Gaming

I wanted to subtitle this week's blog entry as "Everything Old is New Again." This may seem strange in light of our readings this week pertaining to gaming and how it relates to teaching. If somehow we lived in the proverbial vacuum and knew nothing about gaming even prior to the late 20th century then much of what has been discussed would indeed seem new and transformative. I hasten to add that I do believe that gaming, VR and AR are without an iota of doubt transformative but, it strikes me as interesting that in a sense one could argue that we are actually catching up to a very old and venerable idea. Before I comment on the sites I chose to visit I would like to talk about gaming in relation to education by briefly discussing the notion of game as a meta-concept.

As Johnson, Smith, Willis, Levine, and Haywood (2011) argued, game play allows for experimentation, problem solving, working toward a goal, and learning from failure - all of which are conducive to education such as, I would argue already had been well established in ancient games such as Go, Go-Moku, Chess, and other ancient games. While one might assert and the assertion would indeed be valid that games were thought of primarily as things to do that were recreative in nature and something engaged in during leisure time, gaming has always held a formidable educative paradigm as its foundation. If we look at chess for instance we find that indeed, like any other game, it contains the laundry list that Johnson, et. al, (2011) listed. According to gaming experts chess is the only game in which luck/chance plays no factor at all as opposed to games like poker, blackjack, or even Monopoly. In chess, one engages in constant problem solving; one must not only anticipate her opponent's strategy but she must also plan her own strategy and "see" a number of possible moves ahead. Chess is a game of pure strategy and here is the meta-game concept I want to establish: chess and war have something in common in that both are adversarial in nature - in fact it may be argued that all games, even cooperative games - are adversarial in nature. I will return to this point shortly. Returning for now to the correlation between war and chess, it is clear even to the casual observer that the same strategy that serves the general or admiral in war is the same strategy played out on the chess board. The military leader must understand and exploit the strengths  and challenges of soldiers. The chess player must do the same. The King for instance is the piece to be guarded and yet it is the King that is the weakest piece on the board. The strategy in chess is no different than that of war in that the king or capital must be protected while at the same time the focus is simultaneously on defeating the enemy king/capital. So we must ask what does strategy encompass? Strategy requires problem solving skills, a clear and attainable - in most cases - goal, experimentation, and learning from failure. Such is even true of games that do have a strong chance component. Tune into or play a game of poker and you will immediately understand that the savvy poker player for instance strategizes to minimize chance while simultaneously allowing for the vagaries of chance.

This may seem tangential to my readers but the thrust of our reading is how gaming contributes to education. If one of the components of education is the preparation of students then it seems to me that the notion of gaming as a viable component to learning seems to make such perfect sense that I am surprised that it took millenia until gaming was seriously studied and reported upon in educational journals. The military has engaged in war games for centuries to prepare for a multitude of possible combat scenarios; these war games were and are serious business and certainly not done merely as a leisure activity. So to me, gaming is not only important to education, it is essential. But what about that statement I made that even cooperative games are adversarial in nature? Every game has a goal, and in a cooperative game, that goal might be to slay the dragon at the end of a Dungeons and Dragons, or, working together to prevent an ecological disaster. Content is irrelevant in the meta-game concept; problem solving, learning from failure, experimentation, and in cooperative games, collaboration are skills that must be honed no matter the goal and no matter the subject and content.

Johnson, et. al, (2011) pointed out that the Serious Games movement sought to add a social layer to the game in that the social issues were social problems to be dealt with in which the player(s) must apply skills to learn to solve. I wanted to point out that even "entertainment" based games have taken on this sense of social issues. Though not mentioned in our readings, Johns-Hopkins University has taken the much more sophisticated big brother of World of Warcraft titled Neverwinter Nights and have used it to create social simulations which require collaborative problem solving. Daniel Punday in The Electronic Book Review discusses the sophistication of Neverwinter Nights as electronic narrative that is made more robust in that it includes a comprehensive toolset for players to design their own worlds. As a long time player of Neverwinter Nights, I can attest to its amazing possibilities as a tool for learning.

Johnson (2011) discusses the point that gaming blurs the line between the real world and the game world. Again I would argue that this has always been the case, but, for the sake of this discussion, I wanted to talk about a site that does just this. Stop Disasters engages the player in setting in motion measures to prevent disasters from earthquakes, wildfires, tsunamis, volcanoes, and hurricanes. I played the tsunami scenario and it was intense. And the genius of the design really struck me. When you look at the game, there is nothing terribly realistic about it; the game world resembles a Lego block construction and the trees and other flora and the "people" were simple pixels on a screen. Playing the game however, I found myself carefully deciding what structures to purchase to minimize damage. The game also has developments you can buy with a virtual budget including schools to educate your citizens about tsunamis, radar detection systems to sense the approach of the wave, construction options to strengthen buildings and many other variables. The adversary is not only the imminent tsunami but also the fact that the player only has a limited amount of resources from which to draw to save the populace and minimize infrastructure damage. I felt a real sense of connection and actually learned quite a bit about tsunamis in the process. Design wise, the game - though it lacks the graphic sophistication of commercial games - nonetheless provides what I felt was a robust learning environment that educated the gamer on ecological disasters as well as a sense of urgency to minimize the destruction. For those reading this that would be interested in a game like this but quite realistic and even more strategic and panic inducing in nature, I would recommend giving the game "From Dust" a spin. It is available on the cloud computing digital distribution service called Steam for 15.00USD.

Johnson (2010) talks about the importance of games giving the player a sense of accomplishment. Is this not true also of traditional education? Think back to calculus or when you might have learned a second language and the feeling of satisfaction you experienced when you overcame a learning challenge. The BBC offers a wonderful game that deals with dinosaurs and ecology/environment in its excellent game called Planet Dinosaur. In this simulation, you must deal with the problem of nurturing your dinosaurs so that they reach adulthood. The simulation takes into account such factors as habitat needs for your creatures as well as strategies to deal with potential ecological disasters that threaten to destroy not only your dinosaurs that you have so carefully nurtured but also the very world in which you AND the dinosaur "live." At least for me, the sense of accomplishment was quite satisfying as I was able to meet and solve problems presented by the game's ecosystems.

Finally, I visited Teen Second Life. Second Life is one of world's largest online virtual communities. Teen Second Life - like its big brother simply titled Second Life - is literally a planet in which anything is possible. While it is usually referred to as a game, Second Life has been and is still by such prestigious universities as Cambridge, Oxford, East Anglia, Harvard, Yale, Princeton, and many more as well as corporations, governmental agencies, public and private schools, and law enforcement and health care professions as a platform for educative purposes. Second Life comes with a full suite of tools to build a simulation including 3D modeling tools, scripting, and tons of multimedia possibilities. Second Life is something that cannot be easily summed in even in a few paragraphs. It is free to "play". All you need to do is create an avatar and explore. I should add that Teen Second Life is actually incorporated into Second Life. (N.B. At one time it was a separate "world" but Linden Labs, the creators, have created grids on the main planet that are age restricted).

Our readings and the videos have all stressed the importance of gaming in allowing students to visualize difficult concepts in ways that traditional media simply cannot replicate. Students can experience dangerous situations without any real risk to themselves. Most importantly and the thing that really sums up my assertion that gaming is essential to learning is that gaming engages students and makes learning enjoyable. As Johnson (2010) stated, even "serious" games elicited positive responses from students. But, even more than this is the old adage that I believe is quite appropriate here: "we learn by doing" and games allows us to not only see, but do, and do such that we solve problems, learn from failure, experiment, and collaborate. Hey, that sounds like the "real world!"

Best,
Joe