I had the pleasure of attending the 9th annual Games for Change festival this June, a celebration of “serious” games with high goals and expectations for the budding medium. In my first report I discussed the importance of transfer when making a video game for education; in the second I talked about open-ended game play. Here is the third and final rule.
3) If all else fails, have them make the game themselves. Using game design as a teaching tool in the classroom was a major theme over the weekend. Whether teachers use game design tools such as GameStar Mechanic or adapt scientific and mathematical concepts to creative puzzles in Portal 2, more and more educators and designers are seeing the power of invoking the students’ own creativity and interests, and thus their engagement. Better still, an interest in game design can open a whole new creative experience for students, one dependent on STEM skills that might otherwise be dismissed as “boring.” The technology showcased at Games for Change revealed a sliding scale of abstraction and technical complexity, from Gamestar Mechanic, a completely GUI-based tool for middle schoolers, to more complex tools like GameSalad and Microsoft’s Kodu. Valve, the company behind puzzle game Portal, has created a level-building tool specifically for teaching physics and scientific concepts by having players create their own puzzles and adventures.
Because the kids learn through doing, they take ownership of their own education; rather than just getting a Game Over when they mess up, students have to account for boring play or unwinnable challenges to their friends and peers, otherwise known as their playtest group. On the other hand, when they succeed they don’t just get to win the game — they have created something to be proud of and return to time and time again.
Tracy Carlin is a Communications and Public Policy Intern at SIIA. She is also a first year graduate student at Georgetown University’s Communication, Culture and Technology program where she focuses on intersections in education, video games and gender.