Games Based Learning Integrated with Traditional Exercises

There is a buzz surrounding games based learning currently.  They are many games that can be used in classrooms and for training and development.  However, they will usually be most effective when they sit alongside traditional materials.  It is unlikely that you could get all the information you need from one game (although of course it is possible).

Overview

Recently we were asked by The University of Northampton to put together a learning simulation to be delivered within the context of a Housing and Community Living Module within the Health School.  We developed Planit-Housing.  In Planit-Housing, additional workshop activities (incidents) have been fully integrated into the learning simulation.  Teams must complete exercises out of the simulation, which directly feed back into their in-game progress and score.  The quality of the delegate’s responses to the incidents (a riot or flood in the virtual community) alters multiple variables and the teams’ budgets in the simulation.  There is a seamless interaction between the two learning elements.  They offer a richer experience than either a game or traditional learning activities could have done alone.  This approach also addresses varied learning needs and styles (see ‘Games Based Learning Supports Multiple Learning Styles').  It also provides a flexible way of learning that the facilitator can control and depending on their time constraints, the activities can be divided up as the facilitator sees fit.

The Planit-Housing programme is designed to:

• Explain the complexities of the subject, including issues faced by those in different housing sectors, which will be identified and examined from a health perspective in addition to multiple sources of inequity/exclusion.
• Enable the students to improve collaborative working skills and practically explore the partnership working necessary for successful and sustainable communities.  These include developing an understanding of the big picture (strategic thinking), cause and effect (joined up thinking), communication / negotiation skills and collaborative working (the importance of partnerships). 

Integration of Learning Simulation with Traditional Exercises

Planit-Housing is the latest learning simulation from pixelfountain; the latest incarnation of our mission to integrate learning simulations with traditional exercises.  In Planit-Housing, each team’s performance in the exercises is judged for content, presentation, teamwork and understanding the wider impacts of the incident.  These values are entered easily into the learning simulation via a dashboard.  In this way multiple variables and the team’s budgets are altered.  For example, in the riot incident, a poor performance by the Housing Team could result in more destruction and reduced housing quality.  Whereas a good performance would mean the team was better prepared and so the impacts in the riot would not be as bad.  In fact, a team could generate positive outcomes for the virtual community, such as improved cohesion resulting from community clean-ups.

The learning simulation also has save functionality.  This means that time constraints needn’t be a worry.  Planit-Housing has been used by The University of Northampton over three afternoon sessions.  However, it is flexible and could be used over fewer or more sessions if desired.  It is our firm belief that the teacher/facilitator should be fully in control of the learning process and therefore flexibility built into games is an important feature.  For more information, see our Games Based Learning Analysis and Planning Tool).  The teacher/facilitator should be able to stop game play at any time to reinforce or assess learning, do a non-game activity, end the session and so on.  Many commercial games do not allow this and some purpose built games overlook this feature.

Benefits of the approach

• Flexibility – the approach allows the simulation workshop to incorporate any sort of activity to achieve a specific learning outcome.
• Extension – the learning simulation can be extended to incorporate sophisticated workshop exercises and additional learning components, which can be interweaved into the game play.
• No additional development - whatever the exercise, the trainees can be judged using standard metrics.
• Engagement – the exercises break up the game play and the simulation brings added weight to the traditional workshop exercise.
• Supports multiple learning styles – exercises / learning components can be designed to suit all learning styles and together they work in a single meta exercise or learning piece.
• Supports active learning – real world activities can be incorporated into the learning process. 

What Next

pixelfountain is always looking to innovate and improve.  The next steps for this type of learning could include a more sophisticated dashboard which would enable the trainer / facilitator to:

• Trigger any number of incidents as and when they want them to occur in the workshop programme.
• Integrate incidents without the need for additional bespoke coding.  Specific algorithm variables could be selected in terms of the impact of a newly devised incident.  The trainer could determine the level of impact for each variable and how the workshop activity relates to the variables.

A core simulation could then incorporate incidents without the need to involve a development team.

Other Examples

Grandma’s Games:  Grandma’s Games have won awards for their innovative learning programmes, which make use of traditional games (mostly from Macedonia), such as hopscotch and Cat’s Cradle.  They use these games along with technology to teach areas within and beyond the curriculum.  For example, a game called Chelik (steel) has the following learning outcomes:

“To learn the linear measures, cm (centimeter) dm (decimeter) and m (meter); to be able to compare linear measures by free judgment; to make linear measure instruments, rulers and tape measures with the use of computers; to draw in Paint and to print rulers and tape measures glued on a piece of paper; to define homonyms (same words with different meanings); evergreen and deciduous trees; to explore pictures using Bing, memorize and insert them in a Power Point presentation.”

For more information and resources visit: http://www.grandmasgames.org/Visitor/Games.aspx.

SimCityEDU: As I am sure many of you are aware, the latest incarnation of SimCity will be released early next month.   However, what you might not know is that SimCityEDU has also been developed by a partnership between Electronic Arts, Inc. (EA) and GlassLab (a research and development initiative aimed at transforming learning practices through digital games). Educators can use SimCityEDU in the classroom to teach students STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics) subjects alongside traditional methods.  The website (which goes live in March 2013) reads:

“Engage your students by using the SimCity game to make learning come alive! Create and share SimCity-based learning tools that address a wide range of subjects including science, math, civics, economics, and more.”

Please follow @paulladley on Twitter and like games-ED’s Pinterest, Facebook and Google+ pages for blog updates and interesting games based learning links and resources.

Ten Reasons why Games Based Learning Works in Education

The following list (in black) is from connectED with some of my thoughts (in green).

1. Familiarity – Most students use technology regularly at home, so integrating technology and games based learning into their school life can be very quick and easy. 

2. Engagement – Games based learning can be engaging for children of all educational levels and interests as good educational games draw on different learning styles and they offer something a bit different from the norm.  Games can also be used to engage the disengaged.  Feedback from games-ED workshops frequently mentions this.  For example, “it really captured their attention” and “the students were engaged in the activity” (from an earlier blog article, found here) See a wonderful example here on the Guardian blog ‘An English teacher discovers digital literacy really works’ http://www.guardian.co.uk/teacher-network/2011/dec/05/engage-disengaged-students-digital-literacy.

3. Blended learning has a real place – blending traditional printed media with interactive multimedia gives you the best of both worlds. Technology no longer needs to play a supporting role.  A benefit of games based learning is that it gives people the chance to learn by doing (and being, see earlier blog article).  Rather than simply listening to a teacher or completing written work, students get the chance to engage with interactive software with the opportunity to receive immediate feedback and see the results of their actions (in learning simulations, such as those by pixelfountain).  For example (see Proof of the Pudding article) in the words of one pupil, “It was great being in charge of the town and seeing what the result was.”

4. A cost effective option – In terms of the outputs and results, games based learning is relatively cheap to implement.  Most schools have access to computers and additional consoles can be bought relatively cheaply (and used many times).  However, cost is seen as one of the main barriers to games based learning.  Specifically educational games are often cheaper than commercial entertainment games (when multiple licences and consoles are taken into account, see The Games Based Learning Planning and Analysis Tool by Paul Ladley).  Some games may also represent better value for money than others if they can be used across the curriculum and for various age groups.  games-ED games for example are designed to be used in this way. 

5. Content galore! – Educational apps abound and it’s now really easy to create your own multimedia educational content for use on everything from language labs to macs, pcs and ipads. The Internet is stuffed full of free resources to help bring content to life everything from Voki (used to create your own avatars) to Camstudio (records all screen activity and turns it into a small video file).  Some companies also offer schools and organisations tailoring services, so the games can be personalised to the particular school etc.

6. On a mission! – games based learning also refers to the use of ‘mission’ and ‘quest’ based learning. A lovely example here from Soar Valley College where students used Sony PlayStation Portable and augmented reality software Second Sight to bring the secrets of the solar system to life. http://www.connectededucation.com/case-study/making-sense-of-the-solar-system-with-sony-playstation/ Goals can be extremely motivating for learners and this is especially true for children, when it is not always obvious why they are at school.  Using fun, goal-based games gives children a goal to aim for which can be very motivating and aid greater learning and retention.  Playing in a quest like way can also increase skills such as collaboration and communication skills, problem-solving skills and encouraging students to think of the ‘bigger picture’, which are important ‘soft’ skills to be learnt.

7. Flexibility – Game based learning techniques are not just restricted to inside the classroom. Teachers report bringing class sets of PlayStation Portables out on field trips to make video diaries.  Robust and durable, these new technologies mean educational content can still be accessed on the move.  Some companies also make social networks for students or include home use in their licences so that the children can play games at home: homework that is fun.

8. Stay ahead – getting stuck in and embracing new technologies helps brings teacher multimedia skills up to date, equally an understanding of game based learning helps to support schools and teachers to make the most of the technologies they already have. See an example here of a successful game based learning intervention and deployment in action at The Richard Rose Morton Academy in Carlisle.http://www.connectededucation.com/case-study/richard-rose-morton-academy-leads-the-way-in-game-based-learning/.  An understanding of games based learning can greatly improve teaching methods and help the achievement of learning outcome and schools’ mission statements and so on.  However, as games based learning in education is relatively newly recognised (through research etc.) but seen as ‘the way forward’, it looks good for the school and individual teachers if they have experience of teaching through games.  It is a competitive advantage.

9. 21st century workplace skills, more and more organisations require different skills from the old Industrial model (see earlier blog post). Game based learning encourages these 21st century requirements of independent thinking, mission and quest based tasking, communication and collaboration skills.  As mentioned earlier, ‘soft’ employability skills are extremely important and children of all ages should be encouraged to develop them, ‘the earlier the better’ so to speak.  One student in a games-ED workshop said, “It was really good fun and it increased my knowledge of working together and sharing”.  These skills are not only good for employability but are obviously good social skills to be learnt too.

10. The students love it! On a recent game based learning project designed to engage Y5 pupils in literacy at Foxhill Primary School when asked “Who likes writing?” at the start of the project, only 13 hands out of 23 went up. When asked “Who has enjoyed writing about our eye pet?” all 23 hands in the class went up!  pixelfountain has had similar feedback from students (see Proof of the Pudding parts 1, 2 and 3).  For example, a student at one workshop said, “It was fun and a great way to learn”.

Oh and its fun!