Games can be used for learning in several ways: 1) People can learn from playing games through trial and error feedback loops. Games allow exploration without real-world consequences. 2) Games have been used successfully to teach a variety of subjects in classrooms from elementary school through university levels. They increase student motivation and information retention. 3) Scientific discovery games engage many participants in solving research problems through game mechanics. Players of the protein folding game Foldit have contributed to scientific papers by developing strategies to solve protein structures better than computer algorithms.

1. Learning with games
@AntTaly #DIUP2016 #simulation
@iLumens

2. Learning with games?
Learning from games
[why do we learn from games?]
Teaching with games
[how/what can we teach with games?]
Scientific discovery games
[how can players contribute to build scientific
knowledge?]

3. 1.Learning from games
a long story
what is a game?
how does it work?

4. A long story...
Play found in nature, allowing
animals to learn
(i.e. selected by evolution)
Games used for learning
historically
(e.g. war games in China)
Hillebrand Steve, U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service

5. Game definition
Following Gilles Brougère (“Jouer/Apprendre”, Economica/Anthropos):
● second reality,
● decisions (to enter the game and then during the game),
● rules (including goal and limits in time and space),
● frivolity (no consequence)
● uncertainty about the outcome

6. Serious games : Need for a
debriefing
©Le Lombard 2015, tous droits réservés.

7. How can learn from games?
A game allows exploration
Alison Gopnik “Scientific Thinking in Young Children: Theoretical Advances, Empirical Research, and Policy
Implications” Science 2012: Vol. 337 no. 6102 pp. 1623-1627
We learn from trial and error
→ We need a feedback loop… that is the core of games
Uncertainty increase learning and motivation
Howard-Jones, P. A., & Demetriou, S. (2009). Uncertainty and engagement with learning games. Instructional Science,
37(6), 519.
Ozcelik, E., Cagiltay, N. E., & Ozcelik, N. S. (2013). The effect of uncertainty on learning in game-like environments.
Computers & Education, 67, 12-20.
Devonshire, I. M., Davis, J., Fairweather, S., Highfield, L., Thaker, C., Walsh, A., ... & Hathway, G. J. (2014). Risk-
based learning games improve long-term retention of information among school pupils. PloS one, 9(7), e103640.

8. Games effects on the brain have
been proposed:
Increasing Speed of Processing With Action Video Games
Dye, M. W., Green, C. S., & Bavelier, D. (2009). Increasing speed of processing with action video games. Current
directions in psychological science, 18(6), 321-326.
Gaming improves multitasking skills
Abbott, A. (2013). Gaming improves multitasking skills. Nature, 501(7465), 18.
Action Video Games Sharpen Vision
Li, R., Polat, U., Makous, W., & Bavelier, D. (2009). Enhancing the contrast sensitivity function through action video
game training. Nature neuroscience, 12(5), 549.
“Real-Time Strategy Game Training: Emergence of a Cognitive Flexibility Trait”
Glass, B. D., Maddox, W. T., & Love, B. C. (2013). Real-time strategy game training: emergence of a cognitive flexibility
trait. PLoS One, 8(8), e70350.

9. Can we learn useful things in a
game?
"I put my qualifications on my resume when I apply for jobs," Gillett said. "Here's my guild. Here's my ranking. Here's my biggest online
achievement. Some people look at it and say, 'What the hell is this?' And others will be like, 'That's exactly what I'm looking for.'"
http://money.cnn.com/2014/06/19/technology/world-of-warcraft-resume/
Learning technical skills:
“Systematic video game training in surgical novices improves performance in virtual reality endoscopic surgical simulators: a prospective
randomized study.” Schlickum MK, Hedman L, Enochsson L, Kjellin A, Felländer-Tsai L. http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/19649553
“Will the Playstation generation become better endoscopic surgeons?” Koen W. van Dongen, Egbert-Jan M. M. Verleisdonk, Marlies P.
Schijven, Ivo A. M. J. Broeders Surgical Endoscopy 2011, 25:2275. http://link.springer.com/article/10.1007%2Fs00464-010-1548-2.
“Virtual reality laparoscopy: which potential trainee starts with a higher proficiency level?” M. Paschold , M. Schröder, D. W. Kauff, T.
Gorbauch, M. Herzer, H. Lang, W. Kneist; International Journal of Computer Assisted Radiology and Surgery; 2011, 6(5), pp 653-662
Fig. 2 Applying clips on cystic
duct and cystic artery

10. Can we learn useful things in a
game?
dos Reis, F. J. C., Lynn, S., Ali, H. R., Eccles, D., Hanby, A.,
Provenzano, E., ... & Daley, F. (2015). Crowdsourcing the
general public for large scale molecular pathology studies in
cancer. EBioMedicine, 2(7), 681-689.

11. 2. TEACHING WITH GAMES
General exemples
Bioinformatics at university [or focus]

12. Teaching with games
“The use of educational games within
learning environments raises motivation,
increases interest in the subject matter,
intensifies information retention,
encourages collaboration, and improves
problem-solving skills.”Schneider, Maria Victoria, and Rafael C. Jimenez. "Teaching the
fundamentals of biological data integration using classroom
games." PLoS computational biology 8.12 (2012)
Quoting: Michael D, Chen S (2006) Serious games: games that
educate, train and inform. Boston: Thomson Course Technology.”

13. TEACHING WITH GAMES AT
SECONDARY SCHOOL
Many examples of the use of games in
teaching
Example of Dragon Box

14. A classical exemple: MinecraftEdu
Math,
Biology,
Geography,
etc...
MinecraftEdu

15. Teaching Medicine/health

16. Games allow to tackle difficult subjects
Geopolitics
Romain republic
missile crisis in Cuba
initiation of WW1
“Jouer en classe en collège et en lycée” Dominique Natanson, Marc Berthou, éditions Fabert, 2013.
Sex education
“The development approach of a pedagogically-driven serious game to support Relationship and Sex Education (RSE)
within a classroom setting” http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0360131513001644
“seconde guerre Punique” shared via wikimedia by “Common Good”.

17. Games can be used to
teach
Stegman, Melanie. "Immune Attack players perform better
on a test of cellular immunology and self confidence than
their classmates who play a control video game." Faraday
Immune Attack
http://ImmuneDefenseGame.co
m
• High school students
• First person shooter
game
• Significantly improves
understanding of
concepts in immunology

18. Dragon Box is a good
exemple...
http://wewanttoknow.com/algebra/
@DragonBoxApp

19. … but that is not magical
Game alone does not work:
need for be-briefing
not enough room for error?
Yanjin Long, Vincent Aleven “Gamification of Joint Student/System Control over Problem Selection in a Linear
Equation Tutor” Intelligent Tutoring Systems, Lecture Notes in Computer Science Volume 8474, 2014, pp 378-387.
more general thougths: Learning Systems, Not Games JP Gee - Texas Education Review, 2013 - journals.tdl.org

20. … mais ça n’est pas magique
Le jeu seul n’enseigne pas:
Problème de la place de l’erreur?
Yanjin Long, Vincent Aleven “Gamification of Joint Student/System Control over Problem Selection in a Linear
Equation Tutor” Intelligent Tutoring Systems, Lecture Notes in Computer Science Volume 8474, 2014, pp 378-387.
Ou besoin d’un de-briefing
Kluge, Anders, and Jan Dolonen. "USING MOBILE GAMES IN THE CLASSROOM." Mobile Learning and Mathematics (2015): 106.
more general thougths: Learning Systems, Not Games JP Gee - Texas Education Review, 2013 - journals.tdl.org

21. Teaching with games at the
university
Bioinformatics
with serious games and scientific discovery
games

22. 3. SCIENTIFIC DISCOVERY GAMES
FOLDIT
HIRE-RNA
THE CURE

23. What does scientific discovery
games so interesting?
simulation
rules of interaction possibility to build on others’
contributions
large number of participants/data
open ended
→ emergent properties, including collective
intelligence

24. FOLDIT
A Key exemple:
pioneering work
scientific results published in peer reviewed journals
deep analysis of players inputs

25. Started with grid computing
●
ROSETTA@HOME

26. Foldit

27. Seth Cooper, Firas Khatib, Adrien Treuille, Janos Barbero, Jeehyung Lee, Michael Beenen, Andrew Leaver-Fay, David Baker, Zoran Popović, Foldit players (2010).
Predicting protein structures with a multiplayer online game. Nature 446 p. 756-760, 05 August 2010.
How do players do etter than the
computer?

28. What makes the players good?
→ strategy
Seth Cooper, Firas Khatib, Adrien Treuille, Janos Barbero, Jeehyung Lee, Michael Beenen, Andrew Leaver-Fay, David Baker, Zoran Popović, Foldit players (2010).
Predicting protein structures with a multiplayer online game. Nature 446 p. 756-760, 05 August 2010.

29. What makes the players good?
→ strategy
Seth Cooper, Firas Khatib, Adrien Treuille, Janos Barbero, Jeehyung Lee, Michael Beenen, Andrew Leaver-Fay, David Baker, Zoran Popović, Foldit players (2010).
Predicting protein structures with a multiplayer online game. Nature 446 p. 756-760, 05 August 2010.

30. Foldit players come from
many backgrounds
Top 50 players
Busn/finance/legal
largest group..
Majority have no training in
biochemistry
Cooper, Seth, et al. "Predicting protein structures with a
multiplayer online game." Nature 466.7307 (2010): 756-

31. UnityMol -HireRNA
Mazzanti et al Biophysical Journal 2017

32. UnityMol -HireRNA
Mazzanti et al Biophysical Journal 2017

33. THE CURE

35. PLAY = GENE SELECTION
Alternate turns
picking a gene from
a “board” of 25
Your hand
Opponents
hand

36. SCORING
Cure Server
Score reflects accuracy of
decision tree created with
just the selected genes on
real training data

37. PLAY WITH KNOWLEDGE: GENE ONTOLOGY

38. PLAY WITH KNOWLEDGE: GENE RIFS

39. YOU WIN!

40. GENE SET OVERLAPS, SOME BUT NOT MUCH
http://bioinformatics.psb.ugent.be/webtools/Venn/
“Expert Gene Set”

41. More scientific discovery games in
medicine?

43. Acknowledgments
Ben Good for many interactions and slides (slides with black background):
http://fr.slideshare.net/goodb/serious-games-for-bioinformatics-education-ismb-2014-education-workshop
http://fr.slideshare.net/goodb/good-ben-rocky2013games
Students at FDV who tested the use of games in class