We are reading What Video Games Have To Teach Us About Learning And Literacy. The three of us got the opportunity to attend a webinar by the author, James Paul Gee.
The author looked at all types of games including violent and SIMS games. He made a point that it's not about the content of the game, but knowing how to play the game comes first. Students learn how to solve problems and content comes from actually solving the problems and/or playing the games.
The following are several quotes and comments that he made that we felt were spot on:
"Front the problem solving and make the people use the facts to solve the problems." He made this same comment several times. As an example, in World of Warcraft, students get hooked on the game then they want to understand and design.
"Games make you reflective as long as you have the community around you to make you reflect." Having this group of people to collaborate and reflect with causes everyone involved to problem solve together. For example, the Army trains many of its soldiers through games and a large part of the learning takes plac eafter the game when the soldiers are discussing the strategies they used in the game. Ask a seven year old about his gaming when he finishes and you will be listening for 30 minutes! Kids are excited about what they are learning during gaming and will talk about that for hours.
"Humans learn best when they care. The problems must be problems that they want to solve. "(Learning Communities - produce not just consume)
21st century teachers will need to design learning experiences!!!
Several examples that he gave of gaming "in real life":
Surgeons now are looking at screens instead of the patient when conducting their surgeries. As one participatant commented, "Would you want a non-gamer doing your brain surgery?"
A woman who failed geometry in high school became one of the best designers in Second Life because she "learned" geometry while using Second Life.
When a participant asked him what was wrong with education and pointed to these 3 things: skill and drill, teaching to the test, and the tests themselves.
Here is a link to the recording of the webinar session if you are interested in listening to the comments made during the hour long session.
http://www.learncentral.org/node/53213
Heather, Kelly and John
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Do you guys see this being possible in your classroom in the near future? You state that teachers need to design the experiences... do they have the necessary technology to do that?
ReplyDeleteLaura, we feel that there are already games that are online that can enhance student learning. When it comes to designing games, it would be difficult for teachers to just sit and design a game since there is programming involved. Even the flash programs on Smart were done with programming. What I do see is that a teacher could sit side by side with a programmer to design games that meet curriculum needs and do what you want them to do. Not easy, but possible. As far as technology needed to provide experiences, we have great resources and the Internet has so much that we can use that it just takes time to filter through it all to find things that are MEANINGFUL to our students.
ReplyDeleteThanks for sharing your insight!
ReplyDeleteI had to laugh at the comment about 7 year olds explaining for 30 min the strategy used in a game. My 7 year old som just finished sharing his experiences with me and I was again struck on how he continued repeating his role until he got it correct... it was real authentic problem solving... like the stuff we want our kids to learn... John
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