play think learn

A good friend of mine has just introduced me to Guild Wars. It’s a MMORPG in the style of World of Warcraft but without the monthly subscription and with (I’m told) more of a focus on puzzle-solving rather than just killin’ stuff (although there is still plenty of hack ‘n’ slash).

Well so far, I’m hooked. I used up the free 10 hour demo in three days and am now having to ration my time online so that I don’t turn into some sort of ubernerdgamergeek. I’ve read a couple or really good papers recently about the potential for using MMORPGs to teach collaborative skills (I’ll post a link when I have a sec) and I can certainly see the potential. What I particularly like about Guild Wars is that you can play with other people online or you can be totally anti-social and play on your own with virtual characters - could be useful in a teaching situation for asynchronous play?

I wonder if there are any virtual gaming environments that are totally puzzle based? Would anyone use them?

The student finance game is designed to help potential students learn about manageing money and student finance. You can play the game after registering. It’s basically a decision-making game that requires that you balance money, health, and your academic and social lives. The interface is clear and functionality easy-to-use, but I can’t say I find it totally engaging (maybe I just didn’t play for long enough or am not the right demographic?). Also, is it just me, or is everything really cheap…

Well I’m now back home from the conference and more or less recovered, so I thought I’d take the opportunity to note down some of the key ideas that I want to look into further.

• I was recommended to have a look at the work of Nicholas Humphrey, on consciousness.
• A couple of game engines to investigate are the CryEngine and the OGRE open-source 3d engine.
• There seems to be a growning interest in Alternate Reality Games, with interesting presentations from Kurt Squire (a mystery game on water pollution) and Jantina Huizenga from the University of Amserdam (teaching history of Amsterdam).
• The Games, Learning and Society conference is one to think about in future.
• It might also be worth reading up on the work of Edward Castronova, Will Wright, and the literaure on social capital.

The abstracts from the conference are available on the conference web site.

I’m at the European Conference on Game-Based Learning, in Paisley, it’s the end of day one, so where better to start this blog? It’s been a really hectic day, with a lot of really interesting stuff. The highlight for me though, has to be the final keynote by Constance Steinkuehler, who spoke about her ethnographic work with virtual communities on World of Warcraft. She highlighted five ways in which virtual collaborative worlds like this can support learning:

• collaborative problem solving;
• digital literacy;
• scientific habits of mind;
• computational literacy;
• mechanisms for learning.

Personally, I really appreciated the focus on skills rather than content, and I particularly liked Constance’s answer when asked about where she thought games could be used to teach content: “Do I believe games can be used to teach content? Yes. Is it what I’m interested in studying? No. ” Indeed.

I was also interested in Kurt Squire’s definition of the three characteristics of game-based learning: a) simulation; b) user-generated content (participatory media); and c) aesthetics of experience, i.e. the expereince of being an expert. Interesting ideas, and perhaps something to strive for, but I’m not sure how realistic that definition is at present…