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Mindshift ha collezionato 10 contributi sul tema

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The MindShift Guide to Digital Games and Learning | KQED Mindshift | KQED Public Media for Northern CA

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In the following conversation with Gee, we discuss literacy, systems thinking, education, socio-economic inequality, and, of course, video games.
Jordan Shapiro: Your book, What Video Games Have to Teach Us About Learning and Literacy, JS: One of key concepts in the book is that literacy is about more than just reading words. I find that it is a bit of a leap for people who aren't familiar with linguistics to grasp that idea. These days we talk about "digital literacy" and "financial literacy" as if it just means "competency." But it is more complicated than that. Can you briefly explain how literacy and systems thinking are related? is a classic in games and learning circles. It is rare that I meet a game developer who doesn't mention it. Did you expect it to have such a big impact when you wrote it?
James Paul Gee: No, I did not expect such a big impact. I wrote the book because my then six-year-old's gaming turned me on to try an adult game. I had never played video games before.

I was, at first, truly amazed by how hard and long they were. To learn to play them well required a great deal of persistence past failure. Eventually, I loved playing games and realized that if I did not write about them I would not have an academic career anymore.

"We cannot change our society in one fell swoop. Sneak in, move quietly, attack unseen, put away the suit-be a snake."

JG: The human brain devotes only one special function to reading (namely, decoding sounds into letters and vice-versa). Otherwise, all the mental capacities that we use to understand and give meaning to print are the very same ones we use to understand and give meaning to oral language and to the world.

Current work on the mind argues that words gain meaning from experiences we have had in the world. We use our previous experiences to build simulations (images and actions) that we attach to words to assign them contextually appropriate meanings.
JS: Okay, so systems thinking is related to literacy, but certainly playing video games won't teach kids how to read books, will it? In fact, the way you're talking about literacy, it applies to more than just the language arts. And thinking in this way about literacy makes it easy to see that STEM and ELA are fundamentally both just semiotic systems. Why is this concept so important to the future of education?
In a sense, then, video games are like an external version of the mind. When we understand things and plan actions we run game-like role-playing simulations in our heads. In a sense, our mind is a game engine. We can combine elements from disparate experiences and create fantasies and think through complex problems.

System thinking involves being able to think in terms of complex interacting variables that make a system more than the sum of its parts. We most certainly want to see much of the social and natural world in these terms, since being stupid about systems (e.g., global warming) can lead to nasty unintended consequences.

Video games are complex systems composed of rules that interact. Gamers must think like a designer and form hypotheses about how the rules interact so they can accomplish goals and even bring about emergent results. Thinking like a designer in order to understand systems is a core 21st Century skill.

JG: Understanding oral and written language involves essentially running video-game like simulations in our heads. We run problem-based simulations where we try out various actions in our heads (as ourselves or someone else) and gauge their possible consequences.
JS: Clearly, you're not just proposing that we throw video games into the existing educational landscape willy nilly, are you? It is not that games are going to improve test scores or content retention. You're suggesting we need to fundamentally change the way we think about learning--or at least the way we think about what and how we TEACH. Can you explain?
A game manual is given meaning by the game world it is about, not by a dictionary. A physics textbook is a "game manual" for the actions, experiences, and problem solving that physicists engage in. The textbook, too, is given meaning by the "game" and the world it is played in (a somewhat different world than our everyday world, since physicists, thanks to their tools, can see things like electrons).

In school, we give people texts when they have not had enough experience in the worlds the texts are about, the experiences that give the texts meaning. It is as if we were to give kids game manuals without the games. It only works for kids who are getting a lot of experiences at home-backed up by lots of talk with adults about these experiences, talk which helps the kids learn to map language on to experience and vice-versa-but it is disastrous for less advantaged kids.

Whether it is STEM or ELA, if we do not deliver the game, but only the text, we do not get problem solvers and system thinkers, we get, at best, paper-and-pencil test passers.

JG: Yes and Amen. Games can be used-like any other technology-to instantiate the current paradigm of mindless testing, punitive accountability, and fact-based education untied to thinking or problem solving. However, this is like using a machine gun to kill an ant.
JS: It seems to me, then, that your message is more about learning from games than it is about using games. Am I correct? Your (and my) vision of a utopian school doesn't look like a video game convention full of kids clutching joysticks. So, if you had to pick one primary way of thinking about learning/teaching that our schools should appropriate from video game developers--the big soundbite takeaway--what would it be?
Games and other related technologies-together of course with talk and texts-have the potential to radically change the paradigm and unless we do change the paradigm they will just be co-opted by the current grammar of schooling.
JS: Still, video games can be one tool that's used in the classroom, right? It is possible to design really impactful game-based learning platforms, isn't it? In addition to the lessons we can learn about education from video games, do you think we should continue to integrate games into some parts of the school curricula?
Schools today contribute to our massive inequality by providing (some of) the rich with a good education and the poor with test-prep to fit them for future service jobs. In the face of making profit and competing with near monopolies, it is easy to sell out and become part of the problem and not part of the solution.

There is a reason why the great game heroes we love (e.g., Solid Snake, Gordon Freeman, Lara Croft, Mario) don't wear suits.
JS: How about on a practical everyday level? Teachers are operating within an environment that you've called a "toxic mess." They might change the way they think about education and literacy, but actually changing the way they teach is a much bigger challenge. Parents and politicians say they want to fix education, but they stubbornly resist anything that looks like a paradigm shift. Do you have any suggestions for how teachers might begin to make incremental changes within a maddening infrastructure?
JG: I want to bring rich, well-mentored, well-designed learning systems to school. These systems would connect digital tools, other technologies, interactions, talk, and text (each being used for what they are best for) to marry experience and language in the name of problem-solving and design thinking.

JG: Of course. But I am against any one tool (think textbook) being used for everything. I want all the best tools we have used in concert with each other to create collective intelligence. I want tools to be recruited in a learning system to do the jobs for which they are best fitted (which might be different in differently designed learning systems).

For example, games are often good for preparation for future learning, motivation, and getting lots of practice in core skills and concepts at an experiential level. They can be good, as well, at helping learners to form non-cognitive skills like passion-fueled persistence past failure in the name of copious deliberate (thoughtful, strategic) practice.

JG: The goal is not to make the prison better, it is to let the prisoners (students and teachers) free. Our society today is a mess. We have the highest level of inequality we have ever had. We readily ignore and even disdain evidence (e.g., global warming, evolution). We have a casino capitalism unmoored from productivity or social good. School reform has very little to do with schools.
JS: In your most recent book, The Anti-Education Era: Creating Smarter Students Through Digital Learning, you express a lot of concern about how technology is integrated into schools. What is it that worries you?
There are no other silver bullets. The problem of making school good for everyone is one of having the social will to gain more equality in our society, to honor more than money and status, and to give everyone the right to be a producer and participant--not just a consumer and spectator.

We keep talking about schools and teachers, because we do not want to talk about society, ourselves, and the craven way we have empowered the rich, corporations, and rampant social Darwinism. We cannot change our society in one fell swoop.
JS: What do parents and educators need to know about the future of education and the future of game-based learning? Some things about edtech are inevitable, are there places where we need to be especially mindful?
Sneak in, move quietly, attack unseen, put away the suit-be a snake.

JG: What worries me is the way in which we in the United States have enshrined human stupidity. In an age where interacting complex systems are killing us with the consequences of greed and stupidity, we regularly disdain evidence and honor ideology. Lots of Americans believe the Earth is about 6000 years old, do not believe in evolution, and think that Christianity was about wealth and a form of social Darwinism.

For me, evidence means trying to do something in the world (as an everyday person or a scientist) and paying close and respectful attention to how the world responds to our "probe." Is its response good for our goals or should we rethink and act again in a new way? When we disrespect the world, the world bites back and, boy, is it biting back now.

Our current situation is now too dire and the complexity of the world is now too great for us to any longer rely on traditional silo-based notions of expertise (look what Alan Greenspan did to the global economy).
JS: Anything else you want to say that I haven't asked you about?
We need collective intelligence where we view humans, in mind and body, as plug and play devices that get smart only when they are plugged into good tools, good people, and good practices in the service of pooling knowledge and diversity to make the world a better place. Games like Foldit or things like Galaxy Zoo are already interesting beginnings here. Digital and social media can niche our silos into pure echo chambers or they can create worlds of new experiences and possibilities.

JG: When I say in talks that Armageddon is upon us, people laugh and dismiss the claim as far-fetched. But the reality is Armageddon has already come for untold millions of people in the world who are starving and dying as the consequences of global warming, the global economy, and conflicts over resources.

It is clear from massive amounts of research that while we cannot predict what will happen in the future-because we have created a swarm of black swans due our greed and stupidity-we can say it will be a time of great change and transformation.

People and institutions will have to be resilient and change with change. They will have to gain very real skills with critical thinking and complexity in order not to be dupes and victims of the rich, corporations, media, and governments. They must become activists, knowers, producers, and participants and plug into and play with right team of people and tools.

This requires ethical thinking and a vision for a better world. People must become proactive, deliberate learners in and out of school and for their lifetimes. Good parents and good teachers must mentor them to be such deliberate, strategic, and ethical learners. Then people will face the future as gamers gaming systems to mod our world.

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Games Can Advance Education: A Conversation With James Paul Gee

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In the following conversation with Gee, we discuss literacy, systems thinking, education, socio-economic inequality, and, of course, video games. Jordan Shapiro: Your book, What Video Games Have to Teach Us About Learning and Literacy , JS: One of key concepts in the book is that literacy is about more than just reading words.

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Video-approfondimento su videogiochi e problem solving

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Gabe Zichermann: How games make kids smarter

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Can playing video games make you more productive? Gabe Zichermann shows how games are making kids better problem-solvers, and will make us better at everything from driving to multi-tasking.

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Apprendimento situato

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Scuola primaria - Il dibattito intorno a un libro

La proposta: "Si impara meglio se si scrive in contesti reali". Il pedagogista Mantegazza: "No, metodo valido, ma non deve venir meno il gusto per l'avventura"

I bambini dettano, mentre la maestra scrive alla lavagna: "Accenti, spazi, apostrofi: assimilano guardando", dice Elisa Farina, autrice del libro "Il dettato nella scuola primaria. Analisi di una pratica di insegnamento" (Franco Angeli Editore, 264 pagine, euro 32). Poi tocca a loro: storielline, ricette, lettere, cartoline, liste della spesa. "Sono tecniche sperimentali, verificate sul campo: i bambini che si abituano a scrivere in contesti reali risultano più competenti di quelli che usano solo metodi tradizionali e si allenano con il dettato". Scene da una prima elementare, dove i piccoli muovono i primi passi nella scrittura, imparando a non inciampare nell'ortografia.

L'"acca" e le doppie

Le doppie, gli accenti e le insidie dell'acca: qual è il modo migliore per insegnarli? Ci vuole esercizio e tanto orecchio, spiegano le maestre. Ma anche tecniche efficaci. Tra le più utilizzate, l'intramontabile dettato - con la maestra che scandisce le sillabe e intona le frasi - è oggi messo in discussione da un lavoro condotto da un gruppo di ricerca dell'Università Bicocca di Milano, riassunto nel libro di Elisa Farina. Attraverso un lavoro sul campo, entrando nelle scuole, osservando, intervistando le colleghe, la maestra - che nell'ateneo milanese ha conseguito un dottorato in Scienze della Formazione ed è tutor di Didattica della Lettura e della Scrittura - prova a rispondere ad alcune domande: Perché le insegnanti dettano? Cosa imparano i bambini attraverso il dettato? C'è coerenza tra lo scopo per cui si detta e la modalità con cui viene fatto il dettato?

Poca autonomia

Non tutte a favore le considerazioni finali: "In diverse occasioni abbiamo rilevato che la finalità del compito - verificare se i bambini hanno imparato le convenzioni dell'ortografia - era in conflitto con l'atteggiamento delle maestre che, attraverso l'intonazione o con indicazioni esplicite, suggeriscono ai bambini, per esempio, che nella parola ci sono delle "gemelline" (le doppie, ndr), oppure sottolineano la presenza di una "i", o lasciano intuire che ci vorrebbe un'acca...". I bambini imparano a rispondere alle modalità di dettatura dell'insegnante, non sviluppano una sufficiente autonomia. Invece, se gli viene chiesto di produrre spontaneamente un testo, si vede che scrivono in maniera più complessa, con difficoltà maggiori, tempi verbali ed espressioni che l'insegnante non userebbe. "Ci hanno colpiti la non consapevolezza della ragion d'essere di questa pratica consuetudinaria così come la diversità di idee a proposito della sua utilità", dice Farina.

Contesti reali

Ecco allora il suggerimento: sperimentare l'approccio "costruttivista" proposto da Emilia Ferreiro e Ana Teberosky (le ricercatrici argentine che agli inizi degli anni '80 hanno costruito un modello teorico delle tappe di apprendimento della lettura e della scrittura nella scuola dell'infanzia); abituare i bambini a scrivere in contesti reali, usare la scrittura "per uno scopo".

L'avventura di imparare

In soffitta il vecchio dettato, insomma? No, sostiene Raffaele Mantegazza, docente di Pedagogia generale alla Bicocca: "Ascoltare la parola detta da un altro e tradurla in segno scritto è sempre valido", dice. Avvertendo però che non si può prescindere dal contesto e discutere solo di metodi. Che è sempre consigliabile utilizzare più tecniche, senza fossilizzarsi. E che l'aspetto ludico dell'apprendimento non deve mai essere trascurato: "I bambini imparano di più e meglio se sono motivati, se capiscono che cosa stanno facendo e perché. Bisogna valorizzare il loro gusto per l'esplorazione, consentirgli di lasciare la propria traccia". Sì ai metodi suggeriti da Elisa Farina, dunque, "ma che non siano sostitutivi di tecniche più tradizionali". "Piuttosto - dice - quello che bisogna evitare è che gli insegnanti pretendano troppa correttezza di forma, che contino gli errori e puniscano chi ne fa di più, trasformando così il compito in un'esecuzione meccanica e arida, che blocca il senso di sfida e l'avventura di imparare".

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Scuola primaria - Il dibattito intorno a un libro I bambini dettano, mentre la maestra scrive alla lavagna: "Accenti, spazi, apostrofi: assimilano guardando", dice Elisa Farina, autrice del libro "Il dettato nella scuola primaria. Analisi di una pratica di insegnamento" (Franco Angeli Editore, 264 pagine, euro 32).

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Videogiochi e valutazione

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"In our assessments we make little fun games, and to do well at the games you need to learn something," says Dan Schwartz, the director of the AAA Lab at Stanford University. "So they're not just measures of what the student already knows, but attempts to measure whether they are prepared to continue learning when they're no longer told exactly what to do."

Schwartz is among a new breed of researchers who are applying the mechanics of games to the science of psychometrics - the measurement of the mind.

Right now, he's working on a series of video games called Choicelets. They're designed to evaluate students on factors that traditional tests can't assess. He wants to measure how students learn, how they make decisions and how they respond to feedback.
A Test Or A Learning Encounter?
Most kids like video games - a lot more than they like taking tests.

But the purpose of making tests more like games isn't just to add a spoonful of sugar to the medicine.

Scholars like James Paul Gee believe video games actually come much closer to capturing the learning process in action than traditional fill-in-the-bubble tests.

Gee, a professor of education at Arizona State University, is considered the godfather of game-based assessment.

"Is a video game a test or a learning encounter? It's both," he said. In fact, in a video game, "you're always being tested - you can't get out of a level until you finish it."

Gee and other experts explain that classic video games, like Mario Brothers or Tetris, are designed to adapt as the player gets better. Each level moves faster, or presents harder obstacles.

The game tugs you along, held in a state of "flow" between anxiety (when things get too hard) and boredom (when they're too easy).

And, the researchers point out, at the same time you're playing a game, the game can record your actions. When it's over, the software can create a report: not just a record of right and wrong answers, but all the steps you took to get there.

Schwartz's theory of assessment focuses on choice. He argues that the ultimate goal of education is to create independent thinkers who make good decisions. And so we need assessments that test how students think, not what they happen to know at a given moment.

For example, the real point of the school-fair game, called Posterlet, is not to test how good students are at graphic design.

Instead, the crux of the game comes when students choose to hear comments on their work. Seeking negative feedback, it turns out, is the best way to improve the design of your posters quickly. It's also a healthy strategy for doing well in school and in life.

In Photolet, another game from Schwartz's lab, players pretend to take photos of animals. Then they edit, crop and filter the shots.

On the surface, the game is about photography skills like focus and composition. Underneath, it emphasizes another concept: making several versions of your work and then self-editing to choose the best.

One of Schwartz's experiments took place recently at Hillview Middle School in Menlo Park, Calif. "We took over their sixth grade and taught design thinking for five weeks," he says. Design thinking includes using empathy and fact-finding to understand people's needs, generate prototype solutions to problems and test them out.

Schwartz's study showed that students were able to apply the concepts they learned in social studies or science class to improve their performance on Posterlet or Photolet.

Larra Olson, who teaches humanities at Hillview, says her students loved playing the games. "They were completely engaged," she said.

Olson said the project left her "totally open" to the potential of games as assessments, especially as an alternative to the traditional emphasis on grades and multiple-choice tests.

"I think you have to figure out the structure of the game so you're not 'leading the witness,' " she said. "But I think they're very powerful."
Copyright 2014 NPR. To see more, visit http://www.npr.org/.

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Could Video Games Measure Skills That Tests Can't Capture?

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"In our assessments we make little fun games, and to do well at the games you need to learn something," says Dan Schwartz, the director of the AAA Lab at Stanford University. "So they're not just measures of what the student already knows, but attempts to measure whether they are prepared to continue learning when they're no longer told exactly what to do."