introduction to games in education mark wagner coordinator educational technology

Introduction to Games in Education

Mark Wagner

Coordinator Educational Technology

What is Hard Fun?

“It’s hard. It’s fun. It’s LOGO.” (1st Grader)

“I have no doubt that this kid called the work fun because it was hard rather than in spite of being hard.” (Seymour Papert)

“How do we make writing become hard fun?” (Seymour Papert)

Seymour’s gears…

Welcome and Introductions

Name Site Grade / Subject What were your

gears? What are your

students’ gears?

Overview

Piaget, Papert, Prensky

and more…

Purpose/Rationale

Digital Natives & Digital Immigrants (Prensky, 2001) Incidental vs. Intentional Learning (Jonassen, 2002) enGauge 21st Century Skills (NCREL, 2003)

Digital Age Literacies Inventive Thinking Effective Communication High Productivity

Constructivist Learning Environments… Context, Choice, Collaboration (Wagner, 2005)

Relevant Theorists

Jean Piaget (1929 to 1976) Seymour Papert (1980, 1993, 1996) Marc Prensky (2001) James Paul Gee (2003, 2005) Clark Aldrich (2004, 2005) Graduate Students…

Jean Piaget

Cognitive Structures & Schemes

Functional Invariants Adaptation Organization

Adaptation Assimilation Accommodation

Stage Theory

Seymour Papert

Mindstorms, 1980

The Children’s Machine, 1993

The Connected Family, 1996

www.papert.org

Marc Prensky

Digital Game-Based Learning, 2001

marcprensky.com

games2train.com

James Paul Gee

What Video Games Have To Teach Us About Learning and Literacy, 2003

Why Video Games are Good For Your Soul, 2005

Clark Aldrich

Simulations and the Future of Learning, 2004

Learning by Doing, 2005

Learning Circuits

Virtual Leader

simulearn.net

simSchool

simSchool.org

Graduate Students

Nick Yee Kurt Squire Constance Steinkue

hler Fiona Littleton Mark Wagner And more…

Share Resources

Share new or striking ideas from your own… Reading Listening Viewing Experience

Break - 5 minutes

Hands On

Experience an Educational Game

The WFP’s Food Force

Richard Halverson (2005)

“Nowhere is the current generational gap in technology greater than in game literacy, and while asking school leaders and teachers to play commercial video games may be a stretch, integrating game-based learning experiences in their professional development may help them see the merits of gaming from the inside.”

Reflection Questions

What was your experience like as a player?

What relationships do you see between this game and the theories we discussed?

Break - 5 minutes

Games in Your Classroom

What can you use on Monday?

Web-based Games

Browser based

Mostly FREE

Engaging and content related

Great for younger students

Commercial Off The Shelf (COTS) Games

Teachers may not be able to develop a cutting edge game, but many games can be repurposed.

“Instead of embedding a game into learning, it is possible to embed learning into a game.” (Downes, 2005)

Civilization III

Real Time Strategy Systems Content Social Studies

Concepts Complexity, flexibility,

replayability Failure and choice Kurt Squire’s

Dissertation (2004)

Kurt Squire (2005)

25% complained the game was too hard, complicated and uninteresting.

25% loved playing the game,thought it was a “perfect way to learn history”, and a highlight of their year.

Students played the game in different ways, leading to highly different understandings.

Playing games does not appeal to everyone, and no one game appeals to all gamers.

Making History

Designed for education!

Assessment features

Successfully piloted

Unreal Tournament

First Person Shooter

Mod-able

Used to teach chemistry!

Neverwinter Nights

Role Playing Game (RPG)

Toolset for user-made content

Teachers can be gamemasters (GMs)

MIT’s Revolution Mod

MMORPGs

Massively Multiplayer Online Role Playing Games

Context, Choice, Collaboration

Guilds!

Teen Second Life

13-18 year olds

Avatar customization

User created content

In game economy

And More…

Age of Empires Age of Mythology Rise of Nations Morrowind The Sims SimCity etc… Zoo Tycoon etc…

Myst …

Designing a game?

Benefits of design Deep understanding

of the subject required and developed

Variables identified Relationships

between variables identified

Inventive thinking

Benefits of implementation Technical Literacy Effective

Communication High Productivity

Think, Pair, Share

What are some possible uses for games in your class?

Lesson Planning

Outline a lesson plan incorporating a game into your class.

What would a state of the art instructional video game look

like? (Gee, 2005)

Just do it! (Aldrich, 2005)

“[Teachers] can nudge. They can implement. They can make case studies.” (2005)

Games in Education, Part II

Social Constructivism: Dewey

Vygotsky

Bruner

Serious Games Games for Change May 9th, 2006 - http://register.ocde.us

Go forth and do great things!

Mark Wagner

mwagner@ocde.us

714-966-4153