In which the usually slightly curmudgeonly Stephen Downes jumps on the 2.0 bandwagon and rides it for all it’s worth.
“Where we are now
In general, where we are now in the online world is where we were before the beginning of e-learning [1]. Traditional theories of distance learning, of (for example) transactional distance, as described by Michael G. Moore, have been adapted for the online world. Content is organized according to this traditional model and delivered either completely online or in conjunction with more traditional seminars, to cohorts of students, led by an instructor, following a specified curriculum to be completed at a predetermined pace.”
If it’s online, can’t the learners access any and all of the material when and where they want?
“One trend that has captured the attention of numerous pundits is the changing nature of Internet users themselves. Sometimes called “digital natives” and sometimes called “n-gen,” these new users approach work, learning and play in new ways [2].
They absorb information quickly, in images and video as well as text, from multiple sources simultaneously. They operate at “twitch speed,” expecting instant responses and feedback. They prefer random “on-demand” access to media, expect to be in constant communication with their friends (who may be next door or around the world), and they are as likely to create their own media (or download someone else’s) as to purchase a book or a CD [3].”
I.T and media literacy has seen a boom in the creation of media content but statistically, only about 1% of people visiting web 2.0 sites are actually contributing to them.
“The changing demographics of the student population and the more consumer/client-centered culture in today’s society have provided a climate where the use of student-centered learning is thriving” [6]. Learning is characterized not only by greater autonomy for the learner, but also a greater emphasis on active learning, with creation, communication and participation playing key roles, and on changing roles for the teacher, indeed, even a collapse of the distinction between teacher and student altogether [7].
The breaking down of barriers has led to many of the movements and issues we see on today’s Internet. File-sharing, for example, evolves not of a sudden criminality among today’s youth but rather in their pervasive belief that information is something meant to be shared. This belief is manifest in such things as free and open-source software, Creative Commons licenses for content, and open access to scholarly and other works. Sharing content is not considered unethical; indeed, the hoarding of content is viewed as antisocial [9]. And open content is viewed not merely as nice to have but essential for the creation of the sort of learning network described by Siemens [10].”
The technology might have made it easier but I don’t think it’s given birth to the attitude, I remember friends making tapes of albums for me as a youth.
“In short, the structures and organization that characterized life prior to the Internet are breaking down. Where intermediaries, such as public relations staff, journalists or professors, are not needed, they are disregarded. Consumers are talking directly to producers, and more often than not, demanding and getting new standards of accountability and transparency. Often, they inform the productive process itself, and in many cases, replace it altogether. Passive has become active. Disinterested has become engaged. The new Internet user may not vote, but that is only because the vote is irrelevant when you govern yourself. ”
If producers spend all their time among other producers, are they able to see that most people are still consumers?
“What was happening was that major parts of the World Wide Web were acquiring the properties of communications networks, the sorts of networks found to exist (albeit on a much smaller scale) in the physical world. And that the Web itself was being transformed from what was called “the Read Web” to the “Read-Write Web,” in accordance with Tim Berners-Lee’s original vision. Proponents of this new, evolving Web began calling it Web 2.0 and in short order the trend became a movement.”
In broad terms, yes.
“In a nutshell, what was happening was that the Web was shifting from being a medium, in which information was transmitted and consumed, into being a platform, in which content was created, shared, remixed, repurposed, and passed along. And what people were doing with the Web was not merely reading books, listening to the radio or watching TV, but having a conversation, with a vocabulary consisting not just of words but of images, video, multimedia and whatever they could get their hands on. And this became, and looked like, and behaved like, a network.
Nowhere is this clearer than in the world of blogging. In a few short years the blog went from a few idiosyncratic Web sites to something used by millions of people empowered by content creation tools such as Blogger and Wordpress. Even more importantly, these blogs were connected to each other through the mechanism of RSS, a simple XML format that allows bloggers to send their content to a network of readers (called ’subscribers’).
But it wasn’t just blogging. Creating an online community became a snap with tools such as Plone and Drupal. Moreover, using a collaborative writing tool called the wiki Jimmy Wales and a few thousand of his friends created a site called Wikipedia, rendering Encyclopedia Britannica obsolete in the process. Others, using the free audio-recording tool Audacity, began recording their own talk and music; this, when combined with RSS, became podcasting, a rapidly rising phenomena that is transforming what we think about radio.
E-Learning 2.0
In the world of e-learning, the closest thing to a social network is a community of practice, articulated and promoted by people such as Etienne Wenger in the 1990s. According to Wenger, a community of practice is characterized by “a shared domain of interest” where “members interact and learn together” and “develop a shared repertoire of resources.”
For the most part, though, what constituted “community” in online learning were artificial and often contrived “discussions” supported by learning management systems [15]. These communities were typically limited to a given group of learners, such as a university class, had a fixed start and end-point, and while substantially better than nothing, rarely approached Wenger’s theory.”
Other points of interest
blogs and wikis give a larger audience
blogging gives more personal insights
podcasting enhances convenience
structure comes to resemble more of a conversation
personal learning environments offer a space to showcase work
learning comes not from the design of the content but how it is used
games allow students to take charge of their learning
Overall, some interesting ideas – my feeling is that the technology might allow many things to happen but it is the organisational philosophies and culture that will have to evolve for these things to actually happen.
Perhaps this is a display of my ignorance about academic writing but the fact that it takes Bannan-Ritland 7 pages to explain the method that she used to create this overview of academic writings that relate to interaction (particularly finding a definition for the term) seems pretty counter-productive and makes for some rather turgid reading. (Given that it only took her a couple of paragraphs to explain that there is a fair degree of difference of opinion in the writings about the definition)
Once she gets going though it gets much better and some interesting ideas about the nature of interaction are covered.
“Interaction can be viewed as a function of:
learners participation or active involvement
specific patterns and amounts of communication
instructor activities and feedback
social exchange or collaboration
instructional activities and affordances of the technology
She goes on to look at the papers that address each of these possible definitions and look at examples
Interactivity as defined by Active involvement by the learner
“the researchers concluded that students have specific goals for each interaction in an eLearning environment, including getting help or sharing information related to the content of the course, getting help on the technology, submitting homework and participating in discussion to exchange ideas of socializing”
The Gunawardena, Lowe and Anderson (1997) model of knowledge construction “relies on an active view of knowledge construction by the learner that moves through five phases, including:
sharing/comparing of information
discovery and exploration of dissonance or inconsistency among ideas, concepts or statements
negotiation of meaning and/or co-construction of knowledge
testing and modication of proposed synthesis or co-construction
phrasing of agreement, statements and applications of newly constructed meaning
Interactivity as defined by Patterns of Communication among learners/instructors
“Identifying the purpose of online messages as organizing, lecturing, humanizing or expressing opinions provided a detailed view of interaction patterns in an eLearning environment”
“Vrasidas and McIsaac (1999) explicitly and broadly defined interactivity as “reciprocal actions of two or more actors within a given context” (p. 25)… In addition, data on teacher and student views of interaction were collected, ultimately determining that multiple factors such as structure of course, class size, feedback and prior experience with CMC influence interaction”
“Synchronous communication was determined to be more interactive, demonstrating a type of discourse mimicking face-to-face interaction. Asynchronous communication was more constrained than synchronous but also more complex”
“Also in a small group context, Ahern and Durrington (1995-6) investigated the effects of anonymity and interaction in a computer-mediated discussion and found that anonymity promotes increased participation by students”
Interactivity defined as Instructor/Learner communication
“Mahesh and McIsaac (1999) operationalized interactivity as the dynamic of instructor-student communication and the actions of the instructor to encourage communication among students. Instructor time spent on these activities also provided an operational definition of interactivity in this study”
“These researchers concluded that eLearning is dependent on the personal and unique style of instructors and their activities in an online course as well as instructional and logistical factors”
Interactivity as Social, Cooperative or Collaborative Exchange
“…messages that asked questions, answered questions, provided support, clarified ideas, built consensus and contained social messages were interactive in nature. Asynchronous bulletin board conferencing provided more task-related messages and were more appropriate for self-reflection, while synchronous chat demonstrated more interactivity… and much less task-oriented communication”
Interactivity as a Range of Instructional Activities and Technologies
“Luetkehans (1999) determined that interactivity is most prominent in contexts where multiple strategies and activities, including instructor feedback, collaborative learning strategies and multiple technology mechanisms encourage student participation”
Bannan-Ritland moves on to examine the specific types of eLearning interactions identified in the literature
“structure, class size, feedback to students and participants prior experience with CMC are prominent variables related to interaction”
“teachers are more concerned about the level of participation and interaction with students in an eLearning course than a traditional one and… students stated that a lack of feedback from both instructors and their peers contributed to feelings of isolation and dissatisfaction with the course”
Bannan-Ritland identifies some gaps in the current research (or at least in the research she investigated)
“This review did not reveal any studies focusing on learner-non-human interactions, nor did the review reveal research that demonstrated the higher-level learner instruction interactions that incorporate a meta-level strategy or deliberate arrangement of events”
Some of the key findings that Bannan-Ritland drew from her review are that:
high levels of interaction need to be modeled by the instructor for students
a cooperative goal structure requiring students to interact with other students can promote interaction
Asynchronous and synchronous forms of communication afford different instructional strategies
instructor’s teaching style and background impacts course design, structure and level of interactivity implemented
small groups using asynchronous communication demonstrate task-directed behaviour in problem solving
instructors should expect to spend more time on an eLearning course than a traditional one
sychronous discussions are highly interactive and demonstrate more student control
asynchronous mode offers more complex language than synch and primarily demonstrated student responses to teacher requests
instructor or subject matter expert needed to draw out new concepts
pair advanced students as mentors to novices
promote issue-based introductory questions allowing students to develop own ideas and thoughts.
The summary of all the research papers at the end – broken down by focus, types of interactions and conclusions is the most useful part of this as it is packed with good practical tips.
This is the design statement for my latest foray into game based learning. I’ve used FPS Creator once more to create a democratic learning environment which creates a simulation of the Education Development Centre here. Learners can access scenario tasks in the course of find out about the multitude of awesome services and knowledge we can provide
Harper, B. & Hedberg, J. G. (1995). Exploration of Information Landscapes Through Networks. In Connecting the systems: Australian Telecommunication Networks & Applications Conference. Sydney, Australia, 11-13 December 1995 (pp 141-149). Clayton, Vic.: Monash University.
This paper says much the same as the others:
new technology offers new opportunities and requires new approaches
relevant authentic activities that draw on a pool of well organised data are important
learners construct their own knowledge from experiences and by socially negotiated meaning
provide a hierarchical set of problems to solve
It does manage to make a few more points however – heavily focussed on good design practices for information landscapes.
There are four key factors to consider:
interface design
navigation options
learning support for the user
instructional strategies to tie together underlying knowledge structures.
Inert knowledge is “knowledge which can usually be recalled when people are explicitly asked to do so but which is not used spontaneously in problem solving even though it might be relevant.”
“Situated learning has, as its main idea, the notion that “the activity in which knowledge is developed and deployed… is an integral part of what is learned”(Brown, Collins & Duguid, 1989, p32)”
” “Legitimate peripheral practice”… refers to the engagement of a novice in a socially-based practice in which they can perform the same range of skills as an expert. Interactive multimedia provides an ideal structured environment which allows the novice to work with problems and learning situations which are some distance (peripheral) from the core of the expert’s world. As the novice begins to practice more as a full practitioner, the skills and shared experiences overlap more with those who are acknowledged as expert.”
This sounds like a good application of simulations and scenarios to me.
The design of the activities (how real & relevant they are) is just as important as the aesthetics (fancy graphics etc) used in creating immersion.
“The use of systems which can be given a set of attributes and defined rules of relating can prove a great boon for working with a particular information landscape or microworld… The question is, therefore, can we place all ideas into a microworld of objects, attributes and relationships?”
“A second aspect of immersion is the conceptual congruence between user actions and their understanding of the concepts embodied in the learning context. Much educational software doesn’t link the response of the user to progress toward the goal… Within the interactive multimedia environment the action of the learner will lead to a conceptual understanding directly about the context in which they are learning”
“…there has to be a learning environment which intrinsically motivates the participant to work within the context”
Avoid the “pedestrian point and click strategy”
“Active participation in Exploring the Nardoo has been supported through the user “guides” that directly address and challenge the user from the initial entry to the package. This challenge to actively participate in problem-solving and investigation is based around a group of researchers, who advise users on problems to investigate and provide graded hints on how to investigate specific case-based problems”
“Cognitive apprenticeships – using the terms modelling, coaching and fading to explain a sequence of activities beginning with the apprentice repeatedly observing the master who models the target process. This is followed by an attempt on the part of the learner to execute the process with guidance from the master (coaching) and finally a reduction in participation of the master (fading) as the apprentice demonstrates a grasp of the skill “
Oliver, R. (2004). Moving beyond instructional comfort zones with online courses.. In R.Atkinson, C. McBeath, D. Jonas-Dwyer & R. Phillips (Eds), Beyond the comfort zone: Proceedings of the 21st ASCILITE Conference (pp. 713-723). Perth, 5-8 December. http://www.ascilite.org.au/conferences/perth04/procs/oliver-r.html
This is another one of those papers that I liked and got a fair bit from because it looks at teaching & learning from a practical perspective – examining some of the weaknesses of designing online courses based on traditional (read – directed/behaviourist) lecture/content-presentation approaches and offering concrete alternatives.
It breaks the design process up into three key areas:
Appropriate description of course objectives
Using course content more as a resource to support the development of capabilities
Designing assessment that measures capabilities
Oliver advocates the “development of learning objectives which focus on performance and capabilities as intended learning outcomes” because these can “provide opportunities for problem and task based learning designs… that support higher order learning outcomes”
It begins with a quick look at instructional design:
“Instructional design is the process of planning and creating learning environments for students that will cause them to engage with the course content and resources in ways which facilitate learning”
It makes the point that:
“Whereas in conventional courses, much of the course planning centred around the activities of the teacher, contemporary views argue that what is more important in a learning setting is what learners are doing rather than what the teacher is doing (eg. Schuell, 1992) ”
In looking at the design of online courses, Oliver advocates:
“Group based activities and tasks providing contexts for learners to learn through the application of their knowledge”
and
“Assessments based on products and artefacts developed (by the learners) from the course materials and content”
In essence, this is about using the content as a resource while you are developing skills rather than learning the content in it’s own right. (Which raises the question, what if the content is in the form of how-to guides?).
It seems to me then that Education is about the design of good activities.
Oliver also makes the point that you have to get the learning outcomes right in the first place if you are to have any chance of building an online course that will succeed.
“Biggs (1999) argues the need for learning aims and learning objectives to be the starting point for effective learning design. The objectives typically indicate what the students will learn, to what extent it will be learned and by what means learning can be assessed”
“Mager argues the need for three elements in any meaningful learning objective: a statement of the terminal behaviour or performance sought; conditions under which this performance must be exhibited and the standard to which the performance should be performed“
(Oliver repeats this point another 3 times in different ways so it’s clearly something he feels strongly about :0) )
He reiterates:
“It is insufficient in the statement of course objectives to stop merely at descriptions of the scope and extent of knowledge gained. The specification needs to include some form of capability or performance and these elements are the critical components of the course objectives. Where knowledge is to be gained, the objectives need to indicate how that knowledge is to be used, under what conditions and by what means achievement can be assessed“
From here he moves on to assessment strategies.
“The assessment strategies that are associated with courses and units in higher education play prominent roles in influencing what students learn and the scope and extent of their learning”
(Presumably because students focus on the assessments to get a real sense of what is valued by the teacher and the institution in their course)
Multichoice tests/quizzes/examinations (and I would add, some games) are useful for measuring knowledge acquisition.
To measure “the student’s ability to apply the knowledge in more meaningful ways” however, you might consider “case studies and problem solutions, collaborative projects and portfolios“.
He moves on to a big chunk about useful assessment strategies which is worth quoting in full:
“Tasks used in performance and outcomes based assessment include essays, oral presentations, open ended problems, hands-on problems, real world simulations and other authentic tasks.
Such tasks are concerned more with problem solving and understanding than in measures of knowledge acquired and retained.
The essence of authentic and performance based assessment is that students produce evidence of accomplishment of curriculum goals. These assessments are characterised by meaningful and authentic problems and often involve students assuming responsibility for self evaluation.
Students involved in self evaluation are more interested in the criteria and substantive feedback than the grades achieved. The interest is piqued by the need for honesty in the application of the criteria for others (peer assessment) and to their own work as well as being able to defend options through evidence over subjective judgements. Self assessment holds students to higher standards because the criteria are clear and reasonable (Wiggins, 1992) ”
Oliver moves on to a general look at re-structuring courses for online delivery, emphasising the need to reshape course objectives and consider the desired outcomes.
“The strategy for re-engineering (eg. Collis, 1997) such courses is to take the course objectives and to re-express them in ways which give context, purpose and meaning to the knowledge”
“Outcomes based approaches require developers to determine what students will be able to do with the acquired skills and knowledge at the end of the course”
This is emphasised with a question that designers should ask themselves in this process -
“What are some examples of real life cases and instances that students should be able to deal with this information?”
Oliver acknowledges that some teachers might question the application of this problem based learning approach in their subject area if they feel it deals too much with “higher levels of formal reasoning” but finds a quote from Jonassen which puts this approach in the context of a continuum, allowing for different levels of use:
“Jonassen describes problems ranging from those where learners simply apply rules to effect a solution, through problems where learners model solutions on existing cases to higher level problems requiring strategic and logical thinking”
He then offers a set of guidelines for a structure to such an environment
The learners can be cast with roles in a virtual workplace and where they are required to undertake some tasks and responsibilities;
The learning setting can provide them with access to a variety of resources of an authentic nature which they can access to gather the information needed to carry out the tasks;
The students can be supported by a variety of means including workplace mentors, collaborative teams comprised of peers and others;
Assessment of learning can be based on the successful completion of the tasks and problems;
Assessment can comprise elements of self assessment and peer assessment;
The learning setting can be scaffolded in a number of ways to support learners as they develop the necessary skills and knowledge to complete the tasks being set and the support can be faded as the learners develop these skills;
The setting can develop a raft of associated generic skills including capabilities to work in teams, to monitor their own progress etc; and
The setting can assist learners in learning how to learn as they take responsibility for their own learning.
This is the content of the final assessment for EDGI911 – I.T in Education. It takes the form of a website (for reasons that slightly escape me other than perhaps for the fact that the Uni thinks it’s a good idea for us to have a basic knowledge of web-design) which you can find here
It’s a simple site but I a couple of nice things with it – the background image of Pacman is fixed so that he stays in place when you scroll and on the page of references, I provide anchored links to the ones that I in annotated form.
This is the initial spiel – it was meant to be longer but I didn’t have anything else to say and I ran out of time.
Games in Education – an overview
As the use of information and communications technology in education grows apace, it is only logical that teachers and educational designers will focus their attention increasingly on the world of computer games.
Computer games offer a rich and engaging environment that can cater to any educational approach, from the simplest drill and practice exercises to the development of high level problem solving and collaboration skills in sophisticated three dimensional worlds.
According to the TEEM Report (2002) on the educational use of games, they “provide a forum in which learning arises as a result of tasks stimulated by the content of the games, knowledge is developed through the content of the game and skills are developed as a result of playing the game.” (p.4)
Computer games have been shown to provide benefits ranging from dramatically enhancing the eye-hand coordination and spatial perception of surgeons undertaking laparoscopic procedures (Rosser, 2007) to sparking significant improvements in understanding of mathematical concepts among primary school students.
They offer a choice between purchasing off the shelf commercial games and building your own using any of a suite of game building software tools currently available, they allow for simulations of complex situations that are often impossible to replicate in a classroom – such as coping with a spill of dangerous chemicals in a large city.
Games also stimulate and motivate collaborative behaviour as a result of naturally occurring interactions in online environments such as Massively Multiplayer Online Games which emphasise an experiential model of learning which is favoured by many learners. (Steinkuehler, 2004)
Games are an intrinsic part of the Information revolution and their full impact on education is yet to be seen, however every piece of research points to a very interesting future.
From here, I wrote four annotated references for the following papers.
#1 The Impact of Video Games on Training Surgeons in the 21st Century.
Rosser, J., Lynch, P., Cuddihy, L., Gentile, D., Klonsky, J., Merrell, R., (2007) The Impact of video games on training surgeons in the 21st Century. The Archives of Surgery, 142. 181 – 186.
Central theme and scope:
This research examines the influence of playing video games – both immediately before a task as well as playing them regularly over longer periods of time prior to the task – in the development of a range of perceptual and motor skills useful in surgery.
It has a fairly narrow scope in comparison to a lot of the research into the impact of videogames on game players however this works to the researches advantage as it takes a highly focussed approach and makes excellent use of available medical technology used to assess performance and measure neurological activity.
Intended Audience:
This paper was published in the Archives of Surgery (Feb 2007), a respected medical journal published by the American Medical Association and aimed at surgeons and other medical professionals, including teachers of surgery.
Description:
The hypotheses being tested in this study were that “surgeons with past video game experience will peform better in a standardised laparoscopic skill and suturing program” and that “video games are correlated with better peformance in a standardised laparoscopic skill and suturing program”.
To test this, 33 surgeons participated in The Rosser “Top Gun” laparoscopic skills and suturing program. This measures their speed and accuracy in a simple surgical procedure, by making use of “an inanimate electronic proctor that controls for economy of movement errors in addition to time”.
The surgeons were all surveyed about their history of game playing, surgical experience and speciality. These factors as well as gender and hand dominance were all noted.
The surgeons then spent time playing games which emphasised non-dominant hand dexterity, two-handed choreography, targeting and 2-d depth perception skills. They then undertook practice drills which involved suturing and laparoscopic procedures.
The results of the study (after all factors were considered) showed that current video gamers scored 40% better in the Top Gun suturing course. Surgeons who have played video games in the past were 33% better at laparoscopic drills and suturing. Subjects who played video games for more than 3 hours per week had 37% few errors than those who had never played. If subjects played video games for more than 3 hours per week, they were 27% faster at laparoscopic drills and suturing tasks.
The researchers behind the study came to the conclusion that video game skill and past experience with video games are significant predictors of laparoscopic skills and suturing capability. They attributed this to several neurological processes that occur during game play. There are substantial increases in Dopamine release in the stratium and prefrontal cortex – areas associated with eye-hand coordination. Dopaminergic neurotransmission is also involved in learning, reinforcement of behaviour and attention.
Relevance:
This study provides evidence that playing videogames offers benefits in the development of eye-hand coordination and visual depth perception. It differs from the other studies that I have cited in that it focuses on these factors in relation to skill development and takes a particularly clinical approach.
#2. Learning in Massively Multiplayer Online Games
Steinkuehler, Constance A. (2004) “Learning in Massively Multiplayer Online Games” In Y. B. Kafai, W. A. Sandoval, N. Enyedy, A. S. Nixon, & F. Herrera (Eds.), Proceedings of the Sixth International Conference of the Learning Sciences (pp.521-528). Mahwah, NJ: Erlbaum.
Central theme and scope:
This study investigates the nature of learning in Massively Multiplayer Online Games (MMOGs), networked 3D gaming environments that allow players to interact with objects and characters in the game as well as other (real) players.
Steinkuehler posits that players of MMOGs have rich learning experiences as a result of the “situated meanings people construct and the definitive role of communities in that meaning making process”.(p.4) She notes that it is the interactions of the members of the community in these types of games that promote learning far more than any embedded content might and that designers developing educational MMOGs need to give in-game social practice as much (if not more) attention as instructional content.
Intended audience:
This paper, which presents the preliminary findings of nearly two years research is targetted at educators interested in using games as well as developers of games for education.
Description:
Steinkuehler has taken an ethnographic approach to this research, immersing herself in an MMOG called Lineage for 19 months. Lineage is a game set during medieval times and is centred around guilds (a.k.a blood pledges) which vie for control of castles in a virtual kingdom.
She devised four key questions to structure her research, these being:
What are the social and material practices of MMOGaming?
What forms of participation mark community membership in such settings?
What means for learning are embedded not in the game as designed but rather in the community practice of those who inhabit it?
What import does participation in this community have for the situated (on and off screen) identities of its members? (p.2)
Her investigations involved participating overtly in the daily life of the game while taking “field” notes and screen capture video, noting conversations and asking questions. She interviewed other players informally in-game, through semi-structured topic specific phone interviews as well as in structured formats.
In addition to these primary resources, she also gathered data from community sources including player-authored user manuals, fan discussion boards, chatrooms and fan generated fiction.
Steinkuehler found that players learn primarily in collaboration with other, more experienced players. “During collaboration, the focus is on the activity, with information (e.g., manuals, guidebooks, websites) playing only a secondary and supporting role.”(p.7) Feedback comes from the game system (e.g., error-produced death) as well as other players and pushing yourself beyond the edge of your current competency is highly valued by the community.
Relevance:
This research is of a more qualitative focus than most of the other papers and it again focusses on a relatively specific area of the use of games in education. It’s inclusion emphasises the wide ranging benefits to be found in this field and the need to consider the existing strengths of games when applying educational goals to them.
Becta is an agency of the British Government with responsibility for providing advice on the use of information and communications technology (ICT) in education. This report offers an overview of the potential uses of computer games to support teaching and learning in schools.
Its scope is therefore necessarily quite broad and focuses on:
investigating what aspects of computer games are of value to education
investigating if and how existing games might be used productively in schools
encouraging the educational software industry to continue the development of high quality software which addresses the requirements of teachers and learners
developing a dialogue with the games sector.
Intended audience:
British Education Department, managers, school administrators, teachers, computer game industry
Description:
This is broadstroke report based on anecdotal evidence from the schools that participated in this national project. A pool of commercially available computer games (not specifically designed for education) previously reviewed by Becta was made available to teachers to use in class.
The teachers were provided with a study related template for each title which covered issues directly related to the National Curriculum, technical issues, language comprehension and content suitability for different ages/year levels. Teachers had to specify their intended learning outcomes but beyond this were free to use the software in the manner that they felt was most appropriate.
The games chosen (and their purposes) were:
The Sims (building a simple model, describe how rules govern models)
SimCity 3000 (building a simple model, describe how rules govern models)
Championship Manager 2000/01 (databases and data manipulation)
Age of Empires (thinking and essential skills)
City Trader (trading of stocks and shares in business, modelling economic activity)
The report describes in some detail the experiences of the learners with the games software and the different applications derived by the teachers.
As a small pilot study, no particularly definitive data has come from this report however it is worth examining for the insights developed by the teachers and the learners in the process of introducing games into the classroom. These include:
Simulation based games can be very useful for stimulating class discussions by providing authentic contexts
Teachers need to frame the activity to ensure that learning objectives can be met.
Teachers should be familiar with a game – both in terms of content and control before using it in class.
The immediate feedback offered in games acts as a strong motivator for learners
Games can offer activities with greater relevance to learner interests – such as football in the case of Championship Manager
Games can act as “platforms for social interaction”(p.5) and stimulate collaboration
The option for licensing games to use on a school network was considered important, given the limitations of running games on a single computer.
Relevance:
This report differs from the others listed here in that it looks at the issue of games in education from a more organisational level and considers issues of practical implementation in the classroom. As such, it makes an important contribution to this overview.
#4 Supporting Learners in a Remote CSCL Environment: The Importance of Task and Communication.
Graves, D. & Klawe, M. (1997). Supporting Learners in a Remote CSCL Environment: The Importance of Task and Communication. Proc. of CSCL ‘97, Toronto ONT
Central theme and scope:
This study looks at two important factors in the design of Computer-Supported Collaborative Learning (CSCL) learning resources – the degree to which tasks are structured and the nature of the communication tools available to learners – and their impacts on learning and engagement with the material.
As an early instance of research in this particular field, the study is centred on the experiences of a relatively small (134 participants) sample of elementary school learners.
Intended Audience:
This paper is targeted at educators, instructional designers and other people with an interest in the use of I.T in distance education.
Description:
The researchers used an education computer game called Builder, which “allows two players to design a house using various 2-D layouts and view it in 3-D.”(p.4)
Builder is designed to improve understanding of a number of mathematical concepts including additive and subtractive areas and volumes, tiling of surfaces and the relationship between perimeter and area.
It can be set to provided structured tasks with clear goals or more open ended tasks with undefined goals. It also offers two systems for networked communication – a simple, text chat only version and a second which adds voice chat as well as personal avatars, creating a “virtual presence”.
Pre/Post tests were devised (differing only in numbers and words used in similar equations) to measure learning and a questionnaire developed to examine the socio-motivational effects of the game and the collaboration by distance model.
Additional data came from log files from the game (tasks undertaken and completed, times taken and scores) as well as anecdotal reports from teachers observing the students.
A control group of students who only took the Pre/Post tests was also established.
Learners were pre-tested during the week of the research and on the day worked in pairs in separate rooms. Each pair was given a 5 minute orientation to the system and then were allowed to play for 30 minutes. Some pairs were able to use the simple communication system and others the enhanced version. Some were given structured tasks and others the open tasks. After this the students were given the questionnaire to complete and after all learners had played Builder, they were given the post-test.
The research demonstrated significant improvements in the desired mathematical skills in the learners that had used the game. Learners preferred the enhanced communications tools however they didn’t increase academic gain. Learners did benefit more from the structured tasks than the unstructured ones. Anecdotal reports indicate that learners using the unstructured tasks struggled more with the concepts of the game.
Relevance:
This research complements that of Steinkuehler in some ways, offering a statistical counterpoint to her ethnographic approach. The value of collaboration in learning and particularly in learning through online and networked games is an important example of the benefits of games in education.
Here is the complete list of references – there is some interesting reading here if you are interested in the research going on into game use in schools.
# 1.The Impact of Video Games on Training Surgeons in the 21st Century. (annotated)
Rosser, J., Lynch, P., Cuddihy, L., Gentile, D., Klonsky, J., Merrell, R., (2007) The Impact of video games on training surgeons in the 21st Century. The Archives of Surgery, 142. 181 – 186.
#2. Learning in Massively Multiplayer Online Games(annotated)
Steinkuehler, Constance A. (2004) “Learning in Massively Multiplayer Online Games” In Y. B. Kafai, W. A. Sandoval, N. Enyedy, A. S. Nixon, & F. Herrera (Eds.), Proceedings of the Sixth International Conference of the Learning Sciences (pp.521-528). Mahwah, NJ: Erlbaum.
#4 Supporting Learners in a Remote CSCL Environment: The Importance of Task and Communication. (annotated)
Graves, D. & Klawe, M. (1997). Supporting Learners in a Remote CSCL Environment: The Importance of Task and Communication. Proc. of CSCL ‘97, Toronto ONT
#6Use of background music in electronic learning environments
Sedighian, K. & Sedighian, A. S. (1997). Use of Background Music in Electronic Learning Environments. ED-MEDIA 97: World Conference on Educational Multimedia and Hypermedia, Calgary, Canada.
#7 A classroom study : Electronic games engage children as researchers
Klawe, M. M. & Phillips, E. (1995). A classroom study: Electronic games engage children as researchers. Proceedings of Computer Support for Collaborative Learning ‘95 (CSCL), Bloomington, Indiana.
#8 Playing together beats playing apart, especially for girls
Inkpen, K., Booth, K. S., Klawe, M. & Upitis, R. (1995). Playing Together Beats Playing Apart, Especially for Girls. Proceedings of Computer Support for Collaborative Learning ‘95 (CSCL), Bloomington, Indiana.
#9 Environmental Detectives – The Development of an Augmented Reality Platform for Environmental Simulations
Klopfer, E. and K. Squire. 2005. Environmental Detectives – The Development of an Augmented Reality Platform for Environmental Simulations. In Press for Educational Technology Research and Development.
#10 Teaching with games – using commercial off-the-shelf computer games in formal education
Social software tools enable people to connect and collaborate via computer-mediated communication (Wikipedia 2007). They include synchronous tools such as instant messaging and web whiteboards and asynchronous ones such as web fora, blogs, wikis and more recent services such as Flickr and YouTube.
The use of these various tools in a learning environment can offer students new and engaging means to share information and to offer each other feedback which allows them to reflect on concepts in a more meaningful manner.
Driscoll (2002) makes the point that students benefit from hearing ideas other than their own in group work and that they can use software to collaborate by “creating notes to express their ideas or integrate outside information about a topic. They then read and respond to the notes of others, all of which builds a communal database producing shared knowledge abut the topic or problem”.
Dede (2005) goes on to support this by identifying among emerging learning styles an shift towards “communal learning involving diverse, tacit, situated experience with knowledge distributed across a community and a context as well as within an individual”.
My personal experience of using blogs with learners dates back to a class I ran in 2003 teaching platforms and formats for media production. I had the learners keep a blog where they journaled their experiences in working on a number of multimedia projects. They were to reflect on creative decisions that they made as well as technical issues that arose and the ways they were able to overcome them.
A page with links to the blogs was made available in the online space for the subject so they could visit each others blogs and leave feedback or offer suggestions.
I found this a very useful tool as it was an effective way to get greater insight into learner’s understanding of the process and it was a great resource for learners to use for trouble-shooting.
Some suggestions for use:
Use an RSS feed reader to track blog posts
Provide clear direction as to expected frequency and length of posts
I’m not sure whether these articles are making more sense to me now because I’m getting a stronger grasp on the underlying theories or if it’s just that they are better written. Probably a bit of both.
Brown, Collins and Duguid present their ideas about why content is more meaningful to learners when it is put into context in an easily understandable way, using plenty of examples as well as some very effective analogies. Their approach seems much more anchored in chalkface experience and constantly focusses on educational practice in schools, rather that making lofty prognostications about what approaches might be beneficial for learners.
Key points:
“Many methods of didactic education assume a separation between knowing and doing, treating knowledge as an integral, self-sufficient substance, theoretically independent of the situations in which it is learned and used.”
We should “embed learning in activity and make deliberate use of the social and physical context”
Learning vocabulary with a dictionary and a few example (but out of context) sentences is different to the way words are learnt in day to day life – through use in normal conversation and reading. “Experienced readers implicitly understand that words are situated. They, therefore, ask for the rest of the sentence or the context before committing themselves to an interpretation of a word”
“All knowledge is, we believe, like language. It’s constituent parts index the world and so are intextricably a product of the activity and situations in whch they are produced”
“A concept, like the meaning of a word, is always under construction”
“It may be more useful to consider conceptual knowledge as, in some ways, similar to a set of tools. Tools share several significant features with knowledge – They can only be fully understood with use and using them entails both changing the users view of the world and adopting the belief system in which they are used.”
“People who use tools actively rather than just acquire them, by contrast, build an increasingly rich implicit understanding of the world in which they use the tools and of the tools themselves. The understanding, both of the world and of the tool, continually changes as a result of their interaction”
“Learning how to use a tool involves far more than can be accounted for in any set of explicit rules. The occasions and conditions for use arise directly out of the context of activities of each community that uses the tool, framed by the way members of that community see the world… Thus carpenters and cabinet makers use chisels differently”
“Activity, concept and culture are interdependent. No one can be totally understood without the other two. Learning must involve all three”
“(Students) need to be exposed to the use of a domain’s conceptual tools in authentic activity – to teachers acting as practitioners and using these tools in wrestling with the problems of the world. Such activity can tease out the way a mathematician or historian looks at the world and solves emergent problems. (But maths is a tool used in different ways by different practitioners – eg mathematician vs statistician vs engineer – how do you apply context there – perhaps by looking at the content being covered and seeing who it is most applicable to?)
“Activity also provides experience, which is plainly important for subsequent action”
“Knowledge… indexes the situation in which it arises and is used. The embedding circumstances efficiently provide essential parts of its structure and meaning”
“By beginning with a task embedded in a familiar activity, it shows the students the legitimacy of their implicit knowledge and its availability as scaffolding in apparently unfamiliar tasks”
“By allowing students to generate their own solution paths, it helps make them conscious, creative members of the culture of problem-solving mathematicians. And, in enculturating though this activity, they acquire some of the cultures tools – a shared vocabulary and the means to discuss, reflect upon, evaluate and validate community procedures in a collaborative process”
“Collaboration also leads to the articulation of strategies, which can then be discussed and reflected on. This, in turn, fosters generalising, grounding in the students situated understanding”
“… teachers or coaches promote learning, firstly by making explicit their tacit knowledge or by modelling their strategies for students in authentic activity. Then, teachers and colleagues support student’s attempts at doing the task. And finally they empower the students to continue independently”
“An intriguing role in learning is played by ‘legitimate peripheral participation’, where people who are not taking part directly in a particular activity learn a great deal from their legitimate position on the periphery”
“This peripheral participation is particularly important for people entering the culture. They need to observe how practitioners at various levels behave and talk to get a sense of how expertise is manifest in conversation and other activities”
“Collective problem solving: Groups are not just a convenient way to accumulate the individual knowledge of their members. They give rise synergistically to insights and solutions that would not come about without them”
“Displaying multiple roles: Successful execution of most individual tasks requires students to understand the many different roles needed for carrying out any cognitive task. Getting one person to be able to play all the roles entailed by authentic activity and to reflect productively upon his or her performance is one of the monumental tasks of education. The group, however, permits different roles to be displayed and engenders reflective narratives and discussions about the aptness of those roles” – Is it enough for people to be able to discuss the tasks that someone else undertook in a group task for them to understand what is really involved without having done it?
“Groups can be efficient in drawing out, confronting and discussing both misconceptions and ineffective strategies”
Overall, a lot of interesting ideas here – it got a little more abstract as it continued and the concepts got more advanced but most of it makes sense.
