Technology & Learning - October 2007 - (Page 34)

sustained focus over dozens of hours of game play to fully develop a profession, and because you can have only two primary professions, switching jobs carries a high cost. My 13-yearold son decided to switch from skinning and leatherworking to mining and blacksmithing so that he could build better armor for his character. This took him several weeks. He roamed the entire game world in search of resources and relied on other players for guidance and encouragement as he worked his way through this transition. This is a kid who regularly misplaces homework assignments and can’t seem to keep his room clean. But for several weeks he could tell me in detail what he was working on and the next steps toward his ultimate goal in the game. All the while, he learned great lessons about persistence, focus, goals, and networking. MYth #4— Teachers don’t need to be involved in the game; kids can do it on their own. As with any effective classroom learning experience, successful game-based learning relies on the guidance of a well-informed teacher. One of the huge advantages designers have when building educational games for the classroom is that they can bank on the presence of an adult to direct game play discussions toward connections with real-world concepts (or “meatspace,” as gamers sometimes refer to it). David Shaffer, associate professor of learning science at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, put it this way in his 2006 book How Computer Games Help Children Learn: “Wandering around in a rich computer environment without guidance is a bad way to learn. Learners are novices, and letting them work in a simulation without support leads to the very real human tendency to look for patterns and to develop creative but spurious generalizations.” He continues, “The knowledge that matters in any domain is the knowledge that experts have— the knowledge they use to see the world, solve problems, and justify their answers.” Until recently, there has been a dearth of strong professional development materials to help teachers integrate games into their classrooms. This is changing. A new wave of resources includes an increasing number of game-centered sessions at education conferences, a range of commercial training products, and a new focus on games Getting Started with Games The following is an excerpt from the article “Not Just Fun and Games,” by Susan McLester, which appeared in the 2006 CoSN Compendium. Educator Bill MacKenty’s tips for teachers interested in taking the first steps toward game integration: 1) Buy a few copies of a “gold standard” game (Civilization, Age of Empires, SimCity, etc.) and try them out! 2) Ask your social studies/history teacher for current curriculum goals and how you can support those goals in your classroom. 3) Form an after-school computer club. Tell the kids what you are trying. Trust me, they want us to succeed and will be more than happy to help us find the educational component to a game. 4) When using multiple learning stations, incorporate games. This also works if you only have two or three computers in a classroom. in schools of education. At the National Educational Computing Conference in June, there were18 sessions addressing how to incorporate games into core curriculum areas, including reading, writing, algebra, history, physics, biology, environmental studies, public health, nutritional studies, and art. Developer Muzzy Lane and the Game Institute, a U.S.-UK partnership offering online courses and certification in game development, have jointly produced a course titled “Using Games in Education.” This professional development course covers the learning principles behind educational games, offers practical tips from teachers and professors already using games, and trains educators in how to select the right games for their classrooms and how to prepare themselves and students for the whole gaming experience. Certain graduate schools of education are now following the lead of MIT and the University of WisconsinMadison, which began developing and piloting games and offering educator training in their joint initiative, the Education Arcade, back in the early 2000s. Professor James Paul Gee, education game expert and author of the 2003 book What Video Games Have to Teach Us About Learning and Literacy, was recently recruited from the University of Wisconsin to the School of Education at Arizona State University in order to ramp up a game program there. Other universities that have started formal programs in video game design and usage include Stanford, the University of Indiana, the University of Central Florida, Harvard, Caltech, and Southern Methodist University. Professional development—a necessary precursor to the widespread adoption of video games in classrooms— 34 | www.techlearning.com http://www.techlearning.com

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Technology & Learning - October 2007 Editor’s Desk News & Trends Product Guide Reviews How Fast Is Fast Enough? Cover Story: Career Education in the Digital Age Getting It Wrong Higher Ed Point of View How To Bottom Line What’s New Emerging Tech

Technology & Learning - October 2007

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