Learning_Education_and_Games._Volume_Two.pdf (original) (raw)

Games and Learning

Handbook of the Learning Sciences (2nd Ed.), 2014

Video games are one of the most promising innovations in the world of learning. From simple puzzle-based mobile games to sprawling massively-multiplayer worlds, games of all shapes and sizes provide opportunities for players to interact with complex environments, master sophisticated content, develop skills for social interaction, and build 21 st century skills. Over the last decade, interest in videogames as a learning technology has grown from a few lone scholars in education and one popular book (Gee, 2006) to a welldeveloped scholarly domain with established lines of inquiry, peer-reviewed journals and community events. Across multiple existing disciplines including educational technology, literacy, science education, computer science, and design, a number of universities and colleges have established game programs in research, design and development: Harvard University, Dartmouth, New York University, University of Southern California, Carnegie Mellon University, MIT, and University of Wisconsin-Madison to name a few. Such programs have made significant inroads into the design of games and game-based environments to improve cognition and learning. As pressure on schools to educate efficiently and assess frequently increase, games have emerged as a leading potential technological solution to interactive, immersive learning and formative, diagnostic assessment at scale.

Games and Learning: what's the connection

International Journal of Learning and Media, 2009

This article reviews how the relationship be- tween computer games and learning has been conceptualized in policy and academic litera- ture, and proposes a methodology for exploring learning with games that focuses on how games are enacted in social interactions. Drawing on Sutton-Smith’s description of the rhetorics of play, it argues that the educational value of games has often been defined in terms of rem- edying the failures of the education system. This, however, ascribes to games a specific on- tology in a popular culture that is defined in terms of its opposition to school culture. By analyzing games produced in school by 12- to 13-year-olds in the context of a media education project, the article shows how notions of what a game is emerge from conventionalized and historical relations within a setting, and that the educational value of games can therefore be re-thought in terms of the situated significa- tion of “game” rather than games causing learn- ing. The students’ production work is analyzed using a discursive, semiotic methodology and focuses on changing principles of design across time. Changing notions of “game” and “play” are therefore highlighted and analyzed in terms of how students position themselves in relation to the teacher, researchers, and their peers. The significance of the study for conceptualizing the relationship between games and learning is re- viewed in the conclusion.

Games, learning & society: Introduction to the special issue

2009

Each year, the Games, Learning and Society (GLS) program at the University of Wisconsin-Madison hosts a conference to facilitate conversation about digital literacy learning in the spaces of popular culture, fandom, and interactive media-like games. Each year, we bring academics, designers, educators, and media fans together to share thoughts and findings on how digital media, commercial and otherwise, can enhance learning, culture, and education. The event has been a surprising success in many ways, and we now boast an acceptance rate (13-30%) more stringent than some peer-reviewed academic journals and a waiting list for entry each year. In response, we have not only expanded our capacity for participants each year but also increased our audience through special issues in journals central to our community such as E-Learning. This special issue represents one of our attempts to connect important research themes represented at GLS to broader conversations about the nature and quality of learning through digital media more broadly. Although the title GLS specifies 'games', our interests are better conceptualized as 'learning through interaction' in more comprehensive terms. The community and field has expanded over the past five years to include research and design in areas well beyond video games alone to include popular culture and fandom communities, digital/visual cultures, and interactive design more generally.

Distinctions between games and learning: A review of the literature on games in education

Gaming & Cognition: Theories and Perspectives From the Learning Sciences., 2010

Serious Games are digital games designed for purposes other than pure entertainment. This category includes educational games but it also includes a great deal more. A field that was unheard of until Ben Sawyer referred to it as Serious Games in late 2002 (Sawyer, 2003) has already grown so large that one can only hope to keep track of a very small part of it. The time is rapidly coming to an end when literature surveys of even one branch of Serious Games can be considered comprehensive. This chapter will examine the current state of the discipline of that part of serious games that intersects with formal education, with a particular focus on design. The work begins broadly by looking at games in order to define the term but then narrows to a specific focus on games for education. In this way, it provides an educational context for games as learning objects, distinguishes between traditional, (i.e. non-digital; Murray, 1998) and digital games, and classifies games for education as a subcategory of serious games while at the same time still being part of a larger group of interactive digital applications.

Beyond Entertainment: Games as Learning Technologies

2004

Computer and videogames are increasingly becoming recognized as providing a powerful means for learning. This paper explores what is it about today's digital games that provide such deep learning experiences, together with how educational designers can harness the potential of games.

Game based learning -a different perspective

Video game use in education has focused on the application of games within the existing education system and on their inherent potential for producing learning (Gee 2003). However, research has revealed a fundamental mismatch between the goals of games and the object of school-based learning . As a result, efforts to integrate games into the curriculum have frequently fallen flat despite the best intentions of teachers and the gaming industry. Such efforts have failed either because games designed to educate do not engage their intended audience, or because truly engaging games do not provide enough educational value.