Raessens 6 Prensky: Computer Games

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Raessens 6Prensky Computer Games Learning
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An Overview of the Chapter

• A lurking problem the chapter cites almost no
  research on education and almost no journal
  articles.
• The content may be correct, but there is some
  hand-waving at the front regarding young peoples
  brains and new media.
• The types of games listed at the end of the
  chapter dont fall into a sensible taxonomy.
• There are ideas worth exploring about educational
  games.

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The Opening Claims

• Young peoples brains are wired very differently
  due to their having consumed different media.
• There is brain plasticity. I mentioned some of
  that during the discussion of Sesame Street.
• But young peoples brains dont have the capacity
  to greatly outstrip evolution.

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Digital Natives and Immigrants

• Digital natives grow up on electronic media.
• Digital immigrants learn them later.
• But, are people who learn to browse the Web more
  Web literate than the people who invented the
  Internet, bit-mapped graphices, etc.?

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The Stability of Tools Work

• Stone ax
• Metal ax
• Hand drill
• Lathe
• Jacquard loom
• Electric motor
• X-ray
• Electron microscope
• Transistor
• Robotics

• 100,000s years
• 10,000
• 500
• 400
• 200
• 170
• 100
• 60
• 45
• 10 years

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Two Modes of Information Processing
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The Neophytes View of the Brain
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Internet Years

• Internet years are like dog years seven
  development years are compressed into each year.
• This means that users must absorb seven times as
  much change.

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Media Characteristics Workshop

• What are the characteristics of the following
  media?
• YouTube
• MySpace
• Google
• Twitch games
• Roll-playing games
• Cell phones
• Wikipedia

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10 Ways Digital Narratives Differ

• Twitch Speed versus Conventional Speed
• Parallel versus Linear Processing
• Random versus Linear Thinking
• Graphics versus Text First
• Connected versus Stand-Alone
• Payoff versus Patience
• Fantasy versus Reality
• Play versus Work
• Technology as Friend versus Foe
• Attitude

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Why New Media Work

• Fun
• Rules for structure
• Goals for motivation whose?
• Interactive for doing
• Adaptive for user flow
• Outcomes and feedback for learning
• Win states are gratifying
• Conflict for adrenaline
• Problem-solving for creativity
• Interaction in social groups
• Characters and story narrative for emotion

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What to learn in games

• How procedural
• What declarative
• Why goal
• Where location contingency
• When and whether time contingency

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Designing Learning Games

• Sesame Street method nothing is exciting unless
  it relates to learning.
• Game designers may not be used to considering
  explicit learning outcomes.
• Educators may not be used to visual and
  interactive information flows.
• Dont make learning extrinsic to the game.

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Learning Activities and Techniques

• Practice and feedback
• Learn by doing
• Learn from mistakes
• Goal-oriented learning whose goals?
• Discovery learning constructivist learning
• Task-based learning
• Question-led learning
• Situated learning
• Role playing
• Multisensory learning
• Learning objects
• Coaching and intelligent tutors

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Components of Coaching
Imaging Naming
Doing
Motivating
Evaluating
Closing
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Instrumental and Expressive Coaching Systems

• Drill and practice
• Formal tutorial
• Mini-scientist
• Planning for chance
• Minimalism
• Voyage of discovery
• The journey is its own reward

Instrumental
Expressive
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Selecting a Problem-solving Strategy

• Hypothesis testing
• Algorithms predetermined, step-by-step
• Trial and error
• Heuristics rules of thumb
• Insight

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An Approach to Doing
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Trying to Be Too Good
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An Approach to Doing
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Why Do at All?

• Putting it in your own terms clarifies
  ambiguities.
• Repetition helps ingrain ideas in memory.
• You may have to Do as part of completing tasks.

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Doing in Minimalism

• A designer packages motivation through
  evaluation.
• Modules are scaled for size and difficulty. (2-3
  skills in 10-15 mins?)
• The learner EXPLORES modules.
• The learner EXPLORES or FOLLOWS a sequence of
  modules.

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Challenges to Evaluating

• Lots of variables to manage when thinking about
  intentions and actions.
• Difficult to monitor actions while carrying them
  out.
• Pace and rhythm add to complexity.
• Expert performance is smooth and may involve
  little evaluation because of task automation.

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The Roles of Vision and Feeling in Evaluation

• We can use vision and feeling to guide us to
  success.
• Extrinsic feedback external indicators of
  success (marco)
• Intrinsic feedback internal indicators of
  success (micro)

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The Advantages of Intrinsic Feedback

• Intrinsic feedback is quicker and allows for
  finer control.
• Experts use intrinsic feedback by
• looking only for relevant variables
• looking only for relevant values.

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Summary

• Pensky may be right
• But he should use more information about learning
  in other media to inform his arguments.
• The instructional design literature and
  experience with other instructional media can
  inform design of learning games.