Is Games Based Learning the Solution to Student Engagement?

I recently came across an article from Edutopia entitled, ‘Kids Speak Out on Student Engagement’.  The article is a teacher’s summary of 220 students’ responses when asked what engages them.  Interestingly, they could mostly be answered, if only in part, by games based learning.  Below is her list, with my comments about how GBL could help.

1. Working with their peers – the original article explains the power of collaborative learning and discussion.  Many games are designed to be played together and many that aren’t designed this way can still be used in groups.  Games can spark discussion and debate, even if learners are working/playing ‘alone’.  Games can encourage students to problem-solve collaboratively and improve their communication skills.
2. Working with technology – of course GBL doesn’t have to involve technology, but that is the main focus of our blog.  Therefore, games are a great way to get students working with technology in an exciting and productive way.  The article also explains that technology can allow powerful ‘learning by doing’.  An immersive game can help people learn knowledge and skills in a more meaningful way.  And as the article hints, technology (and often gaming) is so prevalent in young people’s lives that it makes little sense for school to be technology and game-free.
3. Connecting the real world to the work we do / project based learning – good game design should help learners connect their learning to the real world.  The games should be relatable and relevant.  All of these things can help motivate students and allow for better memory encoding.  Games can be used as part of a larger project.  However, a good serious game almost acts as a project in itself.  It could allow exploration, learning, problem-solving, creativity and develop the student’s understanding/skills from start to finish.
4. Clearly love what you do – this is about the teachers.  If you are reading this now, it is likely that you are interested in, or maybe even passionate about GBL or innovative, 21st education.  Therefore, bringing a game to the table is likely to be something that you are excited about and that will rub off on students.  
5. Get me out of my seat! – The article explains that students learn most when they are active.  Not all games are built for movement, however some are.  For example, see our articles, ‘Kinect Games Based Learning’ and ‘Proof of the Pudding…’ (this one explains one of our games based workshops where the children or adults are encouraged to get out of their seats to negotiate, problem-solve, prioritise and more with other individuals and groups).
6. Bring in visuals – a good game will have meaningful visuals.  These can make concepts clearer and motivate learners.  For example, in our game, mentioned above, the children are put in charge of a town, which they have to improve by making purchase decisions.  The town graphic, as well as the reports, change according to their decisions.
7. Student choice – games can be very good for encouraging self-directed learning.  The article also mentions having a choice of activities related to a topic for different levels.  Games can be wonderful for allowing learning at the student’s pace and level.  Often games advance when the student has mastered the initial knowledge and skills.
8. Understand your clients – the kids – this one is obviously very dependent on the teacher’s attitude.  The article explains how important the culture of the classroom can be for encouraging learning.  Allowing learners to play games at school has the potential to bring about a lot of respect for the teacher.  This is especially true if the learners are given freedom to play the game as they wish.  Games can be very self-directed but structured which can encourage a positive environment in classrooms.
9. Mix it up! – Obviously games are a great way to mix things up.  They get people doing an activity that is unlike the norm, which can wake people up and keep them motivated to learn.  The article also talks about multiple learning styles (e.g. auditory, kinaesthetic).  See our article ‘Games Based Learning Supports Multiple Learning Styles’ for more about this.
10. Be human – the article finishes by reminding teachers to have fun themselves.  GBL can be a great way to break up the monotony, spark the imagination, bring fun into learning, wake people up, inspire and so on.  These things are important for teachers as well as students.  The article also suggests asking students what engages and motivates them.  How about going to work tomorrow and asking your students what they would like to see more of in the classroom?  Or maybe even if they would like to try GBL?

For the original article, click here.

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Games Develop Social Bonds and Communication Skills

For a long time, many people have assumed that ‘gamers’ are unsociable, loners with poor social skills who reside in their dark bedrooms, only venturing outside to fulfil their basic needs.  However, research shows that this is far from the truth.

Some research does indicate that playing first person shooters such as Halo and Call of Duty does impact negatively on the players’ relationships.  However, that seems to be more to do with the way that people play games than the games themselves.  Research from Benjamin Hickerson at The Pennsylvania State University has found that some gamers play the game primarily as a way to reinforce social bonds.  In-game features such as cooperative modes and multiplayer options make playing games socially both easy and attractive.  The research shows that among this group of social game players, the games help build social ties and enhance social support.

Hickerson’s research suggests that indicators, such as the amount of time and money spent on games, are not related to gamers’ success in maintaining social ties.  He  argues that “Players may actually be doing something positive when gaming becomes a way for games to connect with friends who they otherwise may not be able to spend time with, especially friends who they are not near geographically.”

Hickerson’s study measured centrality (the need to organise ones’ life around the activity) against social bonding.  ‘Centrality’ scores indicated that on the whole, peoples’ social lives were not adversely affected by gaming, although there were a minority that were implicated.  However, Hickerson believes that games may be able to help.  He argues that this information could help video game designers create games that identify socially problematic behaviours (i.e. excessive centrality) and include features in the games that help the players maintain friendships and relationships.

But do games not already do this?  As well as playing in cooperative and multiplayer modes as I mentioned earlier, experts believe that MMORPGs (Massively Multiplayer Online Role Playing Games), may actually “promote sociability and new worldviews.”  Experts have described these virtual worlds as a new kind of ‘third space’ (a place for social interaction and relationships, outside of home and work).  For many people, they are the preferred way of meeting and hanging out with people, when in the past they may have gone to the pub or to a café.  The study titled, “Where Everybody Knows Your (Screen) Name: Online Games as ‘Third Places.’” suggests that the cause of this phenomenon is the lack of real-world hangouts.

In these games, people can hold multiple real-time conversations using text or their voices through microphones.  The study explains that this can enable them to build “relationships of status and solidarity.”  Often, the games reward people for creating long-term relationships and lasting player ‘guilds’ and it can be difficult to play some MMORPGs without doing so.  This is exactly what Hickerson was talking about.

Researchers Steinkuehler and Williams also found that participation in these virtual ‘third places’ “appears particularly well suited to the formation of bridging social capital – social relationships that, while not usually providing deep emotional support, typically function to expose the individual to a diversity of worldviews… In other words… spending time in these social games helps people meet others not like them, even if it doesn’t always lead to strong friendships. That kind of social horizon-broadening has been sorely lacking in American society for decades.”

The authors explain that “To argue that their MMO game play is isolated and passive media consumption that takes the place of informal social engagement is to ignore the nature of what participants actually do behind the computer screen… It’s really a question of what kind of balance the person has in their life… that reason, online spaces are not a one-size-fits-all phenomenon that can simply be labelled ‘good’ or ‘bad.’”

I completely agree, in that the stereotypical view I described in the first paragraph of this post describes very few people who enjoy games.  In my opinion, you could describe many other people in this way who read books, like films, spend their lives on Pinterest and so on.  In my opinion, it is not the activity, but the personality of the individual that defines whether they are sociable or not.

There is much research like that above which shows that games can encourage social interaction and increase social skills and bonds.  Games are increasingly becoming a social activity akin to the past where a family may have gathered around a piano or radio.  You can hardly argue that consoles such as the Wii and Xbox Kinect weren’t designed to be used socially.

One of the factors that actually encourages learning has been found to be social interaction.  Therefore, there is huge scope for cooperative games based learning such as the games in my blog article: ‘Kinect Games Based Learning’ and those that we at games-ED develop.  We have delivered over 450 workshops using games based learning and we find that our simulations are a great tool for encouraging cooperation, teamwork and building bonds.

We also firmly believe that games can be great talking points and can encourage communication skills.  For more research and expertise in this area, see our blog posts: ‘The Art of Conversation’ and ‘Developing Communication Skills via Games Based Learning’.

Resources:

• Hickerson, B., & Mowen, A. (in press). Behavioral and Psychological Involvement of Online Video Gamers: Gateways or Barriers to Social Integration? Society & Leisure.
• Steinkuehler, C., and Williams, D. (2006). Where everybody knows your (screen) name: Online games as “third places.” Journal of Computer-Mediated Communication, 11(4), article 1.

Kinect Games Based Learning

I have spoken in a previous blog post about the amazing uses for the Xbox Kinect with children on the Autism Spectrum.  However, there are also many other ways that Kinect technology can be used to teach a wide range of things.  The website http://www.kinecteducation.com/ has tonnes of educational games that people have developed for a wide range of subjects.  Some of them are a little basic, which is what you might expect for such a young market.  However, it is clear that the Kinect has great potential for games based learning.

I do recommend taking a look at that website as it is full of interesting games and lesson plans etc, but I’m going to focus on one game developer in particular in this blog who has particularly caught my attention.  David Renton is a games developer and lecturer based in Scotland.  He has created several games for the Kinect, which look both educational and great fun.

The first game is Kinect Angles.  This game aims to help children learn angles, percentages, fractions and decimals in a fun way.    In-game, the screen shows a picture of the game-players through the Kinect’s webcam-like system with superimposed images on top.  The aim of the game is to visually represent angles correctly with ones’ arms.  The game can be played individually or as a pair, competitively or not.  In David’s own words, the game “promotes active learning methodologies.  Pupils are engaging with their learning in a physical and multi-sensory manner, meeting the needs of different learning styles; aural, visual and kinaesthetic.”  One child, in a pilot lesson said, “It’s active and you understand it better than just doing it in your jotter.”

The second game is Kinect Time.  It works in a similar way to Kinect Angles, but is used to help teach children time.  Again, it can be played individually or as a pair.  In David’s words, “The point of the game is basically to set the hands on the clock to match the time digitally displayed, you do this by moving your arms; Kinect captures the motion and my game translates it to the hands on the clock face.”  Visit this blog post for a video of the game in action.

Unorthodox uses of Games in Education

Some people are under the impression that games based learning refers simply to course materials being somehow re-worked into a game.  However, this is not the case.  Games based learning is essentially the gamification of learning (using gaming principles to aid learning).  This is not limited to traditional subject materials, but can be used to teach people any number of things.  Yes, it can be used to help teach vocabulary and algebra very successfully.  However, it can also be used to teach life skills and enable people to learn how to learn and think for themselves.  It can also encourage other features such as teamwork and good communication skills.  And of course, games based learning is not limited to children!  

Image courtesy of the threesisters on flickr 

http://www.flickr.com/photos/tripletsisters/7394261682/

These are some of the ways that people are using games to teach a wide number of things to people around the world that you may not immediately have thought of:

Second Life
Second life is a virtual online world.  You create an avatar which can interact with people and explore the world.  As this article explains, the game has been successfully used to teach languages (through tutorials, texts, links and online learning groups), train medical students (through discussions, images, videos, patient stories and weblinks) and even to teach genetics and genomics!  Jean-Claude Bradley (a professor and user of Second Life for education) argues that “With the growing popularity of gaming, we anticipate that more students and faculty will use virtual platforms like ‘Second Life’ to extend the education experience. On this platform — where anything is possible — the Library gets to explore new ways of supporting academic programs, research and student learning, limited only by the scope of the imagination.”  The article lists Harvard, Stanford and MIT as users of Second Life. 

Money Island
Another virtual online world type game is Money Island, aimed at people under the age of 21.  Money Island teaches students about financial responsibility, as this article explains.  The students learn how the economy works, about saving and spending, earning and investing, interest, using credit wisely and so on.  The game also features tools for teachers and parents to track their child’s progress and detailed lesson plans.  As a young person myself (20), I feel that financial matters were lacking from my formal education and believe this game would be a welcome addition to the curriculum (and might create a more reliable generation of bankers and investors etc).

Minecraft
I am personally not too familiar with Minecraft, but as this article explains, “ it's a sandbox style game where users can mine for resources, create buildings, fight off monsters, and use their skills in crafting to make weapons, armour, tools for harvesting, and even rollercoaster-like mine carts”.  There is lots of material on the internet about Minecraft being used in schools.  The article afore mentioned talks about children learning skills such as prioritising, efficiency, developing strategies, digital citizenship and the value of hard work.  These are all obviously very important skills and are the types of benefits of games based learning which I am trying to convey in this post.  School shouldn’t be about just teaching children Maths, English, Science etc, surely it should be developing the next generation of adults.  This blog contains a very detailed lesson plan based around Minecraft, which states that the two learning outcomes are to “Apply knowledge of 3 dimensional landscapes to construct a digital landscape and community [and] Collaborate with classmates to plan and create a digital community”.

Angry Birds
Yes, you did read that right.  There are some genius teachers who have found a way to make Angry Birds educational and this lesson in particular looks great!  For those of you have escaped the wonders of Angry Birds, you essentially work your way through a number of levels where you catapult birds which have different special qualities at structures in order to destroy pigs which stole the birds’ eggs at the start of the game.  Yes, this game exists and yes, it can be educational.  This teacher designed a transdisciplinary lesson around the game including maths (velocity, trajectory, angles etc), history (history of the catapult, modern day uses of the technology) and even music and art (the culture of the time around the invention of the catapult).  Children played the game on an ipad, but also built their own catapults and played the game in real life.  All the while, the teachers asked the children questions such as “What makes the catapult more accurate?”, “What are some forces that act on objects in motion?”, “What happens when the arm of a lever is shortened or the load is moved?” and “How do we calculate motion?”.  Genius!  I don’t think I need to say anything else about this one.

Kinect for XBox
The Kinect device, which is basically a webcam which tracks your movements and projects them onto an onscreen avatar, has had huge unexpected success for children on the Autistic Spectrum.  This article explains how the children can do with the help of Kinect what it would have taken them months to do in intensive therapy.  The games work in helping children interact socially with others as the games are “more predictable and less threatening than real life”.  Several games specifically for children with Autism have now been developed.  This article describes similar results with the Nintendo Wii.

And finally…

Nerf Guns 
Have you ever wondered whether it is possible to teach maths with Nerf guns?  Well apparently the answer is yes; yes it is!  This blog shows you how to teach maths and more specifically ‘coordinate graphing’ with Nerf guns.

As you can see, there is a world of games based learning out there and it may take on less conventional forms that one might first imagine.  Games are being embraced to teach life skills, motor skills, communication skills, subject based skills and so on successfully to a wide range of people, in a fun way!  Games based learning may be the way forward and as this article argues, virtual learning may in fact be better than traditional ‘experiential’ learning.

However, having said this, these commercial games may not be perfectly suited to learning.  They largely rely on great teachers developing great lesson plans and crowbarring them somewhat into the curriculum.  This may just be an indication that games based learning is in the early adopter phase and as such, teachers are finding unorthodox answers to their problem.  They want to use games, but the only ones available to them are commercial games or curriculum ‘games’ which do not have the same edge.  An earlier blog post  talks about the uses of games in educational settings and how commercial games can fall short.  It also suggests ways that purpose built games can overcome these factors.  It’s definitely worth a look!  This article talks about what makes a good learning game.  The author notes that if someone can score highly without learning, they will do (which may happen with commercial games) and as such, learning games should contain certain elements.  I think that as games based learning becomes more prevalent, we are likely to see more purpose built games of a similar calibre to some of these commercial games becoming more mainstream.