Game Based Learning - Considerations

AN INTRO TO GBL Some considerations in approaches to professional development of teachers using virtual worlds and game based learning - for teacher educators and executives © Dean Groom, 2010 [www.deangroom.com]

Learning inside games - social - dextrous - emotion - cognition

It is not that games are more fun, it is that they are better designed, more compelling learning spaces to satisfy our human brains. we play ...

WHAT’S DRIVING IT? digital convergence - the fusion of any combination of technologies to allow more services and/or products to become available to consumers via a wider range of digital devices (Eastwood, 2006). the fusion of technology, industry, culture, and society with particular attention on their collective penetration into modern consumerism (Jenkins, 2006). Eastwood, G. (2006). The future of convergence. New devices, services and growth opportunities. London: Business Insights. Jenkins, H. (2006). Convergence culture. Where old and new media collide. New York: New York University Press.

Can we use games to meet our objectives? $500.00 investment Form a band Learn to play Create character Go on tour Compete with others Create posters, t-shirts ... Transition programme - Year 6 to Year 7?

WHAT IS GBL? Game based learning (GBL) is an approach to learning, based on intersecting theories, research and methods we find in games - especially massive multiplayer social games. Players inhabit the goals of virtual characters in virtual environments - goal-directed learners as participants As participants, players activate learning though knowledge, meaning, motivation and emotion - which regulates their effort towards achievement and success.

IS THIS A SCHOOL? is this how you ‘see’ your world?

WHAT IS IN GBL Learning takes place through playful, purposeful activities Assessment can be ‘inside’ the game, or ‘outside’ the game Open a box and put the contents onto a table Describe how to open box and how to copy the contents to a table using a recount. The game or game process - is used to engage, structure and motivate learning towards explicit (not tacit) goals.

MODEL COUSINS Project Based Learning - a defined method of enquiry, which can be used as a framework for developing learning activities to solve real world problems. Does the internet promote critical thinking? Scenario Based Learning - a defined method of enquiry to assess, decode and act on a scenario to meet a goal. James was failing at mathematics in grade 4 ...

FLASH FICTION Write a story. 50 words, no more, no less. Act your story. Film your story. Illustrate your story, distribute your story, write a graphic novel, build your own Worlds are without narrative world ... and invite me.

TEACHERS AS AVATARS Today, players create their online representations, called avatars, in the form of graphical designs that take on more and more realistic detail. These avatars are not ephemeral and spurious creations: players spend considerable time selecting and customising them and then interacting with others online (Yee, 2006). Avatars are a sub-identity of the self. Yee, N. (2006). The demographics, motivations and derived experiences of users of massively-multiuser online graphical environments. PRESENCE: Teleoperators and Virtual Environments, 15, 309-329.

IDENTITY. Student artworks, based on their avatars.

WHERE AREareYOU? to this world? what you bringing Write down 5 labels you attach to gamers and virtual world users Who is your virtual self? What is motivating you to explore GBL?

MY AVATAR IS ME Mario, Sonic, Lara Croft ... avatars that someone else created for the purpose of narrative, character and performance inside games designed for specific purposes. Players become the character in order to play/interact Warcraft, Halo Reach ... players customise their avatar to express themselves within the mechanics and social archetypes provided by the game-designers (role based) Second Life ... avatars have no role, no identity, no purpose unless they are created by the user inside a context.

GAMES AND CULTURE Over 2 billion people play online games. Over 200 virtual worlds with +2 million accounts 3 billion hours a week spent playing online games Games use transmedia narratives - wikis, blogs, books, films, music, networks, augmented reality World of Warcraft 12m players, +$150m per month revenue

WHY AV-TEACHERS? Studies of the process of becoming a teacher show that the formation and transformation of teacher identity takes place as the teaching experiences are interpreted and re-interpreted by the teacher (Beijaard et al., 2000; Day et al., 2000; Flores & Day, 2006). To gain any understanding of why game design and methods are important to pedagogy, teachers as avatars have to be immersed in similar environments.

SPOT THE AVATAR The next slide shows a recent brand advertisement for Coca- Cola. Essentially the message of the advert is that Coke is relevant to a generation using avatars as sub-identities - and of course that Coke helps you ‘get the girl’. As you watch it - try and jot down all the avatars, and where they come from ...

AVATARS ARE SOCIAL

WHAT GAMES ARE: action- and goal-directed simulations of embodied experience (Halo, Warcraft, Endless Ocean) Give us comprehension grounded in perceptual simulations that prepare agents for situated action. (Barsalou, 1999) to a particular person, the meaning of an object, event, or sentence is what that person can do with the object, event, or sentence. (Glenberg, 1997) - understanding.

UNPACKINGyou current ‘knows’ about GBL share POINT How do experience of teachers in professional development around technology? What is the expertise of teachers educators in professional development around using games based approaches? What are the embodied environments that we perceive to ‘feel’ right vs strange and unfamiliar? How do we change this belief? - Can we?

WHY WORLDS DIE creating environments that replicate the familiar with tacit instruction and inconsistent outcomes. lack of understanding of the role of teacher educators embodied in avatars as mentors, peer support and facilitators. failure to understand first principles of instructional design - and how to adapt them into virtual world settings. being information, not goal orientated

A CURRICULUM Technology is of itself empty. A virtual world is a technology and potentially empty of any learning outcome. A robust schedule of learning (that may not be linear), developed by experienced experts (pedagogy, content, technology) in association with builders, designers, asset managers - with defined outcomes and evaluation. Communication of the this curriculum with clear benefit statements - tied to evidence based assessment in the classroom.

MIND-BUILDING Learning in games and virtual worlds is a mental process Knowledge - what do I know, need to know Meaning - why am I doing it, where is it leading, how can I apply this to my practice, whats the point? Motivation & Emotion - my current belief, my effort towards doing it, my social-cultural context, my self- declaration among peers - Is this important to me?

CULTURAL CONFLICT

THREATS Workplace dissonance over ‘games’ and ‘virtual’ worlds. Don’t easily see how any domain general learning experiences (games, vws, social media) relate to domain specific learning - What I can learn there to transpose here. 21C skills are entirely domain general Collaboration, Co-operation, negotiation, problem solving, critical thinking etc., 21C skills are NOT - technological skills.

WHAT DO WE WANT built model simulations to help us prepare for action in the world. (We want it provided to us). build things we can act in the model and test out what consequences follow before we act in the real world. be able to role-play another person in the model and try to see what motivates their actions. an environment to allow expected and unexpected outcomes - to be part of the experience as a stakeholder and owner.

VWS FOR TEACHER ED they are special built, and allow on the spot options and choices to teachers make sense of and act in specific contexts or with specific texts. they are not “neutral” but capture a given perspective or viewpoint, foregrounding some things and backgrounding others - activities therefore phase in an out in order to maintain motivation and engagement. they need constant maintenance and new enthusiasm.

WHAT DO THEY OFFER Raw materials for simulations, and the simulations cause us to act in the real world in ways that change it to better resemble or model simulations we have experienced. The way we interact in with others, the way we set about problem solving, the risk and effort we afford, the trust we need to have, the time we are willing to give etc., What you learn about the game’s story and the game’s virtual world—attribute certain mental states (beliefs, values, goals, feelings, attitudes) ...

CRITICAL rank these issues: biggest threat is? FACTORS Not understanding how games ‘work’ Being information not goal orientated Not understanding how to constructively design, evaluate and facilitate a robust, rich experience of learning Not being able to transpose learning experiences from the virtual to real world in the context of each teacher Building for the aesthetic and not for the mind.

DESIGNING FOR GBL The virtual world of the game is designed to invite the real world player to form certain sorts of goals of his or her own. The ‘world’ (through game) includes: virtual character’s mind/body (the player’s avatar), the character’s goals (what do I have to do) the player’s goals (what do I want from this) design features of the virtual world (affordances)

OUR VIRTUAL SELF We play virtual characters in our daily-lives Dynamic leader, nerdy PE teacher, hipster, tough teacher, social entertainer, needy friend, rock-star etc., In a virtual world, we are able to bring the ‘mind’ visual into a realisation - and play as that character in deed and action.

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Game Based Learning - Considerations

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