Blog #2 Contribution to Learning

This week our team listed, with reasons, criteria we believed necessary to create a successful serious game.  As I contributed to the list, I discussed with team mates, how to best prioritize this list and combine commonalities among the list.  

I responded to Sara H. and shared with her my skepticism at the time involved in finding serious games to meet the objectives of the lessons I am trying to teach...trying to keep it well-balanced will be difficult.  I also let her know of my agreement in “promoting risk taking” when designing and/or choosing serious games for my classroom.  The risk taking component is a great opportunity for students to meet challenges “head on”, and develop courage through these risks.

I also let Sara L. know how much I appreciated her ideas for the criteria for serious games.  She came up with several that I had not read about or thought of.  I especially liked her ideas of creating a “storyline” and “interactivity” of the game.  The storyline is an excellent way to personally involve the student in a life-changing environment.  We all love a good story, and if we can be a part of the story as well as a part of its ending, we get involved mentally as well as

emotionally.  This type of involvement, keeps us interested in the plot and the outcome of the story.

The “interactiveness” between the game itself and the player is great, but I also suggested of equal importance, the interactiveness between the player and the other players. The peer-to-peer involvement allows students to work together, coordinate ideas, respond to human decisions, and complete common goals within the game.  

Keeping a balance between playing serious games in class and getting through the material required was a comment I made in Brandi’s initial blog.  It seems to be such a difficult conundrum to play a serious game to teach important skills to students, but still getting through the material to prepare students for the next course of study.  This seems especially true for math students.  Since math builds from year to year, it is imperative for students to be well prepared for the next year’s course.  Will serious games help to accomplish this?  Will they prevent this from happening because of the amount of time they take away from “book study”?  I’m not sure...I would hope that they can be used to prepare students for future math courses as well as be an encouraging and fun opportunity for students to learn the subject being taught.

I feel that my biggest contributions at this point of class seem to be the questions I ask of my classmates.  Since I am not really familiar with any games, let alone serious games, I ask a lot of questions to not only educate myself, but also help others to really think through the rationale behind the statements they make in blogs.

What are the common components of serious games? 

As I read and listened to audio discussions of serious games, I pondered which of the myriads of components of serious games I believed were "have to haves" to make them "work" in my world. 

During our discussion on Tuesday night, January 21, I listened to many suggest the number of criteria be from 3 all the way to 7.  After thinking about this, I decided on 9.  Maybe several of them could be combined, but I really can't see any in my list that I would like to eliminate.

So, they are listed below with my justification for suggesting them.

--Reflection by players--players should not just play a game, they should be reflecting on positive and negative consequences of their choices during their involvement.  This reflection opportunity allows players to learn from their mistakes and be built up by their accomplishments.  It also helps them to commit things to memory.

--Build problem solving skills--one of the areas students are weak in is the ability to see a problem and be able to solve it using logic and reasoning skills.  This is a skill that must be developed and used in "real life" if students are going to make much of a difference in their worlds.

--Be attractive and interesting to participate in, but educates and trains as well--if the game appears "hokey", the student's first word out of their mouth will be "stupid".  If this happens, it's over.  Students want games to be of the same quality as the entertaining games they play.

--Motivates students to continue learning and training--I believe serious games should encourage students to learn.  I think humans have had a desire to learn since day 1 and we as educators can encourage that desire or "squash" it with boring, meaningless lessons, etc.  I do agree that not all learning has to be, or will be, fun...that's life; but, I think that all that we do with our students should encourage students to want more.

--Engages students--Do the games keep students attention?  Do they keep students involved?  I think this is important.  If students are not engaged, then they are not part of what is happening.  They are not the participant, they are the observer.  And...research suggests that participants learn more than observers.

--Be challenging but “conquerable”--We all want a challenge.  Guys want to rescue the Princess, etc.  Life is boring if there aren't any dragons to slay.  But, if winning the game, or slaying the dragon is impossible, then why play?  Students want to be challenged, yet, they want to be able to succeed.  Why?  Because our self-image improves and we feel like heroes when we face something difficult and succeed at overcoming this difficulty.

--Unsure of the outcome thus adding mystery to the game--Most of us hate it when someone gives away the ending to a great book or movie.  Not knowing the final outcome keeps us interested.  In a gaming situation, it even makes us believe that we have the power to change the outcome of the adventure.  And, it's not an adventure if the ending is known.

--Must have learning objectives--Without predetermined learning objectives, the game may be fun, but has no real learning direction.  Maybe it's my concrete-sequential personality, but I need to know that at the end of the game, my students will know this, this, and this.  Everything else we do has objectives, I think that gaming is no different.  Objectives give me a road map to follow.

--Must represent real world situations in order to teach students to use the skills in the real world.  This one is pretty broad...what I mean is that the game must allow students to live a life that is imaginary, but possible in the real world.  Having magic powers, ability to fly, etc. may be fun, but it doesn't help me to handle difficult situations in real life since I can't fly away to escape or use my awesome magical powers to conquer the bad guy.

So, those are my thoughts...I know there are "holes" in them and they will probably shift a bit as the course continues.


Sources  added 1/25/2014 (I forgot to list them with my initial blog : (  )


EdGamer Episode 10: Games and Learning with James Gee.  http://edreach.us/2011/05/04/edgamer-episode-10-games-and-learning-with-james-gee/

Gee, James.  Good Video Games and Good Learning.  http://www.academiccolab.org/resources/documents/Good_Learning.pdf

Sisler, V., Brom, C., Jaroslav, C., Kamil, C., Jakub, G.  Stories from the History of Czechoslovakia, a serious game for teaching history of the Czech lands in the 20th century – notes on design concepts and design process.  http://artemis.ms.mff.cuni.cz/main/papers/StoriesFrom-Sisler-Brom2012.pdf

Frank, A.  Balancing Three Different Foci in the Design of Serious Games: Engagement, Training Objective and Context.  http://denis.kraynov.2009.homepage.auditory.ru/2006/Ivan.Ignatyev/DiGRA/Learning/Balancing%20Three%20Different%20Foci%20in%20the%20Design%20of%20Serious%20Games_Engagement,%20Training%20Objective%20and%20Context.pdf.

Blog #1 Contribution of Learning

Although “tongue in cheek”, I did make everyone feel better about their lack of “technological savvy”, since I really struggle with Twitter, etc.

But seriously, as a teacher since 1984, I feel that I have seen every awesome educational idea that has been introduced over the years, and then seen them fall away as ineffective.  So, I hesitated with accepting the idea of serious games as a real learning opportunity for students and saw it as just another educational “fly by night” idea.  But as I studied, thought about the ideas, watched the TED talks, and really evaluated their use, I believe they can be a strong asset to any teaching program.  That being said, since I am so “gun shy” of any new-fangled idea, and have a few years in the classroom under my belt, I believe that my evaluation of the serious games as a true learning tool will be more readily acceptable than from a younger teacher.  I, in no way, am saying that I am the “wise old man on the mountain”, but I believe my experience may give credibility to my opinion.

I also believe that my game choices in my initial blog are very useful for students to use.  They make math real for students, help students better understand the conflicts in the Middle East, and allow them to learn the rules of the road prior to driving on the road.  These games that I have made available to others are a real strength to a classroom and are not only fun to “play”, but the learning behind these games will better prepare students for real life situations.  

Finally, I think that my philosophy about the use of serious games might be an encouragement to those who are hesitant to give them a try.  I believe that very few students will ever really change the world, but they will be making a difference in their “own little world” of the people they are in contact with from day to day.  This being the case, the theory and skills they learn while playing serious games can easily be translated into real life.  

What serious games exist for people ages 13+? What can we learn by playing these games?

Below, I have a couple of serious games I "stumbled upon" in my frantic search as I enter the world of "gaming". At 53, I really don't have much time for entertainment on the computer with "fun gaming"...I'm too busy living : )...but, I am always looking for inventive ways to help my students learn....so, I'm really open to this concept of serious gaming as a prospect.The first game I found is called "Creditability Game" and is a serious game helping students gain a better understanding of the financial world they will be entering. The game helps students learn about money, borrowing and spending. It looks pretty good (haven't had a chance to play since I am in a "data only" location this week). The game takes place in 4 locations: a college, a mall, TV studios (why, I don't know), and a small village. The game is free and can be found at:

 http://www.experian.co.uk/creditability/play.html#sthash.UJ222CAX.dpuf

As a math teacher who teaches abstract math as well as business math, it is difficult to make students believe that the skills they are learning could ever be useful in "real-life".  The game "Creditability" seems to help students use their math skills in a way that can be really useful and profitable to them outside the educational realm.