Learning and Gaming

Learning: Setting Fire to the Imagination; Learning through Gaming and Play

EDUC 401
Philip Bird, 270928
For Dr. Hanan Yaniv

There is something captivating about electronic gaming. I am young enough of a fellow to have caught the beginning edge of gaming's frothy surf. My childhood was a mix of broad sunny prairie, playing Cops and Robbers on bike through the town streets, and beating Ganondorf in The Adventures of Zelda: The Ocarina of Time on Nintendo's N64 console, as well as many other games on various platforms. To me, these experiences were a relatively seamless part of the fabric of my childhood, but in retrospect, it has been gaming that has consistently captured my attention.

Ganondorf

There is a powerful word that describes the world of gaming that all educators should pay attention to, in my opinion. This word is immersive; Dictionary.com defines it as, "noting or pertaining to digital technology or images that deeply involve one's senses and may create an altered mental state" (Dictionary.com). The root word, immerse, conjures up the image of plunging into something, deep waters, or more figuratively, a brand new experience. This sense of immersion is deeply native to the world of games.

Broadly, play is the heart of games. It is present just as deeply in electronic formats, as it was in the cross town caper of Cops and Robbers. Kathy Hirsh-Pasek and Roberta Golinkoff describe the five elements of children's play,

1. Play must be pleasurable and enjoyable.
2. Play must have no extrinsic goals; there is no prescribed learning that must occur.
3. Play is spontaneous and voluntary.
4. Play involves active engagement on the part of the player.
5. Play involves an element of make-believe.

(Hirsh-Pasek and Golinkoff, 2003).

The demands of curriculum often proscribe the second goal. Education often seems not very fun, or involving or anything about what the student is truly interested in. The power of intrinsic motivation is significant - if there is a way that it can be incorporated into the classroom, targeted, focused and unleashed, it would be potent stuff indeed. Omrod et. al describe intrinsic motivation as "the motivation that comes from within the individual, rather than from such outside influences as extrinsic reinforcers… one important factor in intrinsic motivation is high self-efficacy: Students must believe that they have the ability to accomplish the learning task successfully" (Omrod et. al. 2010). This sense of play and the motivation that is part of it comes from an interaction of two parties. Jane McGonigal notes that, "We like people better after we play a game with them, even if they've beaten us badly - and the reason is, it takes a lot of trust to play a game with someone. We trust that they will spend their time with us, that they will play by the same rules, value the same goals, they'll stay with the game until it's over" (McGonigal, 2010). Playing with someone requires that value of trust, a sense of boundaries, and a set of goals the players must achieve to win or to accomplish their task. Playing also assumes a level of realistic success

Gamers breathe and live in this sense of play when they are immersed in their game worlds. Jane McGonigal describes the four aspects of gamers: they engage in blissful productivity, they weave a tight social fabric, they embody and convey a sense of urgent optimism, and they search and pursue epic meaning (McGonigal, 2010). These are all positive aspects that often are overlooked when we as adults scrutinize gaming, and the youth playing the games. These are things that are worthy of emulation, that can be harnessed for good, and deployed to further their education.

Some of the environments that gamers find themselves in, including and especially massively multiplayer online (MMO) environments are highly immersive, febrile grounds for learning. Thomas and Brown describe it this way:

Imagine an environment where the participants are building a massive network databases, wikis and websites, and thousands of message forums, creating a large-scale knowledge economy. Imagine an environment where participants constantly measure and evaluate their own performance, even if that requires them to build new tools to do so. Imagine an environment where user interface dashboards are constructed by the users themselves to make sense of the world and their own performance in it. Imagine an environment where evaluation is based on after-action reviews to continually enhance performance; an environment where learning happens on a continuous basis, because the participants are internally motivated to find, share, and filter new information on a near-constant basis.(Thomas and Brown, 2011).

The rest of their article is equally salient. They see these online environments powered by an engine, "the engine that drives learning is a blend of questioning, imagination, and - best of all - play." Play is at the heart of this intensive learning.

Utilizing gaming for learning, for education, is something that does occur in unique classes. During my field observation practicum, I observed a Grade 2 teacher use a simple call and response game through the classroom's Smartboard, to help explore the concept of skip counting in math. Later, she gathered all the students in a circle sitting on the floor to play a game of "Snap!" This simple game was played thusly: a skip counting outcomes was described by the teacher, say by 10s. The children were going around the circle, each person counting up by ones, and every time a person came close to 10 or a multiple of 10, the person would yell "Snap!" This simple game helped reinforce a mathematical concept, and engaged the kids at the same time.

Another classroom, this one in a private school in New York City benefited from gaming in the classroom. Joel Levin, the school's computer teacher created a classroom experiment with Minecraft, a game about exploring, collecting resources and building in blocks similar to Lego. His experiment

"a rousing success. Not only did we have a productive and fun unit, but I would say that this was the best project I have ever done in the classroom. In my 8 years of teaching I have never seen students so excited and engaged. They run up to me in the halls to tell me what they plan to do next class. They draw pictures about the game in art. They sit at the lunch tables and strategize their next building projects. And not only the boys, but girls too" (Levin, 2011)

This kind of engagement isn't something you normally see in schools.

Learning is a vital part of gaming. Gaming creates a kind of learning momentum, a force that propels learners forward, to explore strange new worlds, and seek new vistas. Gaming captivates the imagination, it immerses its user into worlds that they are intrinsically motivated to understand and succeed. These are possibilities that can be applied to education. Education can ride this surf too.


Reference List:

McGonigal, J. (2010). Gaming can make a better world. TED Talks. Retrieved from: http://www.ted.com/talks/lang/eng/jane_mcgonigal_gaming_can_make_a_better_world.html

Omrod, JE., Saklofske, DH., Schwean, VI., Andrews, JJW., Shore, BM. (2010). Principles of Educational Psychology. Toronto: Pearson Education Canada.

"Immersive." (n.d.) Retrived November 12th, 2011 from Dictionary.Reference.com: http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/immersi

Thomas, D. & Brown, J.S. (2010). Multiplayer High. Boingboing. Retrieved from: http://boingboing.net/2011/04/28/flux.html

Levin, J. (2011). A Classroom Experiment with Minecraft. The Minecraft Teacher. Retrieved from: http://minecraftteacher.net/post/3922255282/a-classroom-experiment-with-minecraft

Tact and Tactics

This is my video essay for my Education 403 Class on Pragmatics of Teaching,

This World is Configurable: Knowing is Grasping

This is a video essay for my Education 401: Issues in Learning and Teaching class.

It's on our "Knowing" module.

On “Teaching Ethical Know-How in New Literacy Spaces”; Jargon and Substance

EDUC 404 – Individual Group Reflection Paper
Philip Bird
Prepared for Dr. David Watt


Our inquiry group has decided to focus on the use of social networks within school, especially when pertaining to literacy. Due to the relatively new nature of the social network, both as blossoming idea and also as it has infiltrated and embedded itself into the culture of youth (and broader culture for that matter), our group has generally found that much of the literature that describes this phenomenon is simply trying to frame it in older, perhaps cultural, ideas about literacy.

The reading used in my inquiry focus on a paper by Luce-Kapler, Sumara, and Iftody, “Teaching Ethical Know-How in New Literacy Spaces” (2009). After reading this paper, I was initially struck by the defensiveness of the writers towards this new social vehicle. As I expressed in my powerpoint, they take an initial stance of “greatest concern... the propensity with which individual stories can be appropriated and disseminated without regard for the individuals who exist as subject of those stories.” To parse this language – they are concerned with individual stories become social gossip writ large, and available to all. This is a genuine, legitimate and valid concern, but it sets the tone of the paper as generally alarmist, without a substantial solution to a new media reality that new teachers, and their students deal with on a day to day basis. Our group also discussed the example in the paper of the “Star Wars Kid,” (See after this paragraph) as well as cutting analysis from Penny Arcade in the “John Gabriel's Greater Internet F*****d Theory” (Krahulik and Holkins, 2004). We finished up with a discussion on how this paper applies to to the story of Jamey Rodemeyer, a victim of cyberbullying, and his tragic death (Dangerous Minds, 2011).

Star Wars Kid:


Our discussion found that popular culture is moving at a pace that the educational system is struggling to keep up to. We found that the reading was inadequate in fully comprehending the nature of an “Ethical Know-How,” in social networks and new media – in fact it only address surface concerns similar to the emergence of any new media – such as concerns with televisions and children in the 60s. The discussion group suggested that a class exploration and discussion of online etiquette and a discussion on what is appropriate or not would fathoms deeper and furlongs further in addressing “Ethical Know-How,” especially in context to cyber-bullying or facebook-drama.

What I found valuable from the reading was the attempt to begin how to set up an ethical system for online behaviour. It asks valuable questions, such as how do we protect and guide our students in this new field of literacy and culture? It suggests an empathetic approach,

“ethics emerge from our empathetic identification with others... a necessary condition for developing an adaptive and responsive (i.e., complicitous) sense of personal consciousness or identity. Deep empathizing requires a dissolving of one's own ego boundaries, understanding that to be more fully oneself, one needs to imagine the mind of another”

(Luce-Kapler, Sumara, & Iftody, 2009)

While this is start, I found that the paper did not go beyond simple empathy, and its relation to Buddhism. The authors later begin a discussion of close reading, which we felt completely sidestepped the original topic. However, they do highlight a serious concern facing students today. For example, in the aforementioned case of Jamey Rodemeyer, his suicide was prompted by cyber-bullying after he came out publicly about his homosexuality on YouTube, in the form of an “It gets better” video – part of an online campaign against GLBT bullying in high schools.



This reading provided great fodder for questions, such as: Why does the article only employ one kind of ethics (namely an Buddhist empathetic approach)? How do you articulate and apply such ethics to online behaviour? Further, how do you teach this to students? Can you give examples? How do you defuse online drama as it bleeds into the classroom? How separate should you as a teacher be to the students? Do you “friend” them on facebook? What are the other uses of social networks? What about the issues of anonymity, pseudonymity, and virtual selves? What about the discussion on privacy, and digital permanence. Or what about digital surveillance and the use of facebook to scout potential employees by employers? We found that the surface was barely scratched, and we were only left with jargon, and little substance on a question that will burn in the minds of teachers in today's digital literacy.



Reference List:

Luce-Kapler, R., Sumara, D. & Iftody, T. (2010). Teaching ethical know-how in new literary spaces. Journal of Adolescent & Adult Literacy, 53(7), 536–541.

Star Wars Kid. Retrieved from http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HPPj6viIBmU

Krahulik, M., & Holkins J. (2004, March 19). Green Blackboards (And Other Anomalies). Penny Arcade. Retrieved from: http://www.penny-arcade.com/comic/2004/3/19/

Dangerous Minds ( 2011, September 20). Another Heartbreaking Gay Teen Suicide. Dangerous Minds. Retrieved from: http://www.dangerousminds.net/comments/another_heartbreaking_gay_teen_suicide/

Inauguration

"On this day, we gather because we have chosen hope over fear, unity of purpose over conflict and discord.

On this day, we come to proclaim an end to the petty grievances and false promises, the recriminations and worn out dogmas, that for far too long have strangled our politics.

We remain a young nation, but in the words of Scripture, the time has come to set aside childish things. The time has come to reaffirm our enduring spirit; to choose our better history; to carry forward that precious gift, that noble idea, passed on from generation to generation: the God-given promise that all are equal, all are free, and all deserve a chance to pursue their full measure of happiness.

...

This is the meaning of our liberty and our creed—why men and women and children of every race and every faith can join in celebration across this magnificent mall, and why a man whose father less than sixty years ago might not have been served at a local restaurant can now stand before you to take a most sacred oath."

This

Headshot

Fingers tense in sudden excitement
Palms sweaty, a shallow breath
Held in eager anticipation
BOOM Headshot!
A wicked, glorious glee
And a foe defeated, a player pwned
Bloodlust captured, transformed,
Ameliorated
The gritty pixel, a battlefield of bytes
There are new heroes, new laurels
of respect, cred, and cool
And they are but a construct
An achievement is a tick on a screen

A bloody warrior, avatar of grim justice
ripped now from myth and legend, made
Alive to hew at the ephemeral
seething flanks of an imagined enemy
A boyhood imagination's playground
Transmogrified into half-reality
Power lies in the controller, the flick of a
thumbstick, and a thought commands armies
fleets, a KO, a Superbowl victory
The nectar of triumph, a sweet drought
to a thirsty imagination trapped
in a dull and pallid existence
Where there is no war to win
No fight against desperate odds
or a clarion call to courage