play think learn

It’s been really hard to find a few minutes to sit down and blog over the last couple of weeks, what with lots of projects and extracurricular activities taking over my life.

However, I when I found this site I thought I’d better blog about it before I forget. The Daedalus Project is a blog dedicated to the study of the psychology of MMORPGS, and the link to the Daedalus Gateway is probably the best place to start. The author, Nick Yee, has been involved in large-scale investigations into player psychology since 1999 and his findings are presented here.

There are a number of reports that have been published over the last few years that I refer to regularly, but am always forgetting where they live (yes, I could use bookmarks but that would be too like being organised). So here they are all in one place…

Two reports from the JISC:

• Briefing paper on game-based learning
• Learning in immersive worlds

Two reports from the Learning and Skills Network:

• Computer games and simulations for adult learning: Case studies from practice
• The use of computer and video games for learning

Two reports from FutureLab:

• Games and learning handbook
• Teaching with games

Finally, Gamers in the UK, which despite being published in 2005, I only came across recently. This research has was commissioned by the BBC to look at the demographics of game players in the UK, and was undertaken with a large sample size (3442 people) but with no mention of sampling strategy so it’s unclear how generalisable the findings are. Nevertheless, some interesting results.

I’ve recently become very interested in the potential of using games to change attitudes and behaviours, so was quite excited when I came across MindHabits trainer, a game that claims to “help players reduce stress and boost self confidence and esteem using principles from social intelligence research”.

The principle of this game is that it can be used to re-train mental habits through a series of mini-games to produce a more positive outlook, and let go of negative habits and emotions. I particularly like that this is backed up by a ’science lab’ section that explains the theory behind how the games are designed.

In principle, this looks like an excellent application of games for learning, but unfortunately someone forgot to mention to the game designers that games are meant to be fun. For me, clicking smiling faces in clouds, being able to recognise my own name when I see it, and finding words such as ‘loved’ and ‘valued’ in word searches just doesn’t make for lasting engagement.

What I do like about this application though is that it comes from the right starting point - it is designed around explicit educational principles, even though I don’t think they’ve quite got the ‘game’ part right. Nobody said it was easy.