Just came across an interesting article that investigates the effects of game play on the experience of learning a skill (programming, in this study). There are a lot of comments plastered all over the internet, including some of my own, about the potential of games to increase motivation, but how this actually works in practice is unclear. This study attempts to make a start on describing the effects of gaming on the learning experience.
Here is the abstract: Learning to program is difficult for novices, even for those undergraduates who have majored in computer science. The study described in this paper has investigated the effects of game strategy and preference-matching on novice learners’ flow experience and performance in learning to program using an experiential gaming activity. One hundred and fifteen novices participated in the experimental activity. Two types of game strategy were employed: the matching-challenging strategy and the challenging strategy. Participants were categorised into one or other of the two groups based on individual preferences. The results of the study showed that: (1) the challenging group had higher flow experiences than the matching-challenging group; (2) participants’ performance was enhanced with the use of the matching strategy; and (3) a compensation effect existed among the preference-mismatched learners who performed better in the challenging game-play.
In this free issue of
I came across an article titled ‘lessons learned about signing augmented Realities’ in the freely available inaugural issue of the International Journal of Gaming and Computer-Mediated Simulations. In it the authors talk about augmented reality and a project in which they provided middle and high school students with handheld devices equiped with GPS. In the words of the authors: ‘As the students move around a physical location, such as their school playground or sports felds (Figure 2), a map on their handheld displays digital objects and virtual people who exist in an AR world superimposed on real space (Figure 3). When students come within approximately 30 feet of these digital artifacts, the AR and GPS software triggers video, audio, and text fles, which provide narrative, navigation, and collaboration cues as well as academic challenges. In Alien Contact! the students are presented with the following scenario: Aliens have landed on Earth and seem to be preparing for a number of actions, including peaceful contact, invasion, plundering, or simply returning to their home planet, among other possibilities. Working in teams (four pupils per team), the students must explore the augmented reality world, interviewing virtual characters, collecting digital items, and solving mathematics and literacy puzzles to determine why the aliens have landed. Each team has four roles: chemist, cryptologist, computer hacker, and FBI agent. Depending upon his or her role, each student will see different pieces of evidence. In order to successfully navigate the augmented reality environment and solve various puzzles, the students must share information and collaborate with the other members of their team’ (pp 4-5).
This is very neat indeed. I tried doing something similar before by using podquests, but these did not have inbuilt GPS so obviously were limited compared to this project. This is an excellent use of technology to encourage - and support - out-of-class learning.
The International Journal of Gaming and Computer-Mediated Simulations was recently launched and its first issue is available for free online. One of the articles by Steinkuehler and Johnson talks about the need for ‘computational literacy’: ‘ Based on our analysis, we argue for reconsideration of computer literacy as computational literacy, authorship as collaborative and negotiated rather than individually achieved, and digital media literacy
practice as one involving design and production, not merely passive or critical consumption.’
I very much like this idea of ‘literacy’ as a dynamic, and social capacity. Although Steinkuehler and Johnson do relate this to language learning, I do see overlap with for example the use of technology-mediated tasks (as attested in the book I recently edited with Michael Thomas). How can we involve learners in language production that is grounded in meaningful, social interaction, and that involves ‘building’ something (either an online character or a network or a strategy) in a game environment with language?
I was just reading Steinkuehler’s 2007 article about research on MMORPGS (multiplayer online games) in which he quotes a study by the economist Castronova (2001) who found that the economy of Norrath, the virtual world of the game Everquest, was the 77th largest in the world, placing it somewhere between Bulgaria and Russia at the time. Unbelievable!
Castronova, E. (2001). Virtual worlds: A first-hand account of market and society on the cyberian frontier. CESifo Working Paper Series No. 618.
In a recent article by Neville, Shelton and McInnis in CALl Journal (vol 22, no 5, 409-424), the authors make a game designed to teach German vocabulary, reading, and cultural skills to beginning university students available for free. The game can be found here.
Here is a description of the game:
Game Introduction
Karin Moller is an American foreign exchange student living in Freiburg im Breisgau and studying computer science and German at the Albert-Ludwigs University . On a free Saturday she decides to take a sightseeing trip to Munich. Before she can depart by train, however, she must first park her bicycle, buy a train ticket, get something to eat and drink, find a book to read, and locate the correct train platform. And what what will she do about the mysterious homeless man that everybody is talking about at the train station?
Game Research
The constructivist learning environments afforded by digital games provide students with personally-tailored and highly motivational instruction, enhance student responsibility for learning, and promote student free inquiry and exploration. Included within a second language acquisition program, digital games possibly can increase knowledge retention and transfer rates. In Fall Semester 2007 Ausflug am Wochenende nach München was used to teach German vocabulary and culture to beginning university students. Included within the experiment scope was a measurement of the cognitive load imposed by the IF game, the sense of presence provided by the game, analysis of the knowledge retention and transfer rates, and the role of player sex in game interaction. You are free to use the game for your own research purposes.
The Wireless Ready conference in Nagoya and in Second Life is approaching fast (more information here). This looks set to be a fabulous event - try and see if you can join us, if not in Real Life, then maybe in Second Life!
I have now submitted the abstract for my plenary, which you can find below.
Keynote title
Do computer games really contribute to language learning?
Abstract
In recent years there has been a lot of interest in the potential role of computer games in education. Playing games is said to be motivating to students and to benefit the development of social skills such as collaboration and metacognitive skills such as planning and organisation. Also in the language classroom computer games are becoming increasingly popular. In Japan, for example, portable gaming devices such as the Nintendo DS have been used for the delivery of word games and in the UK and in Thailand several projects have developed language games for use on mobile phones. However, the pedagogical approach underlying such games is often not clear. In the case of the Japanese classes, the games were intended to develop fluency but in fact offer only simple spelling exercises with right-wrong answers. In addition to pedagogic issues, there is very little research to support the claims made for using computer games in language education. In this presentation I will first present these claims before reviewing a number of current language games. Next, I will report on an empirical research project designed to investigate the effects of a an online multiplayer gaming environment on L2 use and acquisition. I will show that computer games can indeed affect L2 interaction patterns and contribute to L2 acquisition, but that this depends, like in all other teaching and learning environments, on careful pedagogic planning of the activity.
As those of you who read my blog regularly will know, I strongly believe that computer games have an important role to play in education. One school in New York is taking this to the next level by delivering its entire curriculum through four domains, such as ‘Codeworlds’ (a combination of maths and English), and ‘Being, Space and Place’ (English and Social Studies). Each of these comprises a series of games that bring together several skills. An example of these is one in which students play the role of pyramid-builders to learn about engineering, maths, geography and other fields. The programme started last month and it will be very exciting to see how it goes.
Alice Chik from the Chinese University in Hong Kong has just started an interesting project on the topic of learner autonomy development through video gaming. Here is the information she sent me:
This project aims to explore the relationship between learner autonomy and out-of-class language learning, with a particular focus on foreign language learners’ use of video gaming:
1. How do foreign language learners learn from video gaming?
2. What are their approaches in adopting video games for their language learning purposes?
3. What types of language learning skills and strategies do they develop during video gaming?
4. How do these out-of-class activities influence the development of learner autonomy in language learning?
The data collection methods will include:
1. Autobiographical language learning histories written by the learners and researchers to gain insight into their foreign language learning and video game playing histories and to serve as a source of triangulation with other data;
2. Observation and field notes from 10 video-taped gaming sessions, used to monitor the gaming process;
3. A blog, used to keep asynchronous reflections from learner-participants and researchers;
4. Semi-structured interviews conducted by the learner-participants with their friends and regular video gaming partners, used to enrich the understanding of video gaming and language learning from a wider community of young adults and video gamers; and
5. Focus group interview sessions, at the beginning and the end of the study, will be used as reflective practices to explore the development of learner autonomy and foreign language learning in relation to video gaming.
At the moment, we recruited 10 undergraduates from different disciplines. We plan to start the project in the last week of September, if you are interested in collaborating or knowing more about the participants, please contact Alice (alice.chik@gmail.com). You can also follow our project at http://en-videogaming.blogspot.com/
I just found a reference to an online newspaper article about the use of Nintendo DS in Japanese high schools (http://search.japantimes.co.jp/cgi-bin/nn20080703f2.html). It mentions DS games for English learning. I think this particularly interesting (DS consoles are hand-held, portable, reasonably cheap and strong) as many learners are familiar with them for out-of-class entertainment and learning (when I was in Japan I saw many ads for educational materials on mobile devices including the DS), which will help to bridge the gap between the classroom and the students’ lives.
Of course, is usefulness depends entirely on the use of the technology. The activities described in the article above are related to spelling but further down it becomes clear the main problem that was trying to be addressed was lack of fluency. Clearly there is room for improvement. But coming up with meaningful ways of integrating the technology is our job as teachers!
Here’s an example of a commercially available DS English game. ‘
