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We may think we're pretty smart, but in fact we have very little notion of how humans learn. Kids know: They play games. Until, that is, they go to school. That's when the games stop. And often, so does the learning.

That was the sad panorama painted by a panel of distinguished experts on education and "gamification" who nonetheless were optimistic about the promise of using games in pedagogy.

The panel discussion, held at the Graduate School of Education (GSE) on Feb. 26, was part of the yearlong public course, Education's Digital Future (Educ 403x). Roy Pea, co-convener of the class and a professor in the GSE, introduced the speakers by noting that what he called "gaming to learn" has been around Stanford for close to a decade. (One of the speakers later noted that Wikipedia claims that Stanford students in 1971 invented the first known instance of a coin-operated video game.) But it is only recently that gamification's possibilities in the realm of education truly have been appreciated.

Bringing games to bear in education is not a matter of dumbing down. Constance Steinkuehler, an associate professor of digital media at the University of Wisconsin-Madison and co-director of the Games+Learning+Society (GLS) center there, noted that "it turns out games are hard." If indeed humans think immeasurably better as part of a network than on their own, then games are an obvious terrain in which to set minds free and let them wander around, interacting with whatever or whomever they encounter. The system of points, badges, rewards and leaderboards featured in most massively multiplayer online (MMO) games can be replicated in an educational context, experts say, to account for people's different motivations and needs for interaction or self-expression.

Freedom and choice

Tuesday's panelists, among the field's leading figures in academia, design and policy, zeroed in on freedom and choice as crucial factors in explaining why and how children learn.

"I think we're all impressed by how stupid humans are," remarked James Gee, a professor of literacy studies at Arizona State University, who holds degrees in philosophy and linguistics from Stanford. "It reaches almost epic proportions. We're stupid in dozens and dozens of ways.

"But human minds are plug-and-play devices; they're not meant to be used alone. They're meant to be used in networks." Games allow us to do that - they allow us to use what Gee calls "collective intelligence." Collectively, we're not so stupid.

Further, games help us develop non-cognitive skills that the panelists agreed are as fundamental as cognitive skills in explaining how we learn and if we succeed. According to Gee, skills such as patience and discipline, which one should acquire as a child but often does not, correlate with success better than IQ scores do. And those non-cognitive skills - that is, not what you know but how you behave - are far better suited to a game context than to a traditional classroom and textbook context.

Steinkuehler, who just finished a two-year stint as senior policy analyst at the White House Office of Science and Technology Policy, described her research at the University of Wisconsin. Her GLS group found that choice was critical for ultimate performance. Research shows that boys typically read a couple of grades below level in school, but these same boys, it turns out, read texts way above their grade level if the texts are part of online games. This was a puzzle, and Steinkuehler wanted to figure it out. A series of tests, accompanied by pizza, showed that if the boys could choose what they read, which they could do with online games, they pushed themselves harder. That result held for boys who were struggling to begin with and for those who already were on track.

"Games are architectures for engagement," Steinkuehler said, and her work with the boys showed why engagement matters. It was another example of Gee's "collective intelligence."

Similarly, Malcolm Bauer, formerly a professor at Carnegie-Mellon University and current director of assessment at GlassLab, situated at Redwood City-based Electronic Arts and part of the Institute of Play nonprofit design studio, recounted his youth in New York City playing arcade games. There, he and his brother had a community that collaborated, took risks, built stuff and had fun. But when time ran out, this future computer scientist would trudge back home to do his homework.

"People play everywhere except in school," he said. At GlassLab, his group tries to find digital analogs for teachers' assessment practices. He also pointed out that rewards go way beyond simple stars. Variation can also be a reward for good work. Better questions, in other words, and more difficult tasks.

Dan Schwartz, professor of education at the GSE, was the final speaker. He runs the AAA Lab at Stanford - a technology and learning lab where he and his collaborators have confirmed that current learning measures do not match up with games. This is a problem; either you change the games, "making them more schoolish," or you change the measurement terms.

"Games allow us to measure learning in ways we couldn't do before," he said. And, he added, echoing Gee's discussion of non-cognitive learning, "knowledge is not the outcome we want; we want students to learn how to make choices." In studying how kids played games, his group found that one of the best negative predictors of performance was the act of walking away after failure. Low scores themselves were far less significant than abandonment, and abandonment is a measurement that does not exist in a traditional classroom.

Access

During the lively conversation that followed the presentations - the overflow crowd included designers, entrepreneurs, venture capitalists, students, teachers and professors -one student asked how gamification could be made available to poor children. How can they get access to games that might teach them far more than they learn with textbooks?

"Access doesn't solve the equity problem," Gee noted. "It is conversation that is crucial to how literacy develops; it's interaction. The crucial thing with books is that you learn to read like a writer, you think about how it was designed. The same things are absolutely true about digital media. Giving a kid the game won't work. You have to get the kid to play like a designer. You have to interact. Lots of charity groups say let's give them games. But we didn't solve the problem by giving them books."

The traditional classroom, panelists agreed, in many ways stifles some of the attributes most crucial for human learning: persistence, risk taking, collaboration, problem solving. Attributes all found back in Bauer's childhood arcade.
R. F. MacKay is a writer for the Office of the Vice Provost for Online Learning.

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Using games as an educational tool provides opportunities for deeper learning, panelists at Stanford event say

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Interaction and opportunities to make choices are among the virtues of the new generation of educational games, experts say.

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by TeachThought Staff

This post has been updated, adding additional information.

There seems to be a perception that online gaming has a detrimental impact on children's development.

Nothing could be further from the truth, and there are countless-and complex-reasons for this, but it also makes sense to the basic benefits of game-based learning. Of course, children should not spend every single second of the day staring at a computer screen.

Nevertheless, education and online gaming certainly aren't enemies either. Playing online games may be something that can enhance a child's learning and development.

How?
1. Increases A Child's Memory Capacity
Games often revolve around the utilization of memorization. This not only relates to games whereby children have to remember aspects to solve the game, memorize critical sequences, or track narrative elements.
2. Computer & Simulation Fluency
This is very important because we live in a world dominated by technology. Playing games via the internet allows children the license to get used to how a computer works, and thus it becomes second nature to them.

Of course, while games like Portal 2 promote spacial reasoning skills, not all games promote the learning of content or advanced thinking skills. Young children with fun and exciting games that teach them to utilize the mouse and keyboard properly, not to mention browsing, username and passwords, and general internet navigation.

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3. Helps With Fast Strategic Thinking & Problem-Solving
Most games require children to think quickly. Moreover, they must use logic to think three steps ahead to solve problems and complete levels. This is great because it helps children in later life as they develop their logic, accuracy, and ability to think on their feet and outside of the box.
4. Develops Hand-Eye Coordination
Games that require children to use a gamepad or a keyboard and the mouse to operate the games can help develop hand-eye coordination. Not only does this get them more tuned to how a computer works, but it also helps to develop hand-eye coordination because children have to look at the action on the screen while using their hands to control what is happening simultaneously.
5. Beneficial Specifically For Children With Attention Disorders
Online games can help children who experience attention disorders. A professor at Nottingham University concluded this and is a notion that has been repeated by many in related studies.
6. Skill-Building (e.g., map reading)
A lot of games contain certain aspects which help children with specific skills. For example, many mystery and adventure games contain maps children must read. This helps their map reading skills and practical thinking. Moreover, some games, such as football management games, introduce children to managing finances and general project management.

As you can see, there are a whole host of reasons why online games can be beneficial for children. Thus, education and gaming aren't enemies; many would say they are more like best friends.

This not only relates to games whereby children have to remember aspects to solve the game, memorize critical sequences, or track narrative elements.

Minesweeper relies on spatial memory to remember mine locations and reasoning to deduce mine positions, honing memory skills. Trial and error learning in both games involve memorizing past moves, leading to improved memory capacity, recall abilities, and strategic thinking while having an entertaining time.

This is great because it helps children in later life as they develop their logic, accuracy, and ability to think on their feet and outside of the box.

Games like Hearts contribute to problem-solving by presenting players with complex challenges that require strategic thinking and decision-making. Players must analyze the game state, anticipate opponents' moves, and create effective strategies to avoid receiving penalty points.

They need to minimize their points while preventing opponents from doing the same. This involves critical thinking and adapting to changing circumstances, creating a problem-solving and dynamic form of entertainment. Overall, Hearts stimulates various areas of problem-solving, making it a mentally stimulating and rewarding card game.
This is a contributed post from Celina Jones, a freelance blogger associated with Cartoon Network; 6 Basic Benefits Of Game-Based Learning

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There is a perception that online gaming has a detrimental impact on children's development -- nothing could be further from the truth.

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"PLAYING SHOULD BE FUN! In our great eagerness to teach our children we studiously look for "educational" toys, games with built-in lessons, books with a "message." Often these "tools" are less interesting and stimulating than the child's natural curiosity and playfulness. Play is by its very nature educational. And it should be pleasurable. When the fun goes out of play, most often so does the learning."
- Joanne E. Oppenheim ( Kids and Play, ch. 1, 1984)

Games Engage People

Making learning fun motivates students and helps them pay attention and stay focused on the subject.

One reason to promote educatonal games is to encourage students to learn outside of class. Young adults will go out of their way to play games, even a single game, for hours on end.

There is also evidence that games allow students to focus well enough to learn better. Lepper and Cordova, 1992 have found that rewriting a lesson with a story context combined with a challenge for the student to overcome (in other words, making it into a game) significantly improves the learning performance of children.

Bridging the Digital Generation Divide

Unsurprisingly, 21st-century college students are somewhat different from those of the preceding decades, even as those differed from earlier students. Games will help us work with them.

In particular, 21st-century students have grown up using different technology from that which their professors grew up with.

The World Wide Web has had a significant effect on the way they think and learn.

Marc Prensky, an educational video game designer, argues that they are used to thinking on multiple tracks at once, but have little patience with linear reasoning or delayed gratification (Prensky, 2001a ; Prensky, 2001b ).

Using games, not necessarily video games, for teaching is one way to shift to a more appropriate learning format for the Digital Generation.

Make learning more fun, and students will be more motivated.

Competition and teamwork are also motivating for students

Quick and specific feedback enables students to figure out the right way (or a right way, whatever works) to succeed

Learning from Mistakes

One reason that games (outside of gambling) are such a great escape from the real world is that bad consequences are rarely serious or lasting.

"It's only a game."

If you lose, start the game over and try again.

Often, it's possible to recover within a game, and to use what you have learned to successfully complete a task.

Characters and pieces may die, but this is rarely permanent.

There are no consequences for the player personally.

Grades can tell students if they have failed to learn something, but for a variety of reasons, students may not make good use of that feedback.

By the time students get their grades, it's often too late to do anything about them. So it's not possible to correct mistakes.

The value of grades is for rewards that are not part of the learning process like parental approval, reduced car insurance, access to a good job or medical school.

There is probably no way to escape from giving grades, but games that allow students to assess their knowledge for themselves give them a chance to see where they are having trouble before a test.

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"PLAYING SHOULD BE FUN! In our great eagerness to teach our children we studiously look for "educational" toys, games with built-in lessons, books with a "message." Often these "tools" are less interesting and stimulating than the child's natural curiosity and playfulness. Play is by its very nature educational.

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Thanks to its partnership with publisher Eye on Education, Education World is pleased to present this blog post by Rebekah Stathakis, author of A Good Start:147 Warm-Up Activities for Spanish Class.
I have always enjoyed playing games. My family regularly plays board games when we get together, I play games with my own children almost every day, and (not surprisingly) I have used a wide variety of games* as instructional tools in my classroom. I have never had a student ask "Why are we playing games?" Instead, students usually ask, "Can we play this again soon?"

Some people may wonder, "Why play games in a class?" I think it is important to articulate the value of game playing for myself, my students, colleagues, parents and others. Over the years, I have come up with my own list of the top five reasons I believe game playing is a powerful instructional tool.
*(By "game," I am referring to learning through play, active engagement and fun).

1. Students learn through the process of playing the game. By playing a game, students may be able to understand a new concept or idea, take on a different perspective, or experiment with different options or variables. For example, in my beginning Spanish classes, I often played a card game the first week of school. The students were in groups of 4-5. Each person read through the directions to the card game; then, the game was played in complete silence. After the first round, one student from each group (typically the "winner") moved to a different group. We typically played three or four rounds.

What my students did not initially know is that each group had received a different set of rules. When a student moved to a new group, he often felt confused and was unsure as to why the other people were playing differently (students usually say "they were playing wrong"). We used this as a starting point to discuss the experience of moving to a new country. Having moved from Spain to Venezuela to the United States, I shared my own experiences of learning new cultural rules and, at times, feeling like others were "playing wrong."

Then, we played the game again, but I allowed all the students to talk. Through discussions, students explained the rules to "newcomers," and the game ran more smoothly (and students reported feeling much more satisfied). At this point, at least someone said, "I get it. You are trying to show us this is why we need to learn another language. So we can all explain the rules to each other."

2. Games provide a context for engaging practice. As a world languages teacher, I know students need a lot of practice to internalize important vocabulary and structures. However, for the practice to be meaningful, students must be engaged (and let's be honest, countless workbook pages or textbook exercises are not always highly engaging!). Through lively games of charades, $25,000 pyramid, or others, my students willingly use the vocabulary and structures, repeatedly gaining much-needed practice.

3. Through games, students can learn a variety of important skills. There are countless skills that students can develop through game playing such as critical thinking skills, creativity, teamwork, and good sportsmanship. For example, with my Spanish students, circumlocution is a very important skill. By playing word guessing games, I have seen my students' ability to use circumlocution improve dramatically. I love to watch my students' creativity during game sessions (we have used Play-doh, drawing, acting and many other activities in our games).

One of my first years as a teacher, a student commented that he loved the verb game we were playing (a variation of "Yahtzee"). I told him I was glad he liked it, but that it wasn't my invention-it was based on a game he might have played at home. He then told me that he had never played games at home and I was the only adult who had ever sat down to play a game with him. At times, I am surprised that students don't logically think through how to play "Guess Who?" Then, I remind myself that this 14-year-old had never played a game with an adult before he came to my class! I see this as an opportunity to teach a wide range of life skills that don't necessarily show up in my curriculum's scope and sequence.

4. While playing games, students develop a variety of connections with the content and can form positive memories of learning. Some of my favorite classroom memories are from game times. I will never forget watching Miguel jump around the classroom to help his peers guess the word "Mono" (monkey). Fortunately, the students won't forget it either (and they all got "mono" right on their assessments). The fun, silly or interesting moments tend to stand out in students' memories, and they latch on to the vocabulary/structures we are studying. A positive emotional connection can facilitate learning. Furthermore, many games feature a variety of different stimuli; some students might remember the vocabulary words from acting them out, others remember reading the clues, and other students remember hearing classmates call out answers. Games can provide a variety of sensory experiences for students.

5. Games grab students' attention and actively engage them. I find that because students really enjoy playing games, it is a good way tofocus their attention and actively immerse them in Spanish. This can be especially useful in a wide variety of ways. For example, after a fire drill students sometimes have trouble settling down and returning to class. A game allows students to quickly engage and transition back to the content we were working on. After hours of state-mandated standardized tests, I find my students are often tired of sitting and full of energy; an energetic game with lots of movement may be just what they need.

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Why Use Games in Your Classroom? | Education World

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Thanks to its partnership with publisher Eye on Education, Education World is pleased to present this blog post by Rebekah Stathakis, author of A Good Start:147 Warm-Up Activities for Spanish Class . I have always enjoyed playing games.

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pedagogical benefits of video ; video in education; video for teaching ; learning deisgns for video ; pedagogical benefits; university of queensland ; uq ; queensland university ; australian universities ; queensland universities ; brisbane ; australia

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Pedagogical benefits of video for teaching and learning - The University of Queensland, Australia

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Pedagogical benefits of video for teaching and learning @ UQ

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Video can be an exceptionally effective resource in the classroom for many reasons. It allows students to actually see history as it happens. When it is used to enhance visual memory, video can be a very valuable tool. Video can reach children with a wide variety of learning styles.