Games have become a major industry, with $25.1 billion in consumer spending in 2010 alone in the US. Research has shown that games can improve visual acuity, attention, help learn history and geography, increase mood and decrease stress, and increase calorie expenditure. Games are designed with goals, feedback, and opportunities to apply learning in new situations, aligning with contemporary learning theory. Learning theory and game design may enhance each other in the future.

1. Games and Learning
Course:
Digital Media Innovation
and Social Transformation
Fall 2014
Presentation: Hanna Suviha

2. 2
Introduction
•
In 2010 in America alone, total consumer spending on
the games industry in totaled $25.1 billion (Siwek, 2010)
•
Youth ages 8 to 18 year olds consume about 10.45
hours per day of media compressed into 7.38 hours per
day thanks to multitasking (Rideout, Foehr, & Roberts,
2010)

3. 3
Impact of Games
•
improve visual acuity & attention (Green, Pouget, &
Bavelier, 2010)
•
historical simulations aid systems understanding in
world history & geography (Squire & Barab, 2004)
•
increase mood and decrease stress (Russoniello,
O’Brien, & Parks, 2009)
•
exergames are shown to increase calorie expenditure
and decrease sedentary lifestyles for children (Graf,
Pratt, Hester, Short, 2009)

4. 4
•
videogames are addictive to the extent that games
have, and their interactivity and design principles are
at the core of their appeal;
•
commercial games oftentimes exemplify good
pedagogy;
•
games afford opportunities for learning assessment
that are quite rich, ranging from learning analytics
applied to a given game title's data exhaust to
connected ethnographies that trace student
trajectories of learning from within the game to the
online game fandom community to participation
structures in the in the home or classroom and back
again.

5. Contemporary learning theory
People primarly think and learn through
experiences they have had. People store these
experiences in memory and use them to run
simulations in their minds to prepare for
problem solving in new situations. These
simulations help them to form hypotheses about
how to proceed in the new situation based on
past experiences.

6. Conditions experiences need to meet:
1) experiences are most useful for future problem solving if the
experience is structured by specific goals;
2) they have to be interpreted. Interpreting experience means
thinking—in action and after action—about how our goals
relate to our reasoning in the situation;
3) people need to get immediate feedback during those
experiences so that they can recognize their errors and see
where their expectations have failed;
4) learners need opportunities to apply their previous experiences
to similar new situations;
5) learners need to learn from the interpreted experiences and
explanations of other people, including both peers and more
expert people. Social interaction, discussion, and sharing with
peers, as well as mentoring from others who are more
advanced, are important.

7. 7
Game Design
•
designed to set up
certain goals for players
•
level design allows players to get lots of practice
applying what they have learned
•
feedback is given moment by moment

8. 8
Agent Principle
(Co-Design Principle)

9. Customization
Good games allow you to
solve problems in
different ways.
Good games invite you to
try a new style.

10. Identity

11. Manipulation

12. Well-Ordered Problems

13. Pleasantly Frustrating

14. The Cycle of Expertise

15. Just-in-Time and On-Demand

16. Fish Tank Principle

17. Sandboxes

18. Skills as strategies

19. System Thinking Principle

20. Meaning as Action Principle
(Situated Meaning)

21. Conclusion Message
The language of learning is one important way in which
to talk about video games, and video games are one
important way in which to talk about learning.
Learning theory and game design may, in the future,
enhance each other.

22. Reference list
•
Steinkuehler, C.; Squire, K., (2012). Videogames and
Learning. Cambridge Handbook of the Learning Sciences.
Second Edition
•
Jim Gee (2013, November 13). Jim Gee Principles on Gaming
[Video file]. Retrieved from https://www.youtube.com/watch?
v=4aQAgAjTozk
•
James Paul Gee, (2005). Good Video Games and Good
Learning. Phi Kappa Phi Forum. 85 (2)
•
Squire, K.R.; Shaffer D.W.; Halverson R.; Gee, J.P, (2005).
Video Games and The Future of Learning. Phi Delta Kappan.
87 (2), pp.104-11
•
Gee, J.P. “Learning and Games." The Ecology of Games:
Connecting Youth, Games, and Learning. Edited by Katie, S;
The John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation Series
on Digital Media and Learning. Cambridge, MA: The MIT
Press, 2008. 21–40.

23. Thank you !