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