Gaming Trends

           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/