Séminaire de l'équipe MeTAH (LIG, Grenoble), juin 2010 Quelques notes sur les jeux pour l'apprentissage (serious games) et leur conceptualisation en didactique (théorie des situations didactiques).

1. Nicolas Balacheff, juin 2010, séminaire MeTAH

2. Maintream Vs Learning games
Litterature review in games and learning, Kirriemuir, Ceangal, McFarlane, 2004,
Futurelab
 widely known as computer and/or video games
developed solely for fun for the user and to
maximise profit for the publisher
 typically developed for PCs and video games
consoles. Contemporary titles usually require
the most powerful hardware currently available
 increasingly developed in relatively simplistic
format for mobile telephones
 typically sophisticated in terms of graphics,
interface and complexity; production budgets
similar to small to medium sized film budgets
 marketed directly to games players as being fun
and exciting, graphically superb, the best game
of its particular genre
 uses high review scores in games magazines and
tie-ins with other media as marketing aids
 historically known as ‘edutainment’, though
negative associations with this word mean it is
largely avoided by contemporary games publishers
 almost exclusively produced for the PC; very few
titles for the Mac or dedicated games consoles
 games are more simplistic, are produced in a range
of formats, eg Flash, Shockwave, Java, Visual Basic
 most titles are designed for sole-user, offline play.
 development costs are typically a fraction of those
of major pure digital games
 not typically marketed to users, instead marketed
mainly to parents and teachers
 marketed as being accurate, relevant to formal
curriculum, developing specific skills/knowledge
 uses recommendations from teacher, parent and
educational organizations as marketing aids

3. Don’t follow videogames 
Digital games in education, the design of game-based learning environments, Gros,
2007, JRTE
 Teachers witness that games contribute to the
development of a large variety of strategies that are
important for learning (experimentation, reflection,
activity, discussion)
 The main disadvantage is the amount of time it takes
from both the learners and the teacher
 Difficulty to identify how a particular game is relevant
to some component of the curriculum, as well as the
appropriateness of the content within the game
 Game designers are not concerned with the accuracy of
contents of games and they are sometimes capable of
producing contradiction or erroneous concepts

4. Review in games and learning
Moving learning games forward, Klopfer, Osterwell & Salen, 2009, MIT The education
Arcade
 Common ideas
 (1) games are motivating
 (2) game leverage creativity
 (3) schools are resistant to games
 Learning games can be fun and have a mass market appeal
 Educational games need not replicate expensive 3D graphics
 Claims
 (a) games can engage players in learning that is curriculum relevant
 (b) there are means by which teachers can balance school and play.
 Barriers: assessment, evidence, uses (pedagogical integration),
speed of change, maintenance, limited pedagogical paradigm,
limited research and ambition, limited funding.

5. Review in games and learning
Ref: Moving learning games forward, Klopfer, Osterwell & Salen, 2009, MIT The
education Arcade
 Making a game is not representing some ideas in a
virtual world […] the critical aspects are
feedback, structure, goals, paths to progress
 Design principles (some)
 Put learning and game play first  there may be some set of
constraints on the technology and the learning outcomes that
are unchangeable, the combination may just not work
 Find the game in the content  an education game should put
players in touch with what is fundamentally engaging about
the subject / however the game does not simply teach the
subject matter
 Define the learning goals  do games help kids learn, is the
wrong question (too broad, the game does not act alone, the
question does not tell what is assessed).

6. Analysing learning outcomes
Activity theory and learning from digital games, developing an analytical
methodology, Oliver & Pelletier, 2006
 The restriction of
learning to the level of
the system means that
nothing can be said
about the learner
[… instead speak of …]
properties attributed to the
subject
 Three levels of analysis
 activity (strategic)
 action (tactical)
 operation (operational)

7. Analysing learning outcomes
Activity theory and learning from digital games, developing an analytical
methodology, Oliver & Pelletier, 2006
Contradictions the most likely to indicate
individual learning are those that are resolved
- between an individual and the Tool
- between an individual and the Rules

8. Analysing learning outcomes
Activity theory and learning from digital games, developing an analytical
methodology, Oliver & Pelletier, 2006
 Learning to use a tool skillfully
 Learning about the properties of in-game objects
 Learning about game conventions
 Learning about space within the game
Issue of the identification and interpretation of the
behaviors  assuming the intention of the learner
(eg learning as getting information Vs learning as acquisition of knowledge)
At least there is the learning how to play and becoming
more skillful and learning the rules of the game

9. A framework for evaluation (and design)
How can exploratory learning with games and simulations within the curriculum be
most effectively evaluated?, de Freitas & Oliver, 2006, Computer in Education
 Any game has a simulation dimension…
 The central role of Diagesis: the world
within the narrative film, the story board
 In educational context there is a need to
enter the “other world” of the game & to
be reflexive and critical towards this
process
“debriefing”
its lack can provoke a mismatch between game-
play and education-curriculum

10. A framework for evaluation (and design)
How can exploratory learning with games and simulations within the curriculum be
most effectively evaluated?, de Freitas & Oliver, 2006, Computer in Education

11. “Game” the key modeling tool
 “Modeling a teaching situation consists of producing a
game specific to the target knowledge among different
subsystems: the educational system, the student system,
the milieu, etc.” (p.47)
“To consider the teacher as a player faced with a system, itself built up from a pair of
systems: the student and, let us say for the moment, a ‘milieu’ that lacks any
didactical intentions with regards to the student” (p.40)
 “In the student’s game with the milieu,
knowledge is the means of understanding the
ground rules and strategies and, later,
the means of elaborating winning strategies and
obtaining the results being sought” (p.40)
The game must allow a representation of all
situations […] so long as they manage to make the
students learn one form of the target knowledge”
(p.48)

12. “Game” the key modeling tool
G1: situations in which “decisions and actions […]
are determined only by pleasure [either derived]
from accomplishing them, [or derived] from
their effect”
G2: “organization of this activity within a system of
rules defining a success and a failure, a gain or a
loss”
G3: “whatever is used for playing, the instruments
of the game”
G4: “the way in which one plays”
G5: “the set of possible positions from among
which the player can choose in a given state of
the [G2-game]”
(pp.48-49)

13. The game of adaptation: issues
 “Is knowing this property the only way of shifting from a
given strategy to another one?
 “why should the student look for a way of replacing this
strategy with that one?
 “what cognitive motivation leads to the production of
such-and-such a formulation of a property or to such-and-
such a mathematical proof?
 “Is the given reason for producing this knowledge better,
more correct, more accessible or more effective than any
other reason?”
(pp. 47-48)

14. Paradox raised by the TSD
1. Paradox of the devolution of situations (p.41) result from
the tensions between the necessary student autonomy and
the teacher responsibility to teach which is known from
both. The teacher must refrain from teaching even if the
student asks for it.
2. Paradox of the adaptation of situation (p.42) the
knowledge appropriated by adaptation may be…
1. Maladjusted to correctness
2. Maladjusted to a later adaptation
3. Paradox of learning by adaptation (p.44-45)
1. Negation of knowledge: knowledge deems to be trivial
2. Destruction of the cause of knowledge: lost of motivation
4. Paradox of the actor (p.46) “[the knowledge] whose text
already exists is no longer a direct production of the
teacher, it is a cultural object, quoted and re-quoted”

15. “Game” the key modeling tool
Game1: situations
determined by /
associated to
pleasure
Game2: organization
of the activity
within a system of
rules
Game3: instruments
of the game
Game4: the way in
which one plays
Game5: the set of
possible positions
player
milieu
game
(meaning 3 and 5)
game
(meaning 2)
Stake, function of reference
information
predicted state
action, decision
game (meaning 4)
constraints of
the milieu
player's rules;
strategies,
know ledge
formal rules
game
(meaning 1)

16. “Game” the key modeling tool
(A) formalisation of the game
1.X set of distinct “positions”, J set of players
2.rules of the game [Γ : X → P(X)]
3.initial state I and final states F
4.turn taking [θ : JxX→ J]
5.gain, stake, preference [F⊂ A⊂X f: A → R]
player
milieu
game
(meaning 3 and 5)
game
(meaning 2)
Stake, function of reference
information
predicted state
action, decision
game (meaning 4)
constraints of
the milieu
player's rules;
strategies,
know ledge
formal rules
game
(meaning 1)
Round : a finite sequence of states (from I to F).
Strategy : any mapping X→X that determines choices from permissible states
Tactic : strategy defined on a subset A of X
Player 's state of knowing : mapping of X →Γ(X) such that [∀x C(x)∈Γ(X)]
Determining knowledge reduces the player’s choice to a single state
Acquisition of knowledge is a modification of the state of knowing

17. “Game” the key modeling tool
(A) formalisation of the game
1.X set of distinct “positions”, J set of players
2.rules of the game [Γ : X → P(X)]
3.initial state I and final states F
4.turn taking [θ : JxX→ J]
5.gain, stake, preference [F⊂ A⊂X f: A → R]
Round : a finite sequence of states…
Strategy : any mapping X→X that…
Tactic : strategy defined on a subset A of X…
Player 's state of knowing : mapping of X …
Determining knowledge reduces …
Acquisition of knowledge is a modification of…
(B) Formalization of knowledge
1.A set of premises
2.Representation of objects and
relations
3.Construction of objects and
relations
4.Statements”about”
5.Criteria of validity of “statements”
An acknowledged reference today is : Fudenberg D., Levine D. K. (1998) The theory of learning in games. The MIT Press. The
limitation Brousseau makes in his choice of a game type is the same in that classical book.