First Blog

Blog: Gaming in Education

The quest required reading two articles: “Situated Learning in Virtual Worlds” and “Immersive Simulations and A Literature Review of Gaming.” There were also two videos: Future Learning a Mini Documentary and Gaming Can Make a Better World. These resources provided several different aspects of gaming which are positive to education. Beginning with the articles, the point was made that there are correlations between goals of traditional instruction and the motivations and outcomes of children immersed in gaming. A sound and productive learning environment can be attained with gaming, as well as the importance of play integrated with education was the first point. In my observation in a middle school class, I saw this in action. The children were “playing” Kahoot, a multiple choice framework enabled by their personal tablets. In fact, they were studying for the social studies test scheduled for the next day. The children were challenged and at the same time having fun. I remember my son, who is now 22, playing a world civilization game on his play-station. I thought he was wasting time until he explained to me the evolution of ships from trireme through the Spanish galleon. This leads to the second point - gaming provides personalized instruction. He was challenged: but his goals were also achievable, therefore he persisted. The third point – engagement. Engaged with his quest, he pursued the relative information necessary to complete the task with repetitive practice. The fourth point – 21^st century skills is a given; computer skills are second nature to the younger generation as well as researching required information. The final point – relative assessment is also apparent when a student is progressively achieving different levels by meeting goals. The whole game is inherently an assessment. Problems addressed were technical in nature - connectivity glitches and the ability or lack thereof to type fast enough. Broadband access is solving the problem with glitches and repetitive practice is the answer to lack of typing skills.

The videos provided reinforcement on these points. Starting with the mini documentary, Professor Mitra points to traditional teaching strategies being outmoded which were based in the Victorian Era. The answer as he sees it is in self motivation. He contends that almost anything is possible with access to a computer and enthusiastic reinforcement. Merrill interjected the blurring line between playing and education. He emphasized the importance of a relaxed mind with stress causing the brain to shut down. Another aspect discussed is the universal participation in a gaming scenario. I personally experienced this with online classes where students who would normally not participate were encouraged by collaboration on Moodle site to give impute in a blog format. One of my undergraduate classes was entirely the role playing game, Fiesta. The class was Sociology and the purpose was interaction and collaboration inside the virtual framework of the game.
Reading comprehension, an all important element in education, is obtained not by class drills or assignments, but by the engaged student pursuing personal goals inside the created environment. Minecraft-edu is an excellent example of this line of reasoning. Students in the three short videos were shown working individually with an educator who was only encouraging the child by asking questions on methods and goals while verbally encouraging with comments based on admiration of the outcomes that were being constructed in the context of the game.

We were also required to go to three educational gaming sites and play. Going back to essentials, some of the sites failed to load; others provided information but no access to the game. I chose: Geography Games, Submerge, and Educational Gaming Commons. In Geography Games the game Metropolitan Areas was to properly identify major cities around the world and another Geogussr was to guess a location based on a panoramic interactive picture from Google Earth. Submerge provided a Jamestown Colony Adventure. The task was to land, decide on the appropriate interaction with Native Americans, and choose which crops to plant for the survival of the colonist. Penn State’s Education Gaming Commons offered elementary school games. The one I played encouraged sharing and how that might be reciprocated. I had a sixteen year old collaborator who played the Metropolitan Areas and Geoguessr. He immediately became engaged and after completing the tasks, was motivated to replay both games. In Geoguessr he was able to move further in the sites and pictures than I thought possible. Of course he did this without reading instructions. He also showed determination to find his location without time constraints incorporating many different strategies: types of cars, language on signs, and topography to come to his conclusions. He scored very well.