Gaming and Learning: Play as a Way of Learning
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June 2009 Webinar given for the ESSEC Business School in Paris France
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Gaming and Learning: Play as a Way of Learning
- 1. Gaming and Learning Play as a way of learning ESSEC Teaching & Learning Innovation Forum 4 June, 2009 1
- 2. Gail Matthews-DeNatale, Ph.D. Associate Director of Academic Technology, Simmons College , Boston, USA For more information, see: http://playfullearning.pbworks.com 2 About the Presenter
- 3. In this Session • Consider the richness and variety of learning that occurs during play • Discuss theories of “playful learning” • Explore the role of technology in fostering play-based learning • Link to additional resources on play- based learning 3
- 5. What do the “Experts” Say? 5 Koster – Fun = Challenge at Edge of Ability Osterweil – Four Freedoms of Play Sutton-Smith – The Ambiguity of Play Nat’l Institute of Play – Seven Patterns Strong Museum – Six Elements of Play Read more at http://playfullearning.pbworks.com/ Theoretical-Models-for-Play
- 6. What’s Going on While at Play? 6 Open-ended Youth directed, Youth generated Improvisation Risk-taking Emergent collaboration and group process Bricolage (Tinkering) Deep engagement and personal investment Experimentation Multiple drafts/iterations Imitation Fantasy “Convergent” process for multimedia composition
- 7. 7 What does it look like in practice?
- 8. 8 Example: ARGs Key components: • Physical and Virtual • Narrative • Immersive and Experiential • Real/Not Real • Complex and Open- Ended • Collaborative – ELI 7 Things You Should Know About ARGs – http://net.educause.edu/ir/library/pdf/ELI7045.pdf
- 9. 9 Save Bluth ELI ARG Trailhead
- 10. 10 Bluth’s Plea Dear colleagues, If you’ve received this message, I’m afraid it’s gotten very bad. And I’m counting on you to uncover the findings that I’ve left you. Before they do. So here’s what you can do. Find the URL in my video. If you missed it, watch it again at www.SaveBluth.com. Then head to the site to find the things I’ve left behind. The clues might be obvious, like a link. Or more hidden, like an image behind an image. If anything looks awry, you can bet it’s a clue. (And there are at least 20 hidden pieces to find.) A few tips to get you started: • If you find a clue word, drop it at the end of the main URL to find the hidden content. • Look everywhere – online, in the conference space. I’ve hidden my research well. • Join the Ning network and the ELI Twitter stream to work with colleagues. You’re going to need each other to find it all! And whatever you do, don’t let them find it. I’m counting on you! RKB
- 11. 11 Anticipated Learning Outcomes The game was intended to: » Create opportunities for social interaction. » Use real scientific data and address a pressing issue. » Employ digital storytelling through narrative, video, audio, and visuals. » Engage players – enticing them into playing and responding. » Be messy (in a good way, a learning challenge).
- 13. 13 Clues: Virtual and Physical Podcasts QR codes link to URLs and locations Twitter (a way for Bluth to communicate with players) “Missing” signs Rejection letters “Missing” signs
- 14. 14 What Happened – Players built a wiki and contributed 100 edits – They shared resources in Ning and Tweeted to Bluth – In the end, “hidden” pages averaged 28 views; Only three pages were not found
- 15. Advice and Questions 15 Advice: • Play-based learning is complex (but not impossible) to design. • Clarify learning goals and principles up front. • Design purposefully, but avoid being too rigid. • Have fun and take risks. Guiding questions: • What learning goals would you like to accomplish? • What are your timing and resource constraints? • What resources are available to you (colleagues, spaces, technologies, and support)? • What’s your plan – what steps and tasks are necessary for successful implementation? • What will make the experience playful and engaging? • How will participants know what they’ve learned?
- 16. Thank You Gail Matthews-DeNatale gmdenatale@simmons.edu For more resources, see http://playfullearning.pbworks.com 16
Editor's Notes
- Give you an overview of what the “experts” are saying about play Example in higher education – and hear what faculty have to say about play and learning Sometimes it’s more important to know the questions than to know the answers, so we provide questions designed to help you succeed in your design and use of play This is a HUGE field that can take up a lifetime, not just an hour. So we’ve developed a wiki that provides additional resources should you want to pursue the topic in greater depth after today FINALLY – heaven forbid! – we’ve built a bit of play into the webinar so that we “walk our talk.” For example, as you played around with the circles at the beginning of the webinar, you were “playing” at collaborative brainstorming in which the goal was to get lots of ideas on the table and to help you transition into a playful way of thinking.
- Imagine that you are entering a large room. You see lots of play objects: a jump rope, arts and craft supplies, paper airplane, kaleidoscope, Leggos, dress-up costumes that happen to be just your size, an etch-a-sketch, and a jigsaw puzzle. Which to you play with first? (note that they can share in the chat if they want). I invite you to consider what your selection tells you about your learning style and preferences – and to consider the richness and variety of learning opportunities represented in this collection of play objects. Puzzle – this is an example that has a “right” answer, the enjoyment comes from wresting coherence and order from apparent chaos. When we talk of “play” the first thing that usually comes to mind are games that have a “solution.” This is really only a subset of a much larger set of “play” possibilities. Tim Brown – thinking with your hands (craft paper) Gregory Bateson – child is playing at being a bishop not to become a bishop, but to explore what a bishop is – those who selected the costumes may learn though imagining the possibilities Paper airplanes and Legos – the engineers and designers in the audience – tacking a challenge and prototyping possibilities Kaleidoscope – exploring the world around from a range of perspectives – what would it look like if everyday views were reordered? Etch-a-sketch – fun is in the making, the process. As with the Circles exercise, the goal is to get a lot of ideas on the table, not necessarily to retain them for posterity Jump Rope – Perhaps the most kinesthetic example. Unfortunately, much of formal learning is disembodied, so kinesic learners are left to fend for themselves. With recent developments like the wii, perhaps more of technology-mediated play will be designed to include those of us who learn through movement.
- For a one page synopsis, see the wiki! Raph Koster: A Theory of Fun for Game Design Fun is the act of mastering a problem mentally. It is the feedback that our brains give us when we are absorbing patterns for learning purposes. If a problem is too easy or too hard, it's not perceived as "fun." As a person's mastery increases, things that used to be "fun" may become boring (e.g. Tic Tac Toe). National Institute for Play: Types of Play Attunement Play: e.g., the parent-child bonding that takes place during peek-a-boo with an infant Body and Play Movement: fe.g., jumping, skipping, or twirling just for the sake of it * Object Play: e.g., banging pans, skipping rocks, shooting marbles Social Play: This type has three subsets (belonging, rough and tumble, celebratory) Imaginative and Pretend Play: e.g., imaginary friends, dress-up, make-believe * Storytelling / Narrative Play: e.g., puppet shows, shaggy dog stories Transformative-Integrative Play: e.g., Einstein imaginatively riding pleasurably on a sunbeam at the speed of light, playing around with ideas for new products, play + science = transformation Scot Osterweil: The Four Freedoms of Play Freedom to :Experiment , Fail , Try on Different Identities Freedom of Effort (to stop at any time) Brian Sutton-Smith: The Ambiguity of Play Play is "liminal" in that it occupies a threshold between reality and unreality. Ambiguity of Reference - Is that a pretend gun sound, or are you choking?. * Referent - Is that an object or a toy? (stick transformed into a sabre) Intent - Do you mean it, or is it pretend? Sense - Is it serious, or is it nonsense? Transition - You said you were only playing * Contradiction - A man playing at being a woman Meaning - Is it play or playfighting? The Strong National Museum of Play: Elements of Play Anticipation, Surprise, Pleasure, Understanding, Strength, Poise * Each of these elements increases and grows stronger as you play
- What are some of the common themes across all these theories? Open-endedness, bricolage (for example, a phone used as the recording studio -- using technologies in unanticipated and inventive ways - cite "Tinkering as a Mode of Knowledge Production in a Digital Age" - Carnegie Foundation - Videos at http://vimeo.com/2183356), Collaboration (group process in which each member contributes -- the strengths of one benefit the others) Experimentation (ad lib is the "pre writing" for script development) Composition process that spans several media (f2f improv, text, video), (Youth) student-directed and student-generated content Imitation and fantasy (learning through pretending a la Gregory Bateson) Deep engagement and personal investment (flow). How can we infuse more of these features into the learning experiences we offer to our students?