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.

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. Here is the second rule.

2) Don’t spoon feed game play. The best educational games are open. There’s a game design rule that has always proven again and again to be true – don’t depend on the instruction book to teach game play; no one reads them. It’s the same with educational videogames. Walls of text and specific linear game play, leading kids on a leash, doesn’t lead children to ask questions or think critically about the material; it’s about as helpful as leading a kid through an instruction book on the concepts you are trying to teach. They’ll tune out.

Jessica Millstone of the Joan Ganz Cooney Center and Allisyn Levy of BrainPOP presented case studies where teachers flocked to games that didn’t explicitly explain rules, instead opening both players and teachers to multiple styles of play and instruction. The Lure of the Labyrinth, for example, releases players into the game world after a short narrative comic, with no explanation for how to play or what mathematical concepts the game will teach. It is up to the player and their instructor to experiment with the point-and-click interface, which allows children to explore and problem-solve and teachers to provide any level of instruction. Another example, the educational version of Minecraft, duplicates the original commercial game’s open-ended sandbox design, while giving instructors extra powers to better harness the world to their own instructional purposes. Attending educators were especially pleased with Minecraft.edu’s versatility and their ability to craft lessons around its simple block-based game play — teaching children things like collaboration alongside traditional mathematical lessons.

In the final part, I’ll talk about one of the most popular topics at this year’s Games for Change – having kids design their own games for learning.

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.