play think learn

I’ve been troubled by the whole idea of ‘digital natives’ for some time. Partly because the concept seems like a huge oversimplification, with little robust evidence to back it up, but more worryingly from my experience of staff development, because it can acts a limiting factor (’I'm a digital immigrant, so I can’t possibly hope to use computers like the natives’).

I was pleased, therefore, when I saw Daniel Livingstone’s post highlighting this recent article in BJET.  Bennett and colleagues (2008) argue, from an analysis of the literature on digital natives, that the relationship between young people and technology is more complex and that there is no evidence of generationally-different learning styles. They call more a more measured and rigourous research approach, concluding with a plea for a “considered and rigorous investigation that includes the perspectives f young people and their teachers, and genuinely seeks to understand the situation before proclaiming the need for widespread change.”

Bennett, S., Maton, K. & Kervin, L. (2008) The ‘digital natives’ debate: A critical review of the evidence. British Journal of Educational Technology, 39/5, 775-786.

I was at the Becta Research Conference last week, presenting with Cathy Lewin on our work on the MILO project (well, actually it was Cathy’s turn to present and my turn to sit at the front and nod knowingly).

I was particularly interested in the way that there was an artist in each room, taking what they called ‘visual minutes’ of the session (the one from our session is available courtesy of Andy Black’s blog). Although my opinion is currently divided between ‘cool, shiny, pretty, accessible, I like’ and ‘waste of public money, bah humbug’, on the whole I think that any attempt to do something different at these types of event has to be applauded.

I’ve been really bad over the past few weeks at keeping the blog up to date, mainly because I’ve had my head down working on my first book (it’s really scary that it’s already being advertised). However, I realise that I’ve neglected the blog a bit so I figure it’s time to take a break from writing and get up to date.

Here’s the second half of a post I started a couple of weeks back, looking at the papers from the European Conference on Games-Based Learning that I found particularly interesting.

Sánchez and colleagues (2008) discuss ‘playability’ as a crucial factor in video games, describing six facets of ‘global playability’:

• intrinsic playability - the mechanics of design intrinsic to video games (e.g. goals, rules, game mechanics)
• mechanical playability - the quality of the game as a software system (e.g. sound, graphics, rendering)
• interactive playability - the methods of player interaction and interface design (e.g. dialogue and game controls)
• artistic playability - the aesthetics of the artistic elements of the game (e.g. visuals, music, storyline)
• personal playability - the vision, perceptions and feelings of the person playing the game
• social playability - the perceptions of the player group when the player plays with others

Each of these facets, they argue, has seven attributes (satisfaction, learning, efficiency, immersion, motivation, emotion and socialisation) and this can be used as a design framework for ensuring playability in educational games.

Sánchez, J. L. G.,  Zea, N. P., Gutiérrez, F. L., Cabrera, M. J. & Rodríguez, P. P. 2008.  Playability: The Secret of the Educational Videogame Design. In Proceedings of the 2nd European Conference on Games-Based Learning. Barcelona, Spain, 16-17 October 2008.

Zea and colleagues (2008) present guidelines for the development of collaborative games. They say that well-designed collaborative games should foster:

• positive interdependence - group members must share the same goals, group lifespan, evaluation and score.
• personal accountability - individual contributions can be identified (but the game should seamlessly support students who may be struggling).
• face-to-face interaction - game elements (such as reaching consensus) that encourage face-to-face meeting.
• social skills - activities that support the development of team skills such as leadership, negotiation, and debate.
• group processing - meta-cognitive group skills and evaluative skills.

Zea, N. P., Sánchez, J. G., Cuevas, C., Vela, F. G. & Rodríguez, P. P. 2008.  Design of Educational Multiplayer Videogames. A Vision From Collaborative Learning. In Proceedings of the 2nd European Conference on Games-Based Learning. Barcelona, Spain, 16-17 October 2008.