KSP684 - Daphne Bavelier's TED Talk: Your Brain on Video Games

Daphne Bavelier's TED Talk presents information in favor of using video games to increase cognitive function, memory, and vision.  Below is an outline of the points she made:

• Average video game player is 33 years old.
• Statistics from Activision: 68,000 years of play for Call of Duty: Black Ops (in one month - worldwide).
• We should leverage that power to increase learning.
• In reasonable doses, games (even shooter games) have a powerful impact on players.
• Stepping into the game lab: measure the impact of games.
• Game playing makes your eyesight worse - actually improves one’s vision - can see small detail in the context of clutter. Improved ability to resolve levels of grey.  This knowledge can be used to help vision impaired.
• Gaming leads to attention problems and distractibility - fast reaction can help resolve cognitive conflicts.  Gaming improves this.
• Tracking objects around you - is improved with gaming. Average person can keep track of 3 chunks of information at a time - video gamers can keep track of 7.
• Parietal, frontal, and anterior cingulate - all three areas are more efficient in people who play action games.
• Multitasking - switching from one task to another - video gamers are better at this than most.
• Multimedia-tasking - listening to music, chatting online, and searching the web.  Most people who identify themselves as highly capable of multimedia-tasking are abysmal at multitasking.
• Wine can be good for health BUT some wine can be bad and in different quantities can cause issues.  Games can be thought of the same way.  Need the right ingredients and the right dose.
• Forcing someone to play games still improves vision and reaction times.
• Mental rotation: a shape that has been rotated but shape/size not changed.
• Effects of gaming are long lasting.
• Scientists vs. entertainment software industry (chocolate v. broccoli) - no one wants to eat chocolate covered broccoli.  Need to bring brain scientists and developers together.

KSP684 - Classroom 3 - Message from Superintendent Miller

This week's message from our Superintendent was all about choosing games for the classroom, how to align them with current pedagogical practices, game design, and instructional design.

Below is an outline of the information covered:

• Adding any game process to curriculum.
• Game design as instructional design process.
• How instructional design principles interacts with creating curriculum.
• What does instructional design due for core curriculum
• Piaget - Narrative theory and play theory - obvious connection to instructional design
• Gagne - Nine Events - any of these can be used in game play (http://citt.ufl.edu/tools/gagnes-9-events-of-instruction/)
• Gain attention
• Inform learners of objectives
• Stimulate recall of prior learning
• Present the content
• Provide “learning guidance”
• Elicit performance (practice)
• Provide feedback
• Assess performance
• Enhance retention and transfer to the job
• Vygotsky - scaffolding and ZPD
• Four principles of Game-based learning
• Games employ Play Theory, Cycles of Learning and Engagement
• Games employ Problem-based Learning
• Games embody situated cognition and learning
• Games promote engagement through cognitive disequilibrium, question-asking and scaffolding
• Safely ask questions to  promote learning
• Malone and Lockhart’s theory of intrinsic motivation
• Learning Taxonomies and Game Ontologies
• Each genre supports different play strategies and different learning strategies (motor skills, critical thinking, focus, etc.)
• Commercial designers place emphasis on gameplay rather than goals and outcomes - want you to have a good time.
• Instructional designers focus on goals and outcomes before gameplay - want you to reach a goal, first and foremost
• If the entire game can’t be made to achieve the goals and outcomes, individual challenges and tasks within the game can be. Students need to be engaged in order to want to play. Examples: vocabulary challenges, problem-solving, skills practice, etc.
• Instructional design process ensures that desired outcomes lead to explicit, measurable objectives, which in turn are aligned with assessments.  Specifications are measurable objectives. - Van Eyk
• Goals need to be aligned with assessments (if you want them to learn long division, don’t test them on spelling)
• Learning Environments
• Traditional Classroom Teaching
• Role Play
• On-line Instruction
• Single and multiplayer games
• Live and virtual simulations
• Augmented or Mixed Reality
• Augmented Virtually
• With adding games - New literacies have to be learned by both teacher and students. This can cause another layer of frustration.
• Design of instructional games requires new and more complex literacies for both teacher and students.
• Three Approaches to Design:
• Artistic
• Empirical
• Analytical
• Rieber: “I advocate for an approach that is largely artistic but with empirical elements: design a game, play the game, and revise the game until one reaches an optimal blend of fun and learning.”
• Can be hard for teachers to turn on the artistic side to create a game. In an empirical world of education our artistic sides get left behind.
• Game players are motivated by:
• Social interaction
• Physical seclusion
• Competition
• Knowledge
• Mastery
• Escapism
• Addiction
• Games capture and sustain players’ attention by:
• Sensation
• Fantasy
• Narrative
• Challenge
• Fellowship
• Discovery
• Expression
• Masochism
• ADDIE Process
• Analysis, design, development, implementation, and evaluation
• http://www.instructionaldesign.org/models/addie.html
• Including pedagogy with games design
• http://www.indiana.edu/~drbob/PreparingIDforGBL_TechTrends.pdf
• Game Design process can be interconnected with good pedagogy
• Jacob’s Ladder - link between instructional and entertainment design - basic steps can be linked.
• http://docslide.us/documents/game-design-as-a-collaborative-process-hirumi.html
• Learners = Market Audience
• Learning Objectives = Story
• Don’t get lost “in the weeds” when designing game-based learning - remember the “fun, motivation, and creativity”

KSP684 - School of the Future - Classroom 2 Summary

The focus of classroom two was virtual worlds.  Topics included what a game is, how to assess student artifacts when they are creating their own worlds, the effectiveness of using game-based learning, and how games are connected to the common core.

Key points from the articles, podcasts, and studies include: student engagement is important. Virtual worlds offer exciting ways for students to create their own identity, while seeing where they fit in the greater scheme of things.  It is important to find ways to assess student work (mainly because that is how our education system is designed).  Alignment with the Common Core makes game-based learning more appealing to many educators.

After reading about the many ways in which game-based learning can impact children's learning I feel like it ought to be a part of any school.  In the classes I took to get my Bachelors in Elementary Education, we were told over and over again that keeping kids engaged is half the battle.  If you can make them want to do the work then they are more likely to learn. Game-based learning is essentially the 21st century engagement strategy to beat all engagement strategies!

KSP684 - Learning in Virtual Worlds

Cornell University has developed an online science fair that allows students to develop their own virtual worlds.  These can be assessed and evaluated by educators so as to allow for alignment with standards.

This is an outline of the article:

• Multi-user, virtual, avatar-based system - users interact with design and environment.  Users generate content.
• Some log user activities = can be used for assessment - historically game developers have accesses user information to help players and development while educator have only had limited access.
• SciCentr & SciFair
• Online science museum developed by Cornell University
• Interactive science and technology web sites and 3D worlds
• Project-based learning experience that teaches participants to share their learning using virtual worlds.
• Participants as builders
• Can play or create
• Modeled after the traditional science fair
• Formal and informal settings are available
• Students work through the full process from development to exhibition
• Both evaluation and assessment are done (evaluation on effectiveness of medium and assessment on student achievement
• Evaluation: motivation, data gathering, analysis of student sand boxes, pre and post surveys
• Assessment: rubrics
• Teachers can use a rubric to assess “World design” and are integrate ISTE NETS.
• Conclusions:
• Students find building worlds motivating and exciting.
• Mastery can be assessed
• Self-assessment is possible
• Chat and building logs help track students progress

KSP684 - Evaluating Game-based Learning Effectiveness in Higher Education

Below is an outline of the important points made in the research paper "Evaluating Game-based Learning Effectiveness in Higher Education".

Introduction

• GBL - popular search in Google and in scholarly databases
• GBL used a lot but no empirical evidence that shows it works
• Educational games are influenced by the developers cultural background - and therefore are not usable in other markets. The lack of cultural connections could limit motivation and performance.
• Focus: does learner’s background correlate with learner motivation and performance AND does GBL environment correlate to learn performance and motivation.

Literature Review

• “A games is an artificially constructed, competitive activity with a specific goal, set of rules, and constraints that is located in a specific context.” - Hays (2005)
• Games - do not represent real life but is constructed with portions to resemble real life.  Games are interactive.
• Games provide experiences for players to solve complex problems.
• Instructional Games - specifically designed or modified to meet a learning objective. These are often called “Serious Games”.
• Game Based Learning (GBL) - use of a computer game for learning and educational purposes.
• Still lack of data to support effectiveness of using games. Most “evidence” is based on teacher judgement and interest.  
• There is a need to create an evaluation framework for serious games that are used for learning.
• Research on games often fails to include control group so no comparison is possible.  
• Some claim GBL lacks pedagogical aspects.
• Knowing the learners background can help tailor the game to provide more effective learning experiences - background should include linguistic, learning style, and communication style.  Also important are their gender, indigenous status, socioeconomic status, language, and geographic location.  

Ethnicity

• People who share the same cultural  and physical characteristics.
• They share the same history, political system, beliefs, language, geographical origins, customs, legends, attitudes, cuisines, genetic similarities, and physical features.

Culture

• Set of parameters of a collective - these parameters differentiate the collectives from each other.

Language

• Method of human communication - spoken or written

Motivation

• General desire or willingness of someone to do something.

Learner Performance

• Knowledge acquired by learners as a result of learning or an increase in knowledge.

Methodology of Research

• Questionnaire distributed to undergraduate students
• 296 Responses collected

Analysis

• Normality Tested
• Hypothesis Tested

Conclusion

• Learner’s background influences motivation and therefore affects their performance

KSP684 - What is A Game Podcast

The Podcast "Game & Learn: An Introduction to Educational Gaming" provides a ton of fantastic information about how gaming can be used in the classroom. Dr. Ruben Puentedura maps what makes a good game with the concepts used to develop effective lesson plan. The connection between gaming and education is evident.

Puentedura says in order to understand the connection it is necessary to understand what "play" is.

1. What is Play: free movement within a more rigid structure.
1. ZPD - Gap between what a child can accomplish on their own (Zone of Current Development ZCD) and what they can accomplish with help of a “More Knowledgeable Other” (MKO).
2. Play doesn’t require the MKO.  Child behaves beyond their ZCD while playing - is taller, is older...

Once you understand what "play" is you can begin to understand what a "game" is.

1. What is a game:
1. Formal Definition: A games is a system where players can engage in an artificial conflict, defined by rules, that results in a quantifiable outcome.
1. Content areas are also defined by rules
2. Assessment is the quantifiable outcome in education
3. Artificial conflict - harnessing the competitive nature of the student usefully and productively; constructive not destructive. Conflict doesn’t need to be among the players - it can be between the players. Can be cooperative within the game.
2. Relationship between Video game Play and General Play
1. Being Playful
2. Ludic activities
3. Game Play
4. Video Games