Computer Games

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Computer Games Learning
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What are these people doing?
Learning?
Playing?
Both?
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What are we doing today?

• Thinking about learning
• Constructivism exploratory learning
• Playing PeaceMaker
• Thinking about learning and games

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What makes a good learning experience?
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What makes a good gaming experience?
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Why are we interested in the interface between
gaming and learning?

• Some believe that peoples ways of thinking are
  changing as a result of their engagement with
  technologies such as computer games
• Prenskys digital natives
• Computer games can be immensely motivating and
  involving perhaps educators can learn from them
  to make learning more motivating and involving,
  too
• Aspects of computer games seem to fit some of
  what we understand about useful environments for
  learning perhaps we can use them as
  environments for learning as well as for fun

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How do we learn? Constructivism

• Most of the interest in using computer games as
  environments and vehicles for learning derives
  from a constructivist account for the learning
  process
• What is constructivism?
• The clues in the name
• Individuals construct meaning, their
  understanding of the world
• Learning is active and creative, not passive
• Learning is a search for meaning
• Learning consists of more than learning parts
  of a subject, learners also need to understand
  wholes and how the parts fit into the context
  of these wholes
• Learning is social and dialogic

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Constructivism Some basic principles

• Learners bring unique prior knowledge, experience
  and beliefs to the learning situation
• Knowledge is constructed uniquely and
  individually and in many ways, via interaction
  with authentic tools, resources, experiences and
  contexts
• Learning involves a developmental process of
  accommodating new knowledge in existing cognitive
  structures, testing hypotheses and reconstructing
  our understanding of the world to accommodate new
  learning and thus arrive at new internal
  structures learning is exploratory
• Social interaction and the negotiation of
  understanding is central to the constructivist
  approach and provides the opportunity for
  multiple perspectives on the learning material

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Roles for teachers

• Constructivism involves an active vision of the
  learner, interacting with each other and their
  environments to construct meaning
• So what is the role of the teacher?
• Scaffolding
• Support
• Guidance
• Facilitation
• Zone of Proximal Development the More
  Knowledgeable Other

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Scaffolding ZPD MKO

• The Zone of Proximal Development is the space
  between what the learner can do without help and
  what they cannot do with or without help
• The role of the More Knowledgeable Other is to
  help the learner move across the ZPD, i.e., to
  extend their learning
• This process is often referred to as scaffolding
  think of it as the provision of stepping
  stones across the river of the ZPD. Note the
  learner should still have to cross the river for
  themselves
• MKO may be a teacher, a peer, a family member, or
  a computer

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An example

• Child language development Learning the past
  tense
• Material for learning in the environment
• Walked
• Prepared
• Opened
• Hypothesis
• Verb stem -ed
• Test
• Go-ed
• Reformulation
• Verb stem -ed (plus irregular forms of some
  verbs)

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Exploratory learning

• If we learn French by going to France let's
  learn maths by finding a maths land!
• Seymour Papert

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What is exploratory learning?

• Learning through exploring environments,
  realia, lived and virtual experiences with peer
  and tutorial support
• By engaging with a modelled version of some
  aspect of the world, the learner is encouraged to
  identify patterns, recognise relationships
  between aspects of the model and draw conclusions
  about the way the model works
• Problem solving
• Experiment test hypothesis
• Reflection
• Collaboration (two heads are better than one
  why?)
• Learning can be transferred into lived experience
  in the real world, or applied to similar or
  dissimilar contexts (or can it?)

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Some issues

• Learning in modelled environments places the
  learner in an active role, but it does not
  presume a passive role for the teacher (MKO)
• A proper level of scaffolding is required or the
  experience may become frustrational
• The underlying rule system in the model will
  necessarily be a simplified version of the
  (infinitely complex and fuzzy) real world
• Is this significant?
• How necessary is it for the model to be
  accurate
• Does learning in modelled environments lead to
  learning about the aspect of the world that is
  being modelled, or is it more about learning
  thinking skills and problem solving?
• How can links be created between the model and
  the subject that is being learned?

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Games Learning

• A new net generation? Prenskys Digital
  Natives
• Games motivation
• Fun intentionality
• Learning games games for learning

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Are teachers facing a generation of children who
think differently?

• Prensky, 2001 - young people are developing a new
  set of cognitive abilities as a result of their
  engagement with computer technologies and games
  (click here for more information)
• Twitch speed vs conventional speed
• Parallel processing vs linear processing
• Graphics first vs text first
• Random access vs step by step
• Connected vs stand alone
• Active vs passive
• Play vs work
• Pay-off vs patience
• Fantasy vs reality
• Technology as friend vs technology as foe

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Well, ?

• Certainly, the technological context that
  children are developing in is likely to encourage
  different ways of thinking, but there is as
  considerable a range of diversity in young people
  as there is in adults
• Some children play often, some not at all
• Children play different kinds of games
• Boys and girls seem to have different preferences
  in terms of games played and how often they play
  them
• Nevertheless, an exploration of the features of
  games that make them so engaging and motivating
  may allow us to apply some of those features to
  educational contexts and thus enhance and
  encourage learning

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Motivation

• What makes computer games so motivating?
• Jones suggests that the following are essential
  to the design of engaging environments
• Task that we can complete
• Ability to concentrate on task
• Task has clear goals
• Task provides immediate feedback
• Deep but effortless involvement (losing awareness
  of worry and frustration of everyday activity)
• Exercising a sense of control over our actions
• Concern for self disappears during flow, but
  sense of self is stronger after flow activity
• Sense of duration of time is altered
• Jones (1998)

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Flow state In the Zone
Much of the thought about computer games and
motivation is based around Csikszentmihalyis
concept of flow state, which arises when one is
engaged in self-controlled, goal-related,
meaningful actions.

• Clear goals an objective is distinctly defined
  immediate feedback one knows instantly how well
  one is doing.
• The opportunities for acting decisively are
  relatively high, and they are matched by one's
  perceived ability to act. In other words,
  personal skills are well suited to given
  challenges.
• Action awareness merge one-pointedness of
  mind.
• Concentration on the task at hand irrelevant
  stimuli disappear from consciousness, worries
  concerns are temporarily suspended.

• A sense of potential control.
• Loss of self-consciousness, transcendence of ego
  boundaries, a sense of growth and of being part
  of some greater entity.
• Altered sense of time, which usually seems to
  pass faster.
• Experience becomes autotelic If several of the
  previous conditions are present, what one does
  becomes autotelic, or worth doing for its own
  sake.
• Csikszentmihalyi, 1994

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Is it all about fun?

• Rule-based, goal-directed challenging play
  generates fun
• Hard funA phrase used by a small boy when
  describing what he thought about programming a
  Lego robot at MIT (a development of Paperts work
  with Logo constructivism in practice)
• Fun doesnt equate to easy
• Should we be treating learners as players?
  Providing learners with experiences in which they
  do not know that they are learning?
• Stealth learning?

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If nobody makes you do it, it counts as fun
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What are your intentions?

• School-based learning is intention-driven
• Learning objectives
• Learning outcomes
• Curriculum design
• Lesson planning
• Is intentionality important?
• Do learners need a specific learning goal in
  order to learn in a game, or game-like
  environment?
• Some important questions for educators
• How can we find out what learners are learning in
  a game?
• How can we make learners aware of what they have
  learned?
• How can we encourage learners to make use of what
  they have learned in other contexts?

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Learning games

• Laurillard (1995)
• Multimedia learning environments for children
• Making sense of complex environments is difficult
• Knowing what to look for and then what to do with
  it is difficult
• Hypermedia environments can lead to superficial
  approaches to learning as the learner links from
  one area to another information grazing
• Laurillard proposes the need for the following to
  be built into these environments
• Scaffolding
• Goal-oriented-ness
• Learning tools (notepads for capturing
  information and ideas)
• Skills development (helping learners become
  better learners)
• Expert models

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Some learning games (edugames)

• Grannys Garden
• (Very old still found in Primary schools)
• Programs gt Education gt General
• Crystal Rain Forest
• Introduction to Logo
• Programs gt Education gt Science Technology
• Food Force
• United Nations World Food Programme
• http//www.food-force.com/

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To think about

• What features of these games are intended to
  enhance and encourage learning?
• What kind of thinking did they involve?
• What were you and your partner talking about
  while engaged with the games
• What were you learning?

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What features should learning games have?

• Pre-set starter scenarios
• Accuracy
• Saving restarting
• Teacher information
• Control of sound and other features
• Progress
• Interface
• Challenge collaboration
• Real world expertise
• Time
• McFarlane et al, 2002

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Learning with games

• TEEM study (McFarlane et al) Computer games
  supporting learning in the classroom
• Adventure/quest games
• Age of Empires
• Simulations
• Championship Manager
• Race games
• Microracers
• Maze games
• Alpha Team
• Edutainment
• Tweenies Ready to Play
• Creative model building
• Sim City (Also, see here)
• Shooting/arcade games
• Critical Zone

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What kind of learning?

• Skills development
• Communication and collaborative work
• Discussion, decision making, presenting arguments
  and finding agreement
• Problem-solving
• Exploratory learning, working out solutions,
  developing their own understandings of the games
  rule systems
• Mathematical development
• Working with budgets
• Describing position
• ICT skills
• Motivation (may not coincide with learning
  objectives)
• Thinking skills
• Reasoning, enquiry, evaluation, strategic
  thinking, decision-making, planning, evaluating,
  hypothesising

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Further reading

• Atherton J S (2005) Learning and Teaching 
  Angles on learning, particularly after the
  schooling years. Retrieved on 20th March, 2007
  from http//www.learningandteaching.info/learning/
   
• Facer, K. (No date). Computer games and learning
  Why do we think its worth talking about games
  and learning in the same breath. Nesta Futurelab
  discussion paper. Online. Retrieved on 20th
  March, 2007 from http//www.nestafuturelab.org/res
  earch/discuss/02discuss01.htm.
• de Freitas, S. (2006). Learning in immersive
  worlds A review of game-based learning. JISC.
  Online. Retrieved on 20th March, 2007 from
  http//www.jisc.ac.uk/media/documents/programmes/e
  learning_innovation/gaming20report_v3.3.pdf
• de Freitas, S. Oliver, M. (2006) How can
  exploratory learning with games and simulations
  within the curriculum be most effectively
  evaluated? Computers and Education, 46 (3).
  pp. 249-264 Online Retrieved on March 20th from
  http//dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.compedu.2005.11.007

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Further reading (contd)

• Laurillard, D. (1995). Multimedia and the
  changing experience of the learner. British
  Journal of Educational Technology, 26(3),
  179-189. Online. Retrieved on 20th March, 2007
  from http//iet.open.ac.uk/pp/s.a.rae/Meno/homerpu
  b.html. (Note this is not quite the same article
  as in the journal, but it does cover the same
  content and issues)
• McFarlane, A., Sparrowhawk, A. Heald, Ysanne
  (2002). Report on the educational use of games.
  Cambridge TEEM. Online. Retrieved on 20th
  March, 2007 from http//www.teem.org.uk/publicatio
  ns/teem_gamesined_full.pdf.
• Mitchell, A. Savill-Smith, C. (2004). The use
  of computer and video games for learning A
  review of the literature. London Learning
  Skills Development Agency. Online. Retrieved on
  20th March, 2007 from http//www.teem.org.uk/publi
  cations/teem_gamesined_full.pdf
  http//www.lsda.org.uk/files/PDF/1529.pdf.

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Further reading (continued)

• Papert, S. (No date). Seymour Paperts website.
  Online. Retrieven on March 20th, 2007 from
  http//www.papert.org/
• Prensky, M. (2001) Digital Game-based Learning.
  New York McGraw-HIll
• Sandford, R., Ulicsak, Facer, K. Rudd, T.
  (2006). Teaching with games using comnmercial
  offf-the-shelf games computer games in formal
  education. Futurelab. Online. Retrieved on
  March 20th, 2007 from http//www.futurelab.org.uk/
  download/pdfs/research/TWG_report.pdf