We see video
and online games everywhere, even in the classroom.
However, I did not realize how useful games could be in education until I took
this course. At the beginning of the class, I thought The Settlers had lots of benefits such as providing meaningful
rewards and social connectivity. I will mention below. All the benefits I
imagined gaining from playing this online game became true by playing it. I
believe these educational games can
provide standards-based academic content and allow students to practice 21st-century
thinking skills at the same time. These games create an efficient and fun environment for learning
experiments. Moreover, they allow students to build communication, collaboration,
and problem-solving skills while being challenged to think in a different way.
Maybe the most important feature of game-based learning is its ability to support
experiential learning. Plan formulation and strategic thinking are also other
good qualities acquired through playing some of these games.
To sum up the positive
potential games have to enrich learning environments, I might give a long list
based on our textbook title, Reality is Broken.
I think there cannot be a format providing more wholehearted participation than
a game-based learning environment. Students experience an
increase in their own intrinsic interest in playing educational games because
even if they sometimes fail, they are always leveling up without feeling
discouraged for failing, unlike reality.
Moreover, game-based environments
offer meaningful rewards. Jane McGonigal (2011), author of Reality is
Broken, made the following observation about the game Chore Wars:
Every chore grants you a customized
amount of experience points, virtual gold, treasure, avatar power ups, or
points that increase your virtual skills and abilities: plus ten dexterity
points for dusting without knocking anything off the shelves, for example, or
plus five stamina points for taking out all three kinds of recycling. (p. 120)
Likewise,
all my efforts were rewarded while playing The Settlers, even if I put forth very
little effort. This is one of the most meaningful rewards to me.
Social connectivity is another positive quality of good
games. I think gamers are more willing to help each other than in real life. Good
educational games also have clear goals and actionable steps. In the game we
played during the semester, most of the goals
were very clear. There was a list of things to do and details about how to do
them. Games also provide instant feedback, which is the opposite of traditional
learning environments. The Settlers also gave me a lot of different responses.
For instance, after fighting a bandit camp, I got a letter that said, “Your
troops have fought a valiant battle. You can watch the replay of the battle.”
It made me feel like I controlled the battle very well.
Taking a long
view is another quality we can acquire from a game. McGonigal
(2011) stated, “Taking a long view means working at scales far larger than we
would ordinarily encounter in our day-to-day lives” (p. 297). I have
experienced this situation in The Settlers. While playing the game, we needed
to consider the entirety of our island in terms of increasing population,
maintaining resources and materials, building up supplies, and training an
army. These activities can provide students a long view for their classes.
Another good quality of
a game is ecosystem thinking. I do not know if other games provide that to
gamers, but ecosystem thinking is one of the main goals of The Settlers.
McGonigal (2011) wrote, “A good ecosystem thinker will study and learn how to
anticipate the ways in which changes to one part of an ecosystem will impact
other parts” (p. 298). In The Settlers, if we do not have a balanced production
of resources or materials in the game, it becomes difficult to expand our
islands and level up.
The most
important quality of a game is mastery. McGonigal (2011) alleged that “when we
play Wow, we get blissed out by our own productivity-and it doesn’t matter the
work isn’t real. The emotional rewards are real-and for gamer, that’s what
matters” (p. 61). Indeed, I feel the same. I feel
like I am succeeding at big things. Since I began to play The Settlers, I feel
better about my chances of being successful in real life, too. I believe that
playing good games gives us the hope to become successful people.
As for this week’s
topic, gaming trends, I would like to talk about the video titled “TEDxKids@Brussels
- Gabe Zichermann - Gamification” (TEDxYouth, 2011). In this video, the speaker
mentioned that Dr. Christopher Lucas from NYU said, Games don’t teach the right
kind of attentional skills-sustained, no reward, and Dr. Dimitri Christakis
from UW was reported to have argued that children habituated to games may find
the real world underwhelming, under stimulating. Playing a game is thought of as
a leisure activity and not good for kids. However, the Zichermann said today is
the first time kids, parents, and teachers agree that games are amazing. I
totally agree with the speaker. Games were thought of as bad for kids earlier
and were excluded from learning environments, but today games are a part of
education. It is really interesting.
Thinking about a
classroom in 2030, I am sure it will not be like today’s classroom. Just as iPads
and Kindles are replacing textbooks, I believe classes will be replaced by a
combination of game-, virtual world-, and traditional classroom-based environments.
However, I cannot image exactly how it will be because classrooms are changing
with developing technologies. We do not even know what the jobs of the future will
be or how educators will need to prepare students for these jobs. However, I
can say that game-based learning will play a part in the future of education. However,
educational games are also changing. In the article titled “The New Games
People Play: How Game Mechanics Have Changed in the Age of Social Media,” Tsotsis (2010) talked about some
game mechanics that may be applied in the future. She stated, “The level of creativity and fun that’s
coming is incredible” (p. 1). I believe having fun will be the main point for
educational games in the future. Apparently, fun is the future because
it is the most engaging aspect for learners.
In the article titled “8
Research Findings Supporting the Benefits of Gamification in Education,” Walsh
(2012) listed the benefits of gamification in learning environments. Some of these
benefits are positive attitudes toward math, positive results in constructing children’s
own video game experiences in terms of cognitive
and social growth, positive results in attention span, and developing fearlessness
in real life by playing scary games. The most surprising benefit is the
development of fearlessness. I never thought war games might generate this kind
of positive result. I understand once more that we need to be open to new
things and should not be prejudiced toward new things until it is proven they
are harmful to us. Walsh (2012) also stated that “… how many of these findings indicated
benefits that can come from the use of gaming in education” (p.1). I believe the
list of benefits coming from game use in learning environments will be
supported by new surveys in the future. We will see what will happen in the education
world.
References
McGonigal,
J. (2011). Reality is broken. New York, NY: Penguin.
TEDxYouth.
(2011, June 9). TEDxKids@Brussels - Gabe Zichermann - Gamification. Retrieved
from https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=O2N-5maKZ9Q
Tsotsis,
A. (2010). The new games people play: How game mechanics have changed in the age
of social media. Retrieved from http://techcrunch.com/2010/08/01/the-new-games-people-play-game-mechanics-in-the-age-of-social/
Walsh, K.
(2012). Research findings supporting the benefits of gamification in education.
Retrieved from http://www.emergingedtech.com/2012/12/8-research-findings-supporting-the-benefits-of-gamification-in-education/
