velop more interesting and effective
approaches.
To meet those challenges, specialized research groups have sprung up
at universities across the country. New
York University’s Games for Learning Institute (G4LI), for example, offers a forum for experts in disciplines
like computer science, cognition, and
educational research to collaborate on
experiments and research. Founded
in 2008 with funding from Microsoft,
G4LI’s mission is to conduct rigorous
empirical research into how games
can support learning. Thus far, work
has focused on science, technology,
engineering, and math topics and on
middle school, when children typically
lose interest in those subjects.
“We’re moving from individual case
studies that address the effectiveness
of a single game to a more descriptive,
qualitative type of research,” says Jan
Plass, a professor of educational communication and technology at NYU
and G4LI codirector. “We observe game
play, we test things empirically … we’re
interested in finding patterns.” Plass’s
colleagues in the computer science
department then build mini-games
to test effective features—a particular
incentive system or type of player support, for example—and further refine
their understanding. G4LI researchers
have also reached out to game developers and educators to analyze their experiences. The ultimate goal, says Plass,
is to develop a comprehensive set of
principles and standards that could
help people effectively design, build,
and use educational games.
Other game-related research is
ongoing at University of Wisconsin-Madison, Massachusetts Institute of
Technology, and Indiana University.
Likewise, Games for Change, a New
York nonprofit organization that focuses on social justice issues, provides an
additional platform for people to share
ideas, resources, and tools. Though
many findings are preliminary, one
important theme that’s emerged is
the need for teaching material to be
integrated into the framework of a
game’s design rather than added to it
later. “You need something that allows
knowledge to unfold,” says Katherine
Isbister, a professor of digital media
and computer science and engineering
at New York University’s Polytechnic
“Games,” says
James Gee,
“are goal-directed
learning spaces.”
Institute and an investigator at G4LI.
It’s therefore important to start with
a definite set of ideas and objectives
rather than a structure of play.
Ian Bogost, a founding partner of At-lanta-based gaming studio Persuasive
Games, concurs. Effective educational
games, says Bogost, construct a model
of how a particular issue or subject
works. Players then interact with that
model to understand its contours and
reasoning, and can ultimately decide
whether to embrace or reject it.
“It’s through the experience of making choices that you learn,” he asserts.
Bogost and his colleagues build
educational games for a diverse set of
corporate and nonprofit clients. Large
companies want games that give them
a more engaging way of training new
workers, or make themselves more
appealing to younger customers. Political and nonprofit organizations,
on the other hand, are trying to reach
teens and educate them about problems like climate change and poverty.
Persuasive Games has also developed
several issues-based games of its own.
Unfortunately, Bogost says, it can be
difficult to identify a market for these
projects. (“If it’s online, people expect
it to be free,” he sighs.)
Integrating games into secondary
school classrooms can be challenging. Each district has its own curriculum and objectives. Some teachers are
skeptical about gaming’s pedagogical
value, while others are unfamiliar with
the variety of available games. For now,
researchers say, the easiest way to get
games into the classroom is at a grassroots level, and G4LI and other academic institutes are working hard to
foster relationships with local schools.
At the university level, where games
enjoy more widespread curricular support and adoption, computer science
departments in particular have begun
to feel an effect. The most recent Taul-bee Report indicates an upsurge in interest and enrollment in the field, and
anecdotal evidence suggests that gaming may have played a role as games
and gaming techniques help make
core computer science principles more
accessible to students. The prospect
of being able to join the still-growing
game development industry has also
attracted new prospects to the field.
As researchers continue to work out
principles of learning, cognition, and
design, they would be well advised to
keep an essential principle of the gaming industry in mind: Make it fun. It
may not be what most teens think of
when they think of school. But as Isbister points out, it’s at the heart of
why they play games—and is one of the
main things that keeps them engaged
and willing to persist in ways that many
teachers only dream of.
Leah Hoffmann is brooklyn-based science and technology
writer. ken Perlin, new york university, contributed to the
development of this article.
© 2009 aCM 0001-0782/09/0800 $10.00
Call for Nominations for
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