Last week I had the pleasure of attending the 9th annual Games for Change festival, a celebration of “serious” games with high goals and expectations for the budding medium. In the hands of capable and creative developers video games have been used to promote social change, tackle complex political issues and educate everyone from kindergarten to college and beyond. Attendants at the conference included designers, developers, businessmen, and teachers interested in using video games in their classrooms. Their questions and comments over the course of the three days were highly enlightening and gave me the rare opportunity to see what teachers desire from games for learning. In the next few days I’ll post three lessons I took away from the festival for those in the educational technology industry interested in developing video games.
1) Transfer should be a top priority, not just fun. It’s great if kids can use mathematical or scientific concepts to blow away aliens or save the princess, but when confronted with the same ideas in a standardized test will they remember the connection? Games offer teachers the rare chance to have children directly interact and problem solve with concepts usually taught with a simple formula and memorization. But that doesn’t mean developers can rely on excellent, engaging play to commit a concept to a child’s memory. Designers must account for and plan for in-game content to easily transition to the real world.
Marion Goldstein, Research Associate at EDC’s Center for Children and Technology, explained how she approaches the concept of transfer in her presentation on a game to teach concepts of photosynthesis. RubyRealm does not explicitly teach the terms or the physical process; instead, it uses the building of glucose cells as a model for gameplay and an abstract visual. The game is played at home for a minimum of thirty minutes. The next day in class is where the specifics of photosynthesis are explained by the teacher, using classroom materials linking images from the game and the scientific terms and concepts. The teacher can control how much or how little of the class is devoted to the game, although it’s encouraged by the developers to use materials using same visuals as the game. A “transfer task” reinforces the similarities of game play and real science, insuring the students understand how plants build glucose molecules. The more gradual, multi-level system led to a stronger understanding and familiarity with the standard equation and the use of glucose in plants. Teachers in the audience appreciated the time devoted to transfer and the openness of the courseware.
Next time, I’ll discuss the importance of open-ended game play.
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.