Game as ground experience

Last two weeks, I introduced two researches on integrating games into classroom setting. Today, I will write how games benefit learning outside the classroom.

As we all know, games could offer gamers rich experience, no matter it is role-play games or puzzle games. Some researchers believe that combining gaming experience with formal learning experience it will provide depth in learning.

Playing Civilization simulation game then becoming an expert of this game doesn't increase one's history knowledge, however, research shows that playing and struggling with the game prepared students to learn more from reading a difficult college history text chapter.

In my opinion, when I play a game and attracted by its storyline, I will be more engaged in then reading a textbook, because the game offeres me immediate feedback after any operation I did. Sometimes, I will have the same feeling when I read a textbook. I raised a question from the text, and wanted to know the answer. If I can find the answer in the following part of this book, I would be satisfied and keep reading it. If not, I might stop to go somewhere else to find this answer. In the first situation, I feel I interacted with the book. In the game world, the feeling is stronger, as I can see how I effect the game world, at the same time, it force me to make decision, to think or guess.

According to some researchers, these game play experience will benefit one's future learning. Therefore, the best use of video games in learning might be in providing experience with the subject matter that is to be later acquired via more formal learning settings.

ASTRA EAGLE -- a drill and practice game

Today, I want to introduce a case study about a drill and practice game.

A drill and practice game is one type of puzzle game. As what its name tells us, the purpose of a drill and practice game is to support drill and practice. Different from simulation games I wrote about in last several weeks, drill and practice games are not thought as an effective tool to improving learning and skills by most researchers. The case study I introduce today takes a close look at drill and practice game and want to find out how a drill and practice works, what characteristics they embody, and what learners are doing as they play a game, thus informing whether and how drill and practice games would be a pedagogically sound learning environment.

ASTRA EAGLE[1] was been used in this study, which comprises a serious of web-based online game and developed by the Center for Advanced Technologies of a school district. These games are designed to reinforce academic standards for mathematics required by Pennsylvania System of School Assessment.

The research site is an elementary school in the same district. Participants are 15 4th-5th grade students who were enrolled in a summer program, where this study will be conducted. All the participants played eight ASTRA EAGLE math games during 10 two-hour sessions for five weeks.

The researcher found these drill and practice games enhance students' positive attitudes toward math learning significantly. However, what should be noted is that not every game would engage students' learning. The data shows some good learning game design principles, such as "situating learning activities within the game story and characters that players will take on, making games pleasantly challenging, and scaffolding reflections". Also, the off-computer activities are important, such as offline assistive learning tools, game-based collaborative activities, and the just-in-time guidance of an instructor.

Ke, F. (2008). A case study of computer gaming for math: Engaged learning from gameplay?. Computers & Education, 51(4), 1609-1620.

[1] You don't need an ID and password to log in, just click the login button in the login page, the website will assign you an account.

Supercharged!

Supercharged! is a 3D flying game that is designed to give players an intuitive understanding for introductory electromagnetic reactions.

"The game places students in a three dimensional environment where they must navigate a spaceship by controlling the electric charge of the ship, placing charged particles around the space. Students must carefully plan their trajectory through each level by tracing the field lines that emanate from charged objects, and in the process of doing so, develop a more hands on understanding of how charged particles interact."

 Unfortunately, I can not find this game on the Internet, and only find the two pictures below.

In Dr. Squire's study in 2004, he used this game in one middle school's classroom teaching. Students in experimental group played Supercharged! during class time with supplemental materials and interactive lectures from teacher. Students in control group was taught about electrostatics through guided inquired methods, such as interactive lectures (from the same teacher), experiments, observations and demonstrations of the teacher's design. The experiment group performed better than control group in terms of their post-test scores, the difference between two groups are significant.

From this result, it seems that the game works, but Dr. Squire also took a close at what happened in classroom. By examining the class video, It can be found that as frist students in experiment group are somewhat confused by the activity(game play) and they don't know the point of the activity. And in the second day, the teacher found that students were playing the game but not critically reflected on the game. Therefore, the teacher begin to encourage students thinking such as making prediction. In day 3, the teacher used the projector to display game and let students interpret what happened on the screen and make prediction. Dr. Squire found some of the richest classroom discussion occurred at this time.   

Now, in my opinion, it is not the game but the following activities that the teacher conducted contributes to the scores difference. What do you think?

Even we feel that there are so many potential advantages of video games in education, in fact there are few empirical studies that have examined the use of video games within classroom setting. 

What I have learned from this research is that integrating games into classroom setting is far more complex. So in next blog I will continue this topic by introducing another researcher's study, in that study, the intervention is not just letting students play the game in classroom.

Reference

Squire, K., Barnett, M., Grant, J. M., & Higginbotham, T. (2004, June). Electromagnetism supercharged!: Learning physics with digital simulation games. In Proceedings of the 6th international conference on Learning sciences (pp. 513-520). International Society of the Learning Sciences.

Can we use online games in our classroom?

Last week, I introduce a commercial game for educational purpose, or I can call it "education game". Nowadays, more and more educator, researcher and game developer begin to design and develop education games, or instructional games. But there exists a ton of commercial games and million people play it everyday.A 2008 study by the Pew Internet and American Life Project found that 97% of teens aged 12-17 play digital games, and 50% of them report daily or nearly daily play (Lenhart et al., 2008). When gamers play games, they will learn something, at least, they learned how to play this game.

Please try the game below.

Online Physics Games

It just like the games you played on the webpage, on your smart phone or your tablet yesterday! Nothing special. Now, think about what are you doing during playing -- try hard to keep these objects' balance. You may use your intuition and your real life experience to guid you how could you put these objects and protect them from falling down. 

When we talk about keeping balance, we will always refer to the physics concept -- the center of gravity. 

Can we let students play this game whey they learn the concept "balance" and "the center of gravity" in their physics class? If I am the teacher, how can I design one or more classes with this game to facilitate my students learning these basic concepts?

First question, do my students need these game? Or they wil learn well in the traditional way (lecture, hands on activity, Q&A etc.).

I am not sure, some students may understand balance and the center of gravity easily, as they can connect these concepts with their daily experience. For other students who can't find these connections it may be a little bit harder, they might feel these concepts are abstract. 

 

Can I use some material objects to design some experiments to help my students understanding these concepts?

Certainly yes. But experiences are not always success. Students may need to try a lot of times, nonetheless the time of one class is limited. So I need to carefully design my experiment which should not be too hard and also need to align with my teaching content.

Can I use some digital simulation software? 

Compare to material objects experiment, it will save time as we don't need to prepare   anything for it. And students just need click or drag the object.

If we have good simulation, do we need game?   

Well, in my opinion, may be games could engage student more than simulations. As in the game you just played, it have different difficulty levels, from the easiest to the hardest. When you play the game, you are a problem solver just as you use material objects to complete the experiment. But for simulation, if we design some task, not just present, it may reach the same end with experiment or games. 

What's your opinion? Next week, I want to introduce some researches about using games in classroom, to see these researchers thoughts.



Reference

Lenhart, A., Kahne, J., Middaugh, E., Macgill, A. R., Evans, C., & Vitak, J. (2008) Teens, Video Games and Civics. Pew Internet & American Life Project. Washington D.C.

Kidaptive - Educational games for kids

In my first blog in the topic of Game-based Learning, I want to introduce a iPad game called Leo's pad. Leo is short for Leonardo da Vinci. It is a free game, you can find it in App Store.

Here is a video introduction about the parent's pad from its official website:

Parent's Pad from Kidaptive on Vimeo.

Parent's pad is as its name, for parents, whose kid are using Leo's pad. In fact, Parent's pad is a build in assessment tool that help parents support their kid's learning. By using it this tool, parents could know how their kids perform in this game.

Are you kidding me? It is just a game! Why parents need to know how their kids perform in it?

I think that is because it is an educational game. On Kidaptive's website, they said their goals is to "support kids (ages 3-11) and their parents (and eventually teachers) through the children's entire early-learning trajectory".

Okay, let us see what they have invent to accomplish their goal.

Leo's pad is consist of a serious adventures of Leo and his friends. Once you begin the game, you are Leo's friend too. Now it has 4 appisodes:

I have tried Appisldes 1. The story is Leo's friend, Gally, whose birthday is coming. Gamers need to prepare a birthday present with Leo together. During this process, gamers need to finish a serious of tasks which include identify colors, shapes, numbers and letters. It also contained drawing or writing tasks and introduced the structure of a telescope. For example, the gift, Leo want to give Gally is a telescope, as Gally love to watch stars. Then, Leo asks the gamer to assemble a telescope with him.

When the gamer touch any part on the table, Leo will pronounce the shape's name. When the gamer move each part, Leo will give the gamer some suggestions about whether it is suitable or not. When the gamer finished the optical tube, the screen will present the whole telescope and tell the gamer which part they just assembled, then move to the next.

For me, I feel it like the activity I have had when I was in kindergarden.

That is the final purpose of the founders of Kidaptive -- they hope their product can be used in formal education. Not only for parents and children play casually, but also for teachers in the school.

This is Kidaptive's early learning curriculum Framework, which includes "control yourself", "figure stuff out", "acquire physical routines", "be creative", "knowledge", "love learning", and "interact with others". They thinks these skills could promote future learning. Under each part, there are more specific categories.

All the tasks within the game are designed based these skills. Parents could use Parents' pad to monitor the achievement their children get from playing games.

What's your opinion about this game, if you were a parent, would you like your kid to play this game? If you are a teacher, would you like to use it in your classroom?

Honestly, it does not feel like school.

The title today comes from the girl in this picture. Remember the blog I write in the second week? Quest Atlantis! This girl just finished the class with using Quest Atlantis, and she said, it is fun, honestly, it does not feel like school. (Click me, if you want to see the whole video.)

So, why "does not feel like school" is fun? Is this mean that school is not fun? So, is school fun that important?

Most research about Virtual World I have read nearly all mentioned they try to use virtual world to motivated students and more engaged students. It seems that students hate school and do not want to involved in class activities. And look at what they are doing outside school, they are creating fan fiction, video or games, or just surfing the internet, playing games and watching TVs. Consequently, researchers thinks whether we could bring what these children like into classroom, so they will love learning math or science.

Here is my question, why? Shouldn't learning be painful? And it is because of the pain in leaning, learning makes me happy when I learned.

Oh, that's not the question. Some research might said, it is not only the motivation or fun things, it is also about knowledge. Assessments are scaring and exercises are boring, and all these are totally different from the real world. Scientists do not recite physics laws, they understand it and use it to solve complex problems. That is the reason why we spend huge money and time to develop virtual worlds like Quite Atlantis, we want to students have the experience of how scientists do research before they say "I quit" in science class.

It seems that makes sense.

We use these fancy technology is not because students like them (oh, maybe part of is this reason), we choose to use it is because it could offer a possible solution to our problem, for example, how to avoid knowledge inertia, how to give Chinese students chance to practice English with American students, how to let distance students feel like in the classroom.

So, what we bring into class and school should tightly connect to our purpose and solve our problems.

Finally, thanks for reading my blogs and leave comments! Hope you now have some knowledge about virtual worlds in Education.

Active world

Today, I want to introduce an aged one -- Active World, would you like to guess in which year it lunched? Active world is a 3D virtual reality platform, which means you can use it to build your own virtual world.

Here is an example of how educators used Active World as an asynchronous formal learning environment. Researchers from University of Colorado-Boulder, use Active World as part of the Immersive Interactive Learning Environment for course: the Business Computing Skills 1000. The goal of this course is to develop students' business computing skills within a business-related context. And this course not only have this 3D virtual world, as a entry level course for undergraduate students, but also combines with the traditional classroom setting and the web-based environment.

Let us take a close look at what role does the 3D virtual world play in this course.

Just imagine when you click "Weekly Materials" in Blackboard under IDE611, and what you see is the virtual SU campus, when you "walk into" each building, you can find the web-link resources to aid you finish this week's discussion. And to the rear of each building is where you can talk and discuss with other students from IDE611, certainly not in person but through your avatar.

That is what Active World does for Business Computing Skills 1000. Each building in the virtual worlds stands for one application students need to learn in this course, within building is the resource they can use and  the assignment for this application, there are public places they can talk about their assignment and cooperate to finish it.

Now we know that researchers in this project try to use Active World to organize materials of this course. For example, the location of each building has been placed stands for the learning sequence for the whole bunch of application students need to learn. And when students meet in open patios they can easily access the provided resources, just "walk" into the building. So students can read the same materials at the same time -- when they use the chat tool to communicate.

Some students in this course said they like this course because they do not need to go to school. But many students expresses when they study in this environment they feel like they are "at school" or "actually there". 

After using Active World as part of the environment, this course become more popular and fewer students drop this course then before.



CLICK ME, if you want to know more about this research.

Second Life

Second life is a famous virtual world. The difference from virtual worlds I introduced before is that this virtual world is not design for education. Even so, there are still educators who try to use it in education context, especially in Language Learning. In this blog I will introduce some example of the using in education. For the virtual world itself, you can learn more from their official website and Wikipedia.  

Since Second life is not an educational virtual world, it doesn't include activities designed for specific instructional goals. Most users in Second life are general players, they communicate with each other and live the life they may not have in the real world. As a result, it is a challenge for educators to explore the possible use of Second Life in their own class context. 

Mihwa Kim from Teachers College of Columbia University had used Second Life in high school history class to investigate how using a virtual environment impacts student learning with collaborative activities. She used Second life as a collaborative space, students in the same group worked together to solve two problems about Korean historical events and concepts. During the activities, students would explore this 3D environment and discuss with other group members, and share their findings with other groups. Her study showed, using this 3D virtual world positively effected students' learning. Interactive, collaborative, embodied, and exploratory features in Second life led students learn more.

Also, there are researchers using Second life to change students' attitude toward science and science related careers. Selen Turkay from Teachers College, Columbia University, used Second life in a high school located in New York city through a whole semester. Students played to be as scientists. Major science activities took place in SL and were strengthened with classroom discussions led by the teacher. What should be noted is that the specific unit environment used in their class is installed in Second Life by content developer. Remember, Second Life is not an educational virtual world, so educators who plan to integrate this virtual world in their class should develop their own suitable unit environment.

In regard of Language Learning, there is an example of a group of American and Chinese researchers using Second life as a virtual learning space where a EFL program taking place. The participators of this experimental EFL program came from a state university in the southeastern USA and a provincial university in Eastern China. The American students are freshman from different department and took a basic computer skill course. The Chinese students are 20 full-time sophomores majoring in English. The learning activities included in this 5-week program are a lecture, virtual tours in group and one-on-one with SL partners and individual presentation. The learning tasks of each week are 1 hour learning activities in SL, blog writing consisting of reflections on their learning experiences in SL and language preparation for learning activities in SL for the subsequent week. According to their study, the study participants perceived the SL_EFL Program to be interesting, effective and helpful in the EFL learning.

   

Although researchers find some advantages of using SL as a virtual learning space, there are problems perceived from their research, such as distracting objectives, uninvited people suddenly came out and so on. Even so, I think it is good that teachers, educators and researchers try to explore how to use Second Life in education.   

Whyville

Today, I want to introduce another virtual world --- Whyville.

How many players do you think that Whyville has?

Over 1.2 million, players age are from 8 to 16, the average is 12.3 years old, and 68% players are girls. Each day, about 14,000 players log in Whyville and spent from 5 minutes to more than 5 hours within it. In Whyville, players can design their own faces, chat with other players, and play different type of science games. In fact, over 10,000 sciences activities will happen in a regular day.

Above is the map of Whyville, "citizens" there can visit any place they want by clicking the icon. Let me take Spin Lab for example.

The girl on the left corner is my avatar. :)  

This is what the lab inside looks like. When I click the nose icon, the reminder comes out, suggest players reading the lab manual first.

The manual has listed all the activity users can play in Spin Lab. For each activity, it provides a brief description, including the question (How does a skater get spinning so fast?) and the background information.

Here is the screenshot of the game Skater Simulation.

Player can place the skater's arm and leg by clicking the color dots on her joint and dragging her limps to a new position. But if player moves her to a unstable position, the skater would fall down. The skater's speeding change can be observed through the simulation on the right. 

Single-player games like this is only a part of the Whyville, but it is an important part, by which I mean, players build their own salary most by playing these games. As you may have noticed, my avatar has not had a nose! If I want a fancy nose, I need to buy them in Face factory. So, I think now you might have the idea about what drives players to play science games!   

Why does virtual world make a difference?

I hope last blog has given you a general idea about what Quest Atlantis is. Today, I want to go deeper behind the surface of Quest Atlantis, to dig out the fundamental rationale of the fancy virtual world.

The whole Quest Atlantis virtual world is intended to engage children in a form of transformational play. What is "transformational play"? 

"Transformational play is a pedagogical tool, it beyonds perceptual immersion and does not require physical immersion, but instead is tied to situational or projective immersion or what others have referred to as presence. (Debe, 2009; Sheridan 1999)"[1]

From the sentence I quoted above, it can be found that just playing games doesn't means it is the transformational play. There should be situation or project gamers (students) immersed in.

"Playing transformationally involves (a) taking on the role of a protagonist (b) who must employ conceptual understandings (c) to make choices (d) that have the potential to transform (e) a problem-based fictional context and ultimately (f ) the player’s understanding of the content as well as of (g) herself as someone who has used academic content to address a socially significant problem. "[2] 

Now, we would get the idea why virtual world is a good way to fulfill transformational play. First, students should be capable to do something to solve a socially significant problem. Second, students should know what will happen after his/her decision, by which it means students will get the feedback quickly. Third, students should use academic content to solve the problem as a scientist, journalist or other profession.

It is a quite different experience from school learning, students have less chance to change the world they live by using the knowledge they learn in class. Students have to solve many problems in school every day, but all these problems will not affect the world, what they will affect is the student's grade. Certainly, a student will be happy when he/she has a high grade. But how could they connect what they learn to their future, to the bigger world out of school, if the problem offers in class is "Amy has 4 apples, in the morning she eats one, how many apples are left"? 

Virtual world is such a good option for school education, students could take any risk as they like and teachers will not need to worry about whether it would hurt the students themselves or cause some damage to the real world. And working like an adult is what all I want to do when I was a child. I always play teacher-student game with my cousin, imaging I am a real teacher! But I don't know whether she is happy to act as a student when she is at home!

[1]Barab, S. A., Scott, B., Siyahhan, S., Goldstone, R., Ingram-Goble, A., Zuiker, S. J., & Warren, S. (2009). Transformational Play as a Curricular Scaffold: Using Videogames to Support Science Education. Journal Of Science Education And Technology, 18(4), 305-320.

[2] Barab, S. A., Gresalfi, M., & Ingram-Goble, A. (2010). Transformational Play Using Games to Position Person, Content, and Context. Educational Researcher, 39(7), 525-536.

Quest Atlantis

Would you believe the game in the video above could be used in schooling education?

This is the virtual world I want to introduce in this blog --- Quest Atlantis.

What is Quest Atlantis? Quest Atlantis is the former version of Atlantis Remixed. It " is an international learning and teaching project that uses a 3D multi-user environments to immerse children, ages 9-16, in educational tasks".[1]

The most famous unit in Quest Atlantis is Taiga, students work together to figure out a serious ecological problem which has resulted in many fish dying. Students can move through the park (Taiga National Park)and talk with people(NPCs and other students), by which, they can collect clues, then conclude the reason of this problem, make a recommandation about suggestions to improve the environment. Does this sounds like a real life task which are always done by scientists? It is cool, right?

As a educational virtual world designed for schooling education, it provides "an immersive context with over 60,000 players worldwide".[2] These children have submitted over 50,000 Quests and completing 100,000 Missions, some of which are assigned by their teachers, others are done by children's own choice in their free time. Researches through analyzing these learners data have prove learning gains in science, language arts and social study. More importantly, it offers a totally different learning approach in classroom. The inquiry-based tasks requires students to act and think like professionals, to make a difference. During this process, not only academic knowledge student developed but also communication skills.

It is not easy to get students accessing this kind of opportunities in real life, because they are tiny people, they make mistakes, you will never want put hundreds of fish's life into teenagers' hands. ;) But you can do it in a virtual world, which could let students learn from their mistakes, it will not hurt anyone(any fish)!

Next week, I want to continue talk about Quest Atlantis and the rational under it.   

Oh! I almost forget the most important thing --- the designer!! Quest Atlantis Project is developed by Dr Sasha Barab's team. Now Dr Barab is a Professor in the Teachers College at Arizona State University. Before that he worked in Indiana University, that is why you will meet some invalid weblink pointing to IU when you scan Quest Atlantis website. Don't worry, you can google the title or key words, and find other equivalent resources.   


[1][2]: quote from http://atlantisremixed.org

It is free of charge to download Quest Atlantis from their website for everyone. It has both PC and Mac version.

Hello, World!

If you had used VC, you would know where the subtitle came from. :-)

But today, I want to introduce a world which doesn't exist --- virtual world --- literally. Virtual world certainly exists, or how could I finish my IDE 611 assignment 2!

What is a virtual world? I want to begin with what is not a virtual world, this idea was borrowed from a book[1] about designing virtual world. I think for such a board concept, it is a easy way to clarify its boundary.

Is the game Cut the Rope a virtual world?

No, I don't think so. Why? One day you received a box, you open it and find there is a cute frog waiting for you to feed it candy. It seems like you are in a first-person perspective virtual world. But can you explore this "world", if it were a world. You could only move forward through a fixed order level by level. And believe me, in Cut the Rope, there is nothing worthy to explore. It is certainly a good game, I mean, but just different kinds of boxes.(^_-)

First, as a player, you can explore the virtual world through yourself (first-person perspective) or moving an avatar which is a computer-based character representing you (third-person perspective). So, if you design a virtual world, you should think about how the atmosphere and territory looks like, also objects in the world.

Also, in Cut the Rope, you are lonely, by which I mean, there is no network of people within the game. In a virtual world, as a player, you have the ability to interact with other players in real time. Thinks about World of Warcraft, it is such a famous Massively multiplayer online role-playing game within strong social interaction between players. As regard of community, you must think of another virtual world --- Second life. It is a typical online real-life game, has been massively discussed in educational related field, such as language instruction. Oh, finally I refer the word "EDUCATION"!!!

In the next few weeks I will want to introduce several famous educational virtual world and also want to discussion the use of virtual wold in K-12 school education.

Hope this blog give you a initial impression about virtual world and believe me, this blog it not an advertisement of Cut the Rope!!!!They do not pay me a penny!!   

[1]The book is Design for learning in Virtual World .