DEJ 4
What Kids Learn That’s POSITIVE
From Playing Video Games
By Marc Prensky

 For whenever one plays a game, and whatever game one plays, learning happens constantly, whether the players want it to, and are aware of it, or not. And the players are learning “about life,” which is one of the great positive consequences of all game playing.

I think this is very true.  In a well designed game the gamer becomes invested in the game and are not really thinking about why they  are doing what they are doing but complete tasks to get further in the game.  The player learns skills and patterns as the game progresses and the gamer may not be aware of this as learning.  The second part of this statement is another one that I agree with.  The gamer can try out many different roles in games that they may not be able to experience in their everyday life.  In the education world real life connections to lessons is emphasized and authentic tasks and the format of the video game is one way to provide this authentic learning but in a different form.

In fact, as a learning tool, computer and video games may be the most powerful mechanism ever known.

I agree that the computers and video games can be a great tool to promote learning however they must be presented correctly and by a knowledgeable presenter.  I think that the acceptance of this statement will be met with much resistance as classroom teachers begin to switch the idea of the teacher being the sage of the stage to one of partner of learning.

 

players of computer and video games not only learn how to do things in terms of knowing the procedures, but they also practice the skills until the learning is internalized and becomes second nature

I agree that as the player continues to play the game they learn skills and with playing being the practice the skill becomes second nature.  When games allow the player to save their progress as they play then there is no pressure of failure and the skill can be practiced until mastered.  Think about asking a student to sit and practice spelling wordsl for an hour and I believe it would be met with great resistance but let the same student play a word game for example for an hour and that hour is over before they know it  and they would be spelling words to gain points and not realize it was the same task.

WEEK 5 SCRATCH GAME

Learning Level 1:  How?
The player learns use the mouse to select food products in the correct order.  The player must read a list of food requests from the customer and match the words to pictured food.
Learning Level 2:  What?

The player must select requested items and serve to earn money.  This is a time management game and the faster you fill the orders the more you earn.  You quickly learn the food pictures to help with filling the order fast. 
 Learning Level 3:  Why? 

The skill of pleasing customers along with time management is incorporated in the game.  When the incorrect order or too much time is taken the customer becomes displeased and goes to Burger King.
Learning Level 4:  Where?

This game takes place in a fast food environment.  The player must gain speed and accuracy skills.
Learning Level 5:  When/Whether?
The player learns quickly if the order is correct and by repeated tries soon recognizes customer patterns as well as gaining speed.  The game screen turns red immediately if a order mistake is made and if too much time is expires the customer leaves.  There are three faces that show customer satification while the order is being filled.

DEJ3

Making learning fun: Quest Atlantis, a game without guns

Sasha Barab, Michael Thomas, Tyler Dodge, Robert Carteaux and Hakan Tuzun

Some advocates of game-based learning suggest that educational video games are the only way that educators can adequately engage the "video game generation"

This is a concept that I can not completely agree with.  I agree that there is a place in the classroom for the use of game based learning but believe that there needs to be a balance of both face to face interaction and interaction with virtual worlds.  I think that there must be time for the students to share their game experiences and while this can be done via a blog when discussion takes place face to face there is a opportunity for other students to ask questions and give their experiences. 

A strategy commonly adopted by the entertainment industry involves developing participatory contexts that have elements of challenge, curiosity, play, and control. In contrast, the education and design community has developed many curricula and contexts to support learning but has not necessarily captured the interests and motivations of children.

I agree with this statement and believe that this is a challenge that every classroom teacher faces everyday.  This is why I feel so strongly about using different methods and technologies to achieve student engagement.  Our students are very comfortable using technology in their everyday lives and when content can be delivered in the for of a game the learning becomes more familiar and fun and there is a greater chance of engagement.  The commercial game designers have discovered this by the creation of many successful as well as unsuccessful games and they soon realized that the student must be invested in the game play to keep their interest.

A core challenge of design work is to avoid becoming more focused on the designed product than on the people and interactions that the design was developed to support.

I agree with this statement and think it is an important concept to keep in mind when talking about teachers designing games for their students to use or choosing a game for the students to play.  I think that as the idea of using video games in the classroom becomes a more accepted practice this will become even more important.  This is why I think that some time during a teacher prep program there needs to be not only a class on the use of technology in the classroom which should be a theme carried across all the education classes but also a class in simple game design where the student teacher could learn simple game design and also game evaluation.  I know this is a class designed to look at this issue but offered at a graduate level.  I would like to see asimilar course offered early in the undergraduate program.

Week 4

1.       Which one did you like the best?   I liked South Harrison High School’s Elemental Elegance by Team Comatical Combat        
2.        What content is being learned? The content being learned is elements, their properties and where they are found on the periodic table                                                                                                                                                                                                                 
3.         Do you think it effectively teaches the content?   I think this game does teach the player where certain elements are found by having them place the elements into the correct placement.  It also shows how the elements identified react when combined.  I like the quiz section where the player is quizzed on the information they found out about the element.  I also like that the player got immediate feedback why their answer was correct or incorrect.  The game gave a short explanation of why the answer.
4.        Does it involve higher order thinking? This is a question I struggled with because it allows the player to keep trying until the right answer is found and also has the elements color coded and the a good player will be able to pick this up and just match colors however on the other hand I think the lab where the player combines elements does meet the requirement of higher learning.  It is true that the player can try any combination however with the explanation of why there was no reaction or what the reaction was and then has the player to continue adding ingredients needed takes the player to high learning.                     Does the game possess any principles of good games and learning?1. They can create an embodied empathy for a complex system by allowing the player to experience how chemicals react.2. They are action-and-goal-directed preparations for, and simulations of, embodied experience in this game the player gets to see what would happen in a real lab when certain elements are combined.3. They allow meaning to be situated.  In this game the player can see terms and elements introduced in the classroom or in their books being used in this game. 
5.       In your opinion do you think letting kids design games is productive activity for school based learning?I like the idea of letting students create games.  The first reason is that the students must come up with a concept for the game.  They must do some research so that they can create the game and build the correct facts into the game.  They must work with others when working in teams to create a game.  The students become invested in the games success and allow them to share with the others students their efforts.  It promotes verbal exchange between students as they talk about their game and other students’ games.

Week 3 DEJ

In a good game, words and deeds are all placed in the context of an interactive relationship between the player and the world.

I agree with this statement because if the player does not make a connection with the game they will become bored and discontinue play.  It is the connection they make that helps keep their interest because they become invested in the game and the game environment.  In Garden of Time the player is given a blank world to design.  They are given more specific tasks at the earlier levels but as play continues the player is still given tasks but on a more general level.  I think this helps the player make a connection that they are only one factor in the world and their actions affect not only affect them but the world around them.  This helps with personal development and with a sense of how one fits into a community.  This is especially true of multiple player games.

Even at the simplest level, players co-design games by the actions they take

and the decisions they make.

This allows the player to make decisions and take ownership for their decisions and this is an important principal for students to learn.  In my discipline taking ownership of actions is a very important message and in the gaming world players can try out different actions to view the results of the action.  In Garden of Time the player designs their own garden and the decisions they make determines if they can proceed to another chapter or have to make more actions to be allowed to proceed.

…mastery is consolidated through repetition (with variation), only to be

challenged again.

Mastery is often achieved in education by giving the student practice which in fact is repetition.  In the gaming world we see repetition and as the game is played the repetition leads the player to more complex problems by changing the level or task requiring the player to use the skills they have mastered to accomplish a new challenge. In Garden of Time the player is given a list of items to find.  In order to earn a star or to proceed to the next level the player must repeat the scene several times.  The game design provides the player with objects that they have already found and adds to the task by adding new items.  In this particular game after the palyer completes the scene several times the same objects are called different names giving the palyer a new challenge.  The game design is to hold the students attention while the player gains skill as the challenges become more difficult.