New gaming technology is an increasingly important learning tool for kids and adults.
Watching his boys play video games, Karl Kapp wondered how he could leverage their immersion and engagement.
“I kept thinking: Why is online learning so boring and gaming is so exciting?” said the professor of instructional technology at Bloomsburg University and author of The Gamification of Learning and Instruction.
“Is there anything we can borrow from games to make learning more exciting?”
Or the bigger question: Can video games make you smarter?
As it turns out, the answer to both is a resounding yes. Kids and adults can reap serious educational benefits by integrating gaming technology and play into the learning process.
The Institute of Play was founded in 2007 to address issues around youth engagement in learning, said Robert Gehorsam, the Institute’s Executive Director.
“Research shows kids can be tuned out at school, but they’re super-engaged in productive ways around digital media and games,” he said.
The organization set out to extract what makes games so appealing and transfer that into learning.
“The results are very intriguing when you think about what you want kids and adults to be in the 21st century,” Gehorsam said.
Just what is it that we want people to be in this century? And how exactly do games help that?
“The way we look at information in society is changing,” explained Ross Flatt, assistant principal and founding teacher at Quest to Learn, an Institute project in New York public schools.
“It is really more about how we work with it. It’s less about what we know and more how we can use it.”
These abilities call for deeper learning skills, Gehorsam said, like systems thinking, collaboration and higher-order life skills. “And that was something game-like learning could foster.”
More traditional learning structures that focus on the acquisition of basic skills and content knowledge don’t always teach those capabilities. “[It’s] not like you can take an SAT for these competencies,” Gehorsam said, “but employers want them.”
Game-Changer
While the idea of gamification has recently gained traction, it’s not a new one. In the Middle Ages and Renaissance, chess was used to teach war strategies to noblemen, according to the Institute of Play.
These days, even though play continues to be a part of learning, it’s often consigned to early childhood. All too soon, learning becomes a serious matter.
“What’s happened in the digital era is playfulness has extended into adulthood,” Gehorsam said. “As a result of wonderful research in cognitive science, we’re actually able to associate real learning benefits to effective design of games.”
Think about how games work, he continued.
“You’re typically faced with a challenge where you don’t know the answer. You have to call on a lot of skills — strategic thinking and collaboration — to solve problems, rather than regurgitate facts, which has been the dominant model of education.”
by MindMake via MindMake Blog
No comments:
Post a Comment