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Keeping the Play in Learning Games
—Scot Osterweil
The Education Arcade/MIT
November 15, 2007
scot_o@mit.edu
Play, observable throughout the animal kingdom, is the fundamental way we learn.
—Johann Huizinga
Homo Ludens, 1938
"Now in myth and ritual the great instinctive forces of civilized life have their origin: law and order, commerce and profit, craft and art, poetry, wisdom and science. All are rooted in the primeval soil of play."
An example with rods and clamps
from The Children’s Machine,
Seymour Papert, 1993
A personal example with blocks.
Through the informal activity of play, we scaffold the
concepts and ideas that we will engage with formally in
school…and in life.
Play has no agenda
The player’s motivations are entirely intrinsic and personal.
The Four Freedoms of Play
The Four Freedoms of Play
Freedom to ExperimentFreedom to FailFreedom to Try on IdentitiesFreedom of Effort
The Four Freedoms of Play
=
The Four Freedoms of Learning
≠
The Four Freedoms of School
(as currently embodied)
Play has no agenda
The player’s motivations are entirely intrinsic and personal.
GAMES
How do we channel play into learning activities while still allowing for play’s fundamentally open-ended nature?
An example:
GAMES
In games we willingly submit to arbitrary rules and structures in pursuit of mastery, but only if we can continue to be playful.
The promise of games is that through real play, the player will build new cognitive structures, and ideas of substance.
“What the world needs is…
Grand Theft Calculus
Without playfulness a game is just going through the motions.
It’s not what you know, but how you learn.
Spelling Bee v. Scrabble
How Do We Think About Learning Games?
• They should engage players with reasoning and processes relevant to their studies• Logic• Ethics• Design• Scientific Inquiry• Historical Inquiry
How Do We Think About Learning Games?
• They should engage players’ imaginations with places, events, themes and ideas that matter.• Huckleberry Finn• Civilization, SimCity
Enough Talk Let’s Play
Keep in Mind:NarrativeActivity
Structure
Game Narrative
A game world that allows players to explore their identity
Not patronizing or flatteringNon-genderedA game world that embodies the subject
matter.
Game Activity
Not about memorizing solutions - about learning strategies, processes, habits of mind
Students understand that “wrong” answers are part of getting the right answer
Learning to think like a scientist, mathematician, engineer, artist
Engaging with content in a context Activities that are tactile, offer sensory
satisfaction
Game Structure
Multiple passage through challenge (tokens) Partial reward for partial success– clear
incentives for more success No brick walls Emerging ideas Not just one way to win No time pressure
Enables conversation Collaboration Teacher or parent can observe or engage
Player styles: f v. m
We need a new hand-off between formal and
informal learning
The Hand-Off
Students can play game like any gamer Teacher can bring game into class, relate
experience of game to new subject Students undertake that subject with the
enthusiasm of an expert Teacher can even use class to discuss future
game play strategies – begin to model meta-cognition
Individual saved games give evidence of students progress
And we need a new model of sustainability and growth.
Labyrinth
• Puzzle Adventure Game• Hours of Play - engrossing story
• Web Served• Play anywhere - on several platforms• Cumulative Progress• Data Collection for Teachers
Labyrinth
• Repeat Play• Partial Success • Gradual Mastery
• Team Based• Individual play, team goals• Promoting collaboration/communication• Students write about their thinking
Labyrinth
• Math: engaging students in pre-algebra• Proportionality• Numbers• Equations/Variables• Geometry
• Literacy for the 21st Century• Writing for communication • Visual and Verbal Literacy• Comics-based storytelling
Labyrinth
• Technology: Flash• Scalable to many screen-sizes• Stabilizing as platform for handhelds• Easy to pilot
• A new production model: bypassing the Hollywood economics of the game industry.
Keeping the Play in Learning Games
—Scot Osterweil
The Education Arcade/MIT
November 15, 2007
scot_o@mit.edu
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