What do does the electric field
  looks like around a positive charge?
• Student The electric goes from the positive
  charge to the negative charge like this drawing
  a curved live from a positive charge to a
  negative charge. I know this because this is
  what it looked like in the game and it was hard
  to move away or toward it because the two charges
  are close together so they sort of cancel each
  other out.
• Control
• Student It has lines going outward from it like
  this drawing lines with arrows pointing outward
• Interviewer Why do you think it looks like
  that?
• Student I dont know. The teacher said so and
  showed us a picture and that was what it looked
  like.

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Findings
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Role Playing
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Biohazard
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BiohazardSimulated RPGs
Choices Consequences Time, ResourcesCharacter
Development Developing skills, making
contactsSimulated Worlds Viruses, synthetic
charactersAuthentic tools Skills, Read-outs,
displaysAssessment Statistics, records,
reflectionMultiplayer expansion
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Field Trials

• Multiplayer game
• Built by CMU
• Uses Unreal Tournament 2K3
• Train firefighters for WMD
• Effective for communication
• Failure most intriguing

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Multiplayer Role Playing
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Multiplayer Role Playing
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Proof of Concept

• Environmental Detectives
• Players briefed about rash of local health
  problems linked to the environment
• Provided with background information and budget
• Determine source of pollution by drilling
  sampling wells and remediate with pumping wells
• Work in teams representing different interests
  (EPA, Industry, etc.)

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Navigation
Position determined by GPS
Zoom in for detail
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Drilling wells

• Choose
• Sites to Sample
• Sampling Methods
• Influence budget, accuracy, and timeliness of
  samples

Drill Wells
Collect Samples
Interpret Data
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Other Simulation Events

• Triggering of media events at specified locations
• library ?
• web documents
• machine shop ?
• video interview
• Racing virtual players
• Sharing and interpreting data with team members

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Results Making Sense of Data

• Ben Its obviously good. Come on now.
• Lisa I dont think it is good
• Ben Its obviously good.
• Lisa Four. Like four is a bad reading. Like
  four on a scale of one to five. Four is real
  bad.
• Ben On a scale of one to fifty though, four is
  pretty damn good.
• Michelle True, but what is this scale? We dont
  know that.
• Ben We dont know that.
• Lisa We have no idea. It could even be that the
  top one is the best.
• Michelle OK. So we need to dig another well.
• Ben Lets get this one first referring to an
  already dug well.

What do the readings mean?
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Augmented Reality Game Play

• Discovering the interrelationship of desk work
  and field data
• Balancing objective and subjective
  information
• Engaging in disciplinary practices
• Asking what is needed
• Evaluating data
• Weighing the constraints of the situation

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a
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Multiplayer Construction
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Multiplayer Construction Games
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HEPHAESTUSMassively Multiplayer
Earth is dying... our only refuge, 4 light years
away a lone volcanic planet... HEPHAESTUS
...and everyone wants a piece of the pie.
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HEPHAESTUSMassively Multiplayer
- Build Robots down to the gear- Make
engineering trade-offs - Carrying load vs.
mass - Mass vs. friction- Explore a volcanic
planet - Divert lava flows - Gain energy-
Spend Resources to upgrade - Personalization -
Differentiation
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HEPHAESTUSMassively Multiplayer
- Collaborative competitive play-
Differentiated Roles- Open-ended play
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Themes

• Interdisciplinary design
• Transgressive play
• Choices Consequences
• Failure Attribution
• Embedded information
• New assessments
• Systemic change of environments

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Replicate Transgressive Play
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Choices and Consequences
Delicious Interactions
Information
Choice
Feedback
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Goals, Failure, Attribution

• Learning through Failure

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Embedded information

• Embedded Goals and Success states

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Communities
Assessments
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Systemic Change Implications

• Not all students will go at same pace
• Learning doesnt occur in 45 min periods
• Game Learning is social interpretive
• Game is only one part of learning context

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Game-Based Pedagogy

Game
Student
Subject
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Game-Based Pedagogy

Just-in-timelectures
Peers
Web-basedResources
Texts
Game
Student
EMPhysics
Demonstrations
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Game-Based Pedagogy

Just-in-timelectures
Peers
Web-basedResources
Texts
Game
Student
EMPhysics
Demonstrations
Learning Context
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Walkaways

• Games are social experiences
• Explain what you did
• Critique other games
• Games allow hypothesis formation testing
• Failure leads to learning
• Trust game conventions
• Power-ups, character development
• Differentiated roles,
• Games vs. Simulations
• Game designers cheat this is good.
• Games are engaging
• Designing for broad audiences

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Future Steps

• Building a network of teachers, researchers and
  developers
• http//cms.mit.edu/games/education/
• ksquire_at_mit.edu

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Join Us!

• Prototypes 1-10 on the web
• Designs, pedagogy, technical notes, art
• Documentation and media
• http//cms.mit.edu/games/education/
• Kurt Squire
• ksquire_at_mit.edu

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Research on Gaming

• Educational games dont work (Clegg, 1991 Downey
  Levstick, 1973 Ehman Glenn, 1991 Gredler,
  1996)
• Lacking a coherent theoretical framework
  (Gredler, 1996)
• Instructional context more important than media
  (Clark, 1983 White Frederickson, 1998)

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Using Game Conventions

• Contested spaces
• Leveraging contests in content
• Power ups
• Ways of making students choose
• Ways of manipulating variables
• Character development choosing skills / items
• Creating emotional investment
• Inducing creative thinking
• Differentiated Roles

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Future Steps

• Internal Development
• Supercharged! (Electromagnetism)
• Environmental Detectives (Environmental Studies)
• Replicate! (Biology Virology)
• Developing with partners
• - Biohazard (Emergency Response workers)
• New content partners
• Royal Shakespeare Company
• Colonial Williamsburg

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Communities
Learning from Successful Games
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Join Us!

• Prototypes 1-10 on the web
• Designs, pedagogy, technical notes, art
• Documentation and media
• http//cms.mit.edu/games/education/
• Kurt Squire
• ksquire_at_mit.edu

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Grokking Electromagnetism

• Cognitive Challenges
• Principles counter-intuitive
• No first-hand experience of phenomena
• Routinized knowledge of procedures
• Ability to think with tools, resources
• Ability to participate in scientific practices
  (inquiry, modeling, explanation)

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Grokking Electromagnetism

• Robust qualitative understandings
• Experts use laws to identify problem types
• Deep understanding of core relationships
• Ability to visualize abstract concepts
• Can use knowledge to solve everyday problems

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Grokking Electromagnetism

• Broader Challenges
• Functional use value Why learn this?
• Developing interest in science
• Identity of Self as scientist
• Science as memorization of immutable facts.

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ElectromagnetismSupercharged

• Why Supercharged?
• Robust, real time, interactivity
• Depict abstract relationships in 3D
• EM laws as basis for flying / driving game
• Familiar gaming genres and science fiction
• Challenges to Supercharged
• Qualitative, not quantitative interactions
• Constrained to computer
• Getting learners involved in hard thinking
  creating

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Assessment

• Game Data
• Levels completed, time per - problem, solution
  paths
• Observations
• Notes Video-taped
• Pre Post - tests
• Content Interviews
• Written tests Surveys
• Dynamic tasks (zero, near, far transfer)
• Interviews with Instructors
• Comparisons with traditional groups

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Contact Information

• Information
• http//cms.mit.edu/games/education/
• To participate in pilot program
• Email cms-g2t-pilot
• Contact
• Henry Jenkins henry3_at_mit.edu
• Randy Hinrichs randyh_at_microsoft.com
• Kurt Squire ksquire_at_mit.edu

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Questions
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Game-Based Pedagogy

• Importance of instructional context
• set-up, debriefing, and reflection
• Leveraging collaboration (e.g. Koschmann, 1996)
• Reflection
• Power of local culture conditions (Squire et
  al., 2002)
• Adoption Adaptation
• Teacher support and professional development
• Communities of teachers

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Game-Based Pedagogy
Yuro Engestrom, 1992
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Endogenous Game Play

• Immersive Learning Environments
• Students developing and testing hypotheses
• Role playing Games
• Solving authentic problems
• Access to authentic tools / resources
• Visualization and Simulation
• Leveraging potential contests
• Spatial Conquests
• Remediating physical laws

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Games as Narrative Architecture

• Evocative Stories
• Enacted Stories
• Embedded Stories
• Emergent Storytelling

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Gender Play Patterns

• GIRLS
• Leading characters are everyday people that girls
  can relate to, and are as real to girls as their
  best friends.
• Explore and have new experiences, with degrees of
  success and varying outcomes.
• Play focuses on multi-sensory immersion,
  discovery, and strong story lines.
• Features everyday 'real life' settings.
• Success comes through development of friendships.

• BOYS
• Leading characters are fantasy-based action
  heroes with "super power" abilities.
• Win in linear. Outcome is black and white die
  and start over one 'right' solution.
• Speed and action are key. Play involves stunts,
  daring, and scatalogical humor
• Features non-realistic, larger-than-life
  settings.
• Success comes through the elimination of
  competitors.

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Research on Gaming

• Produce increased motivation (Cordova Lepper,
  1997 Malone, 1985)
• Effective within inquiry framework (Clark, 1983
  White Frederickson, 1998)
• Social interactions produce learning (Johnson
  Johnson, 1985)
• Large disconnect between state-of-the-art and
  educational games (Squire, 2002)
• Emerging pedagogies (Squire Reigeluth, 1999)
• Problem Based Learning, etc. (Barrows et al,
  1999)
• Models, Simulations Microworlds (Soloway, et
  al)
• Computer-Supported Collaborative Learning
• Case-Based Reasoning