Understanding the Video Game Experience

[David Warlick]

“Edutainment” has been praised and criticized by educators. But recent research is causing us to reconsider the roles of technology, fun, and serious games in education. This presentation will provide an overview of digital games, some of the latest research, and spin-off activities that will simply amaze you.

[Learning 2.008 Conference]

Room: Auditorium

[Bob Bieniek]

How do you put the earning brain at play? The essential question for making video games valuable for education.

Serious Games - New video games that address real world problems.

[Chris McAnally]

Are executives the best judge about what characteristics are important????

Human beings like complicated environments. Simple is boring.

pkmin looks like an interesting game, a game without directions.

The real learning is when the kids make the games, designing the rulesets.

Another good resource is Alice: http://www.alice.org It's a 3D object oriented programming environment. Kinda like Scratch.

[Loren Digges]

show students how I am learning? Lifelong learning

http://handouts.davidwarlick.com

watching and talking is just as important as the playing of video games. It helps to shape social networking

spore: creating creatures bit by bit in order to survive
second life: built by users

"I have to power down when I go to school"

find games which connect to content.
"What would your abraham lincon do?"

www.gamesforchange.org/newindex

machinima: turning the video game into movie. (Can have characters expressing voice, can be used with poems.

creating previews for movies, books, poems. (Can also be used to express voice and perspective.) The preview has to show they understand the concepts of the material.


frozen grand central

creating your own video games: Scratch

Bring the exciting elements of video games into the classroom

[Brendan McGibbon]

Here is an interesting BBC article on Scratch

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/technology/6647011.stm

[Amy Keus]

We are preparing children for unpredictable futures. The best way to do that is to illustrate that teachers are life-long learners - Each day, show your students something new.

If you Twitter about this account, then please refer them to L2VG. If you blog about this session, please tag your blog as games, session, Warlick.

Research: Executives were asked which skills are most important in their workplaces. The executives then sorted the data by basic knowledge or applied skills. It was found that many applied skills -- work ethic, teamwork, oral communications, and social responsibility -- were considered more important than reading comprehension. These are not new skills. These are skills that used to be learned while on the job. Now these are entry-level skills. (And these are high school specific skills, not skills expected from university students.)

How do we help students develop these skills in our classrooms, in an authentic way?

97% of children play games. The majority of children play all types of games -- children who play very violent games will also play strategies and non-violent games.

“Exceptional patterns of reality...”

They are about taking on roles and working through a series of rules (towards a goal).

If you are 34% and younger, you are most likely to have grown up playing video games.

The video game generation is more sociable and is able to interact and collaborate better with others. For example, gamers may have LAN parties. Many times, there will only be 2 people playing, with the others sitting around and chatting about the games. The watching and talking is as important as the experience of playing.

Examples of Games David likes:
Rollercoaster Game (Engineering and Business)
Spore (Science - Evolution)
Pikmin (Problem Solving)

Developers are moving towards building games in which users create the world. Users become the game developers.

Children enjoy the “what-if” factors of the games. They might finish the game, but they go back and tweak things. What if they introduce different technologies at different times? What are the consequences?

Some games may have no instructions or forsee-able goals. The students may have to figure out how to survive and thrive in their games.

Some games have absolutely stunning graphics. For example, in Assassin’s Creed the crowd’s people are all individually controlled. Also, there is no set track or map which controls the player -- they can go where ever they want.

For some students, coming to school is “powering down.”
“Why do I have to learn about Caesar? Hell, I’m building Rome every afternoon.”
When you are teaching about history, try to find out which video games the kids are playing. Bring them into the classroom. Interact with the kids.

Games for Change: Games based on real world problems.
www.gamesforchange.org/newindex

Maybe you have the students play the video games outside of the classroom, but the discussions take place in the classroom.

Machinima: Turning the video game into a movie set. For example, having demons from Half Life singing, “Can’t touch this!” or having characters from The Sims 2 acting out a scene from Disney’s High School Musical.

For adults, information is a product that you have. For children, information is a raw material that you work with and mold into something else.

People enjoy being in video games - Second Life, Call Cutta, Frozen New York, etc.

Video games will not save education. This is not an either/or situation. Video games are very powerful tools, for both playing and creating.

Some children who aren’t interested in creating traditional presentations may create a video game that actually requires a very, very deep understanding of the topic given. Video games may be created using software, such as Flash, Scratch, or Alice. Students become game developers.

“What kind of video game could you create to help you understand this topic better?” So you don’t necessarily have to build the game -- you could simply think about how you would.

Games are about roles and rules. The teacher changed to being a client. The students became the developers. This is an authentic assessment -- the work they do has value to a community of users in the future (other students in the following year).

Pay attention to your students and come to understand them. Social networks. Video games. Movies.

What is it about these video games that are so compelling?

We don’t need to bring the video games into the classroom. Some, yes. Some aren’t appropriate. However, what elements do video games provide which can be brought into the classroom?

Intrinsic Needs of Students of Digital Technology
-work in responsive information environment
-communicate
-share personal experience and identity
-form and participate in communities
-ask questions
-illustrate accomplishment
-invest themselves
-safely make mistakes
-earn audience and attention

Start a game club in the school. Talk to the children. Talk to teaching digital natives.

[Barbara Boyer]

Handouts.davidwarlick.com
Entry level skills..
So what is the skill level for college students?
love to see you bibliography with your information!
The brain at play demands complexity?? How do you put the learning brain at play???
Students who play video games are actually more social....
creating ecosystems game...The content is built by the users.
Everything in second life is built by users.
pikmin young children
crisis..military game
assassin creed-graphics...
Classify games into subject area????
How can you find the genre of games.
Games for Change, real world games, real word politics...
machinecinema...making movies from games.
Large Scale Urban Games...SEW Week...
As a parent of a young gamer, I have seen the social aspect of gaming. Glad to see the research to support my son.
Scratch.free downloadable...great for young children...geometric shapes...Students develop games
Ask students what video games would go with this learning....Start making a classifying list of games that go with the curriculum.
Changing the roles and the rules of the learning experience...Othello trailer...
Talk to students about their out of the classroom setting.
Intrinsic need...work in a reponsive env.
need to communicate
share personal exp.
form and part. in communities
ask questions
illsturate accc
invest themselves
safely make mistakes
earn audience and attention
July conference
Clay Shirky...
Thank you.

[Mark Lewis]

Start everyday by telling people what you have learned. As a principal wouldn't it be interesting e-mailing the entire school every morning with something that you did not know yesterday to model yourself as a learner and to add to the common data base of knowledge for the school. It would also force me to be a better observer of my aggregator.
None of this is either/or
Ask the media literacy class to create a movie trailer for our play "The Importance of being Earnest"
"The best advice that I can give you is to pay attention to your students"
"Figure out what it is about video games that makes them so compelling and bring that into the classroom"
Start a video game club for Friday afternoons.

[Jess McCulloch]

Preparing kids for an unpredictable future, so illiustrate in front of classes that we are life long learners ourselves

Using tags - L2VG for twitter, warlick, session, games for blog posts

davidwarlick.com/SL - office in second life on Edu Island - get virtual handouts

One of most important reasons for video games in education -
asking corporate leaders what are the skills that you need in your workforce that help you to succeed - Basic knowledge such as subject areas, then Applied Skills - teamwork, collaboration etc...

Finding that the Applied skills such as professionalism, teamwork, oral communications, ethics, social responsibility now 'trump' reading comprehension etc - indicating that these skills are now entry level skills and we need to be able to teach them effectively.

Kids playing violent games also playing other games

Lenhart Amanda - study

Key features of video games: animation, on screen, problem solving, gives feedback, increasing levels of difficulty

Video games are about roles and rules - David Williamson Shaffer book - 'how Computer Games Help Children Learn.'

Investing ourselves in games in a way we didn't before. Computer games have become more complex where other technologies are becoming simpler. They have become more complex because the brain demands complexity when it's at play.

How do you put the learning brain in a situation of play?

Video gamers are very social people - better at collaborating and working in teams than the previous generation.

Social experience when people watch others playing games - they sit there watching and talking about it

Favourite games -
RollerCoaster Tycoon
Spore - players designing own creatures that all together then become an ecosystem. Taking a creature and 'growing culture' by introducing items.
Pikmin - for younger kids, have to eat etc and can train pikmin to solve problems for you. No instructions - you have to figure it all out for yourself.
Crisis
Assassins Creed - known for its graphics

Takes more people to make games now - not programmers, but content writers. Worlds built by users.

What does this mean for students? Their outside class experiences are richer and deeper than inside classes

Blend of the two - not necessarily bringing that game into the classroom, but building the conversation into the classroom. How would you react in your game? Work the game into the context of what you are learning.

'Serious Games':

Games for Change

Machinima - making movies of video games

The technology is not that impressive - the idea is though - would never have thought of that. New generation using information in different ways - information is raw material, and part of the value is what they can do with it - add to it, make it more impressive, add value etc.

Urban Games

Call Cutta - getting the audience to interact

Flash Mobs - freezing grand central station - community as platform for the game.

Second Life Science Centre - real time weather

Careful not to overreact - not either/or - new opportunities to bring into our traditional way of teaching - don't have to stop all the old things we are doing.

Making Games

Scratch
Students as game developers

Changing the role of the student and teacher - to client and consultants, producers, videographers etc
Example - Making movie trailer for the pay Othello to get students in the next year level excited about reading the play

Advice - pay alot of attention to your students - know what they are doing outside of the classroom?
The answer is nt necessarily to bring the video games into the classroom - but figuring out what elements are so empowering and bring them into the classroom.

Intrinsic needs of students who have grown up with digital technology -
*work in responsive information environment
*communicate
*share personal experience and identity
*form and partiipate in communities
*to ask questions
*illustrate their accomplishments
*invest themselves
*safely make mistakes
*earn audience and attention

Places to Watch:
Education Arcade @ MIT
Serious Games
Games + Learning +Society

Getting Started:
Game Club
allow students to talk
recruit digital natives
connect with serious game effort
pay attention to key players

Clay Shirkey - "Media that's targeted at you but doesn't include you may not be worth sitting still for."
Just insert 'education' for the word media.

[Renee Stewart]

Got Game Beck & Wade
The Kids are alright:How the gamer generation is changing the workplace - Beck & Wade
What video games have to teach us about learning & literacy - Gee

Rollercoaster Tychoon - design and technology, business and economics
Spore - evolutionary simulation
Pikmin - no instructions, figure out goals and rules, leadership management, delegation for ES
Assassins Creed - middle ages, full control of the whole world

Bring the conversations about the games, but not necessarily the game into the classroom.

Serious Games
Ayit - The cost of life
www.gamesforchange.org

Machinima - Machine cinema, Use video games to build cinema

Info is a product to get and consume
Info is raw material to be used in a process, manipulate, add value

Urban Games
Call cutta- cell phone direction
Frozen Grand Central

lots of opportunity to over react to technology.

making games
scratch - concept similar to logo

Intrisic need to share personal experience and identity
Form & participate in community
communicate
work in responsive information environments
invest themselves
earn audience and attention

educationarcade.org

[Andrea]

http://handouts.davidwarlick.com

Tell your students about something new that you learn each day. This models for students the fact that you are a lifelong learner.

97% of teens play games-- both boys and girls.

Video games consist of roles and rules, with time they get more complex because the player's game demands complexity.

Several books have been written about the link between video games and learning. (Got Game, The Kids are Alright:How the Gamer Generation is Changing the Workplace, What Video Games Have to Teach Us About Learning and Literacy, Don't Bother Me Mom-I'm Learning, How Computer Games Help Children Learn)

Kids who play video games have better communication/social skills than non-players.

Some games that he showed us- Roller Coaster Tycoon (design skills, revenue), Spore (you are a one cell creature and you learn what you an eat and what can eat you--survival skills--if you are successful you get to choose adaptations to later become a multi-celled organism in the water, then on land), Pikmin (made for young kids-no instructions with this game. Your character crash lands on a planet and has to figure out how to survive- you must figure out the goals and rules on your own), Crisis (excellent graphics), Assassins Creed (advanced graphics, the crowd of people are all different and react differently, the character can explore the whole world, you can climb over any wall without restrictions)

Kids feel that the intellectual demand of video games is deeper than the intellectual demand of school. "I have to power down when I go to school!"

A teacher should be aware of which video games can relate to the topic of study because elements of the game can lead to rich discussions and critical thinking.

Serious Games-- Gamesforchange.org These are games based on real world problems. There are many free games. These games can be played at home, and then lead to rich discussions in the classroom.

Machinema (machine cinema)- connect game system to the computer, and play through iMovie, play the script of the game to make a movie or music video by recording the video game. Turns the video game into a movie set.

Urban Games- Call Cutta, Frozen Grand Central, PacManhattan
These are real life games played via cell phone/director/etc. The person does the action in real life, using the community as the platform for the game.

Second Life-- Showed an example of visiting a science center where there is a real-time real-data weather map of the US.

Making Games-- Kids can be given the opportunity to design their own games based on a teacher-given topic. (Scratch uses object oriented programming which is simple for kids)

The gaming industry competes with the motion picture industry in terms of the number of creative jobs and revenue. Many students may end up working for the gaming industry as artists, writers, etc. Not only programmers work for the gaming industry.

One teacher had students produce a thirty second movie trailer for the book Othello. She told them that she would use the trailers the next school year to get her new students excited about reading the novel. The teacher used rules and roles to create a powerful learning experience for the kids.

Teachers do not need to bring video games into the classroom, instead think about the elements of video games and bring those elements into the classroom. Digital students need to work in responsive information environments, communicate, share personal experience & identity, form & participate in communities, ask questions, illustrate their accomplishments, invest themselves, safely make mistakes, earn audience & attention.

http://educationarcade.org/
http://seriougames.org/


How to start? Talk to your students and faculty--they are a resource that can teach you about games! Start a gaming club at your school.

www.notsonoisy.com--- Human Tetris

[Trent Nichols]

All handouts for this session are at: http://handouts.davidwarlick.com
Bloggers who wish to write notes about this session should include Blog Tags: games, session, warlick
Twitter Tags should include: L2VG
97% of teens aged 12 - 17 play computer, web, portable or console games
David Williamson Shaffer published a book entitled: "How Computer games help children learn." He says that games consist of two things: Roles and rules
Many games now allow users to assume 'virtual identities.'

Examples of Educational Video Games:

Spore: You are a one cell creature who must learn what you can eat and what eats you. If you survive long enough, you can add an adaptation. As you survive, you continue to evolve within ecosystems of other creatures (that other gamers have developed). Millions of game variations exist as each decision has new outcomes and will affect future decisions

pikmin: For younger students. An interactive game where students must learn through 'trial and error,' how to thrive and live in a foreign virtual world.

Student quote: "Why do I have to power down when I go to school?" .... The intellectual demand of their outside of classroom experiences is more challenging than what occurs in a classroom.

Another student from Blue Ridge Community College, Flat Rock, NC remarked: "Why do I have to learn about Caesar? Hell, I'm building Rome every afternoon!"

gamesforchange.org/ is a new gaming site containing games requiring students to solve real life problems that may positively impact the world.

"Machinima" - A term to describe when kids create scripts that can be played out in game environments. They then record their game scenes on video and compile clips to create feature length films.

Second Life - A virtual world with lots of opportunities for interactive learning and communication

Game Creation Resources - 'Scratch' is a free, web-based, video game creation software. Students may use the software to create their own video games. They build their own code for game scenerios, characters, challenges, etc.

Educational Gaming Sites:

http://educationarcade.org/
http://seriousgames.org/