Games and Learning
How often do we play games?
What makes a really good game?
Examples of simple to complex games
Agenda
Kids aged 8-18 spend about 50 minutes per day playing video games. Average adult male spends 7.6 hours per week playing video gamesAverage adult female spends 7.4 hours per week.Kids spend about 316 hours a year playing video games
Really good games...
have win states to give us a feeling of accomplishment
employ conflict/competition/challenge to up our adrenaline
use dramatic problems
use otherworldly stories and characters to stir the emotions
require problem solving
encourage interaction to solve challenges
are unpredictable 
provide a sense of urgency
What makes for really good teaching?
What do really good teachers do?

Have goals for their lessons

Draw on “Motivation to Learn” strategies (engages students through the use of puzzles, questions, mysteries, apparent conflicts)
What people are saying about games and learning
The critics and my responses
References 
"Video games can reshape education. (It's) the next great discovery, a way to captivate students so much that they will spend hours learning on their own.” (Federation of American Scientists) 
Academic research and on-the-job experience have demonstrated that when students learn by experience, their understanding and retention are higher. Highly immersible learning techniques (such as simulation, virtual reality interfaces and role playing) enable students to do just that." (Gartner Research)
Response: True, but what are the main goals of any learning experience: 
a) to understand, and 
b) to be able to apply.  

If a game accomplishes these goals, who cares if the setting is unrealistic?  Students know the situation is unrealistic, and we can certainly add in a component that gives them an understanding of the real-world nature of the task. 
Response 1: The world has changed.  The old fashioned ways don’t work as well any more.

Response 2: Why shouldn’t learning be fun?  It starts out that way in childhood - why does it have to become “work”?
References

Aldrich, C. (2004). Simulations and the Future of eLearning. John Wiley & Sons, Inc.Aldrich, C. (2005). 
Learn by Doing.  John Wiley & Sons, Inc.Berg, M., Janoff-Bulman, R.  & Cotter, J. (2001).  
Perceiving Value in Obligations and Goals: Wanting to do What Should be Done.  Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin, 27, 982-995.Brophy, J. (1983). 
Conceptualizing Student Motivation. Educational Psychologist, 18, 200-215.Brophy, J. (1998).  Motivating Students to Learn.  Boston: McGraw-Hill.Brown, J. S., Collins, A., & Duguid, P. (1989).  
Situated cognition and the culture of learning.  Educational Researcher, 18 (1), 32-41.Bransford, J.D. et al. (1990). 
Anchored instruction: Why we need it and how technology can help. In D. Nix & R. Spiro (Eds), Cognition, education and multimedia. Hillsdale, NJ: Erlbaum Associates.Bruning, R. & Horn, C. (2000).  
Developing the Motivation to Write.  Educational Psychologist, 35, 25-37.  Foreman, J. (2003).  
Educational Technology Versus the Lecture.  EduCause Review.Glasser, A. (2004).  Interactive Storytelling. AK Peters, Ltd.Oblinger, D.G. (2004). 
The Next Generation of Educational Engagement.  Journal of Interactive Media in Education, 2004 (8).
Prensky, M. (2001). Digital Game Based Learning.  McGraw-Hill, Inc.Quinn, C. N. (2005). Engaging Learning. John Wiley & Sons, Inc.
“Dress up your content” (or, “I suppose if we have to…”) games: hangman, flashcards, Jeopardy
Now we’re talking”: More challenging games that include some simulation elements.
Critique: 2 “Using games is “giving in”.  Why can’t students just learn the old fashioned way?”
have rules to give play structure and help put us inside the game world
have goals to provide motivation and let us measure ourselves against something
are interactive to keep us doing things
are situated in an interesting place or time
have outcomes and immediate feedback from which we learn
adapt their difficulty to our skills to keep us in flow
are “hard fun”
Tactical Iraqi
http://www.tacticallanguage.com
FutureLabs
www.futurelab.org.uk
www.goventure.net
www.goventure.net 
Games with an even 
greater ability for the player
to explore
Immersive games that include
urgency and mystery
http://www.gdconf.com/conference/sgs.html

Monday & Tuesday, March 23-24, 2009
Provide students with appropriate challenge to optimize the potential for “flow”

Provide a context for the material to be learned (i.e., instruction is “anchored” to a setting)
Encourage active exploration among students (not focused on right and wrong answers)

Provide opportunities for safe practice
Help students draw on prior knowledge

Help students formulate questions

Encourage students to use metacognitive strategies (“Did I understand what I just heard/read?”)
www.muzzylane.com
Critique 1: “But the situation/context/story the game takes place in is unrealistic.”
Response 3: Ultimately, people learn best when they work on activities that are tied to achieving their personal goals (“I need to do X”).  In school, we can’t give them this, but we can engage them through stories and games.  Why not use these tools?
Provide immediate feedback to students on how they’re doingHelp students summarize what they’ve learned Help students reflect on their experience