This collection has articles and research reports concerning simulations and games in education, and a listing of great examples! Research and findings from SimSchool (www.simschool.org) and etips (www.etips.info) is included.
In Educational Games, Complexity Matters.
Prensky's goal in this article "is to fill in – to the extent one can without actually playing the
games – this important “blind spot” in adults’ knowledge of their kids’ games. In doing
so I hope to help all unaware parents, and teachers and other adults (whom I often call
“Digital Immigrants” since they were born too early for this technology to be “theirs” in
a Native way) understand what these new “complex” games are, and why they are so
important to our kids, to education, and, ultimately, to us all.".
Can a Game Teach a Teacher to Teach?
The key question of this chapter is “what would a game or simulation need to have in order to teach a teacher how to teach?" The chapter assumes that it is possible and desirable to create such a game for several reasons. First, a groundswell of research indicates a wide range of interesting benefits of educative games and simulations (Prensky 2002; Beck and Wade 2004; Gee 2004; Squire 2005): why we should build educative games (Galarneau and Zibit 2006; Jones and Bronack 2006), and what options and frameworks are available for building them with a technical and artistic balance of pedagogy, simulation and game elements (Aldrich 2005; Becker 2006; Gibson 2006; Stevens 2006; Van Eck 2006).
The effectiveness of games for educational purposes
This half-page summary of a research review says that teaching with games are as effective or better than teaching with conventional methods. Results for math were found in more studies than results for language arts.
Savannah: mobile gaming and learning?
This paper reports a study that attempts to explore how using mobile technologies in direct physical interaction with space and with other players can be combined with principles of engagement and self-motivation to create a powerful and engaging learning experience. We developed a mobile gaming experience designed to encourage the development of children’s conceptual understanding of animal behaviour.
Simulating Classroom Learning in simSchool
Abstract: Interest in games and simulations in teaching (Prensky, 2002; Aldrich, 2004), and the potential for network-based assessments (Stevens, 1991; Stevens, Lopo & Wang, 1996; Dexter, 2003; Gibson, 2003) has led to developmental research on “simSchool,” a simulation for teacher education. This paper outlines how theoretical frameworks for leadership, learning theory, interpersonal psychology and behaviorist teaching models are being combined into a new synthesis model of classroom learning in simSchool.
Learning Through Exploration of an Online School
This paper examines the use of data generated by recording the information preservice teachers access in online scenarios in which they are asked to make decisions about using technology in fictitious schools (eTIP Cases). The data are reported back to students and teacher education faculty in several forms including a relevancy index which measures how closely student searches of the problem space resembled that of an expert.
The Innovate Live forum on Video Games held February 4
Video Game Technology and Education Professor Joel
Foreman, George Mason University, is the guest editor
for a special issue on video games and learning,
scheduled for June/July publication. Professor Foreman
initiated the Innovate-Live Forum on video games and
learning with a live with an Innovate-Live webcast on
February 4, 2004.
Playing with Fire: How do Computer Games Influence the Player?
In the debate on children, youth and computer games, the question of whether computer games are harmful is often posed. The answers provided are many and varying, making it easy to interpret the research results as contradictory.
SITE Conference Community Forums - Games & Simulations
This forum provides a place for discussion about the potential of games and simulations in the classroom as well as how people learn through playing games and simulations.
Teaching Methods SIMULATIONS AND GAMES
A classroom should be a place of fun as well as instruction. Student motivation can increase with the use of games to reinforce skills and concepts learned.
Really Good News About Your Children’s Video Games
Research published by University of Rochester neuroscientists C. Shawn Green and Daphne
Bavelier has grabbed national attention for suggesting that playing “action” video and computer games has positive effects – enhancing student’s visual selective attention.
Games, Parents, Teachers.com
Most kids know they are learning a tremendous amount that is positive from the video and computer games they play (read more) , but there is often a problem communicating this information to parents and teachers. This site is about helping all parties -- Kids, Parents and Teachers -- bridge that gap, in order to help kids extract the maximum learning from their games, while still keeping them fun.
Van Eck's Suggested Readings
This bibliography contains a list of suggested readings by Richard Van Eck (see http://www.educause.edu/PeerDirectory/750?ID=120000).
SimWord Glossary
In December 2005, Clark Aldrich began the SimWord of the Day series on the Learning Circuits Blog. According to Aldrich, the purpose of the SimWord entries was to acknowledge that learning practitioners are developing new tools for capturing domain knowledge, as well as new language for describing how they engage the world.
Tour of Globaloria
Globaloria is a pioneering social network for teaching and learning, based on two decades of research and practice about the benefits of youth-led learning through game design and programming for social change and educational purposes. Use this tour to try this innovative learning environment.
Multimedia simulations: A new use for technology in tertiary education
A relatively untapped use for computing technology in tertiary teaching involves simulations in which graphics, photographs, sound and video are used to create realistic 'microworlds' which students explore in order to solve a problem. Simulations structure the learning process in quite different ways to textbooks, lectures or videos.
SimuLearn web site
Clark Aldrich, author of Simulations andthe Future of Learning as well as Learning by Doing is the key figure behind this business-oriented web site that promotes the Virtual Leader simulation. We promote his books elsewhere, and direct you to his site right here.
eTIP Case Analysis Paper #4
One of the potentials for network-based simulations and games is tracking the actions of a user for information about what they know and can do. eTIP Cases do this through "relevancy" (which items accessed by the user were relevant to the situation or challenge at hand) and "essay score" (how well did the user articulate their decision-solution).
Simulation as a Framework for Preservice Assessment
This paper outlines a theoretical framework within which SimSchool and one of its partner projects “eTIPS” serve as examples of simulations and case-based e-learning platforms that provide a framework for assessing the knowledge and skills of preservice students.
Characteristics of Games and Harnessing Them for Learning
Presentation "Let's Play: The role and value of games and simulations in Education" by Robert McLaughlin (with slides from Robert McLaughlin and Calin Cazan), March 2005 Site Conference, Phoenix, AZ.
Education and Simulation/Gaming and Computers
"Many teachers balk at the very thought of taking up valuable class time playing a "game." But, is using a computer game, or any game, as a learning tool so implausible?"
Author Jerry Seay, Faculty Member College of Charleston has put together an answer and some resources on games and simulations.
Let the Games Begin
Video games, once confiscated in class, are now a key teaching tool. If they're done right.
simSchool Scenarios
This pdf file is a beginning workbook for the simSchool application (www.simschool.org). It develops several case studies of teaching and illustrates how simSchool allows someone to "play" with the case studies to learn about teaching.
Replaying History: Learning World History through playing Civilization III
Kurt Squire's dissertation explores what happens when Civilization III, a complex computer game developed in entertainment contexts enters formal learning environemtns. Three naturalistic case studies in which Civilization III was used as the basis for a unit on world history in urban learning environments.
Inside simSchool
SimSchool, a Preparing Tomorrow’s Teachers to Use Technology (PT3) project, is developing a simulated environment where users are immersed in the culture of the classroom, assuming the role of teacher, instructing students with diverse personalities, behavioral characteristics, and learning stylesattributes and skills. These virtual students, based on authentic student characteristics, react to decisions about task design and “in flight” teacher moves providing the user with a rich web of associations and strategies to develop their understanding and teaching skills.
What Kids Learn That’s POSITIVE From Playing Video Games
While it is possible to adjust the content of video and computer
games to be more in synch with social or teaching objectives – and in some instances this
is already happening – a lot of positive learning goes on even with the current content. In
fact, as a learning tool, computer and video games may be the most powerful mechanism
ever known.
Simulations and the Conceptual Assessment Framework in simSchool
Abstract. SimSchool is a teacher education computer simulation of a grade 7 – 12 classroom being developed with funding from the Preparing Tomorrow’s Teachers to Use Technology (PT3, 2003) program.
Teaching Educational Games (wiki of resources)
David Wiley said, in sharing this resources on ITFORUM:
"You might enjoy the Educational Games Wiki we used during our presentation at Games, Learning, and Society yesterday. In addition to loading it up with materials before hand, we had 60 resource additions during the presentation itself..
The Motivation of Gameplay
The reason computer games are so engaging is because the primary objective of the game
designer is to keep the user engaged. They need to keep that player coming back, day after day, for 30, 60 even 100+ hours, so that the person feels like he has gotten value for his money (and, in the case of online games, keeps paying.) That is their measure of success.
“Engage Me or Enrage Me”, What Today’s Learners Demand
These students are convinced that
school is totally devoid of interest and totally irrelevant to their life. In fact, they find school much less interesting than the myriad devices they carry in their pockets and backpacks.
"Creating Learning Digital Natives will love" Presentation by Marc Prensky* December 8, 2004
How do we go about redesigning our learning for Digital Natives? As learners become more and more immersed in their digital technology - carrying around their communications, computing and entertainment devices in their pockets - the gap is widening between the skills they have, the languages they speak (e.g. game, blog, IM), and what instructors and trainers expect.
Social Impact Games
The goal of this site is to catalog the growing number of video and computer games whose primary purpose is something other than to entertain. These are also known as "serious games.".
How SimStudents Learn
In SimSchool, the students in the classroom learn in relationship to the actions of the teacher and several other variables. This paper will outline the variables and show how they are used to represent learning.
Video Game Studies and the Emerging Instructional Revolution
An additional development in learning and technology is the emergence of “Video Game Studies” as an academic field in higher education. While this trend may appear recent and relatively marginal, Joel Foreman’s account indicates that it has already gained considerable momentum as more scholars explore the possibilities of gaming as a legitimate vehicle of pedagogy and curricular reform.
Elements of Network-Based Assessment
This article presents an introduction to elements of a network-based assessment system based in recent advances in knowledge and practice in learning theory, assessment design and delivery, and semantic web interoperability. The architecture takes advantage of the meditating role of technology as well as recent models of assessment systems.
“Modding” – The Newest Authoring Tool
Based on today’s young people’s (Prensky calls them Digital Natives) “participatory” philosophy
– i.e. that it is more fun to create than to merely receive – commercial-off-the-shelf
(COTS) games increasingly provide tools – right on the CD – that allow players, at no
cost, to change the look, feel, characters and action of the games to suit their needs, even
to the point of creating entirely new games in the process.
How simSchool embodies complex systems concepts
This short paper discusses how simSchool embodies core ideas of complex systems. The “system” of simSchool includes the game algorithms and a human player attempting to teach a classroom full of simulated students.
The New Core of Leadership
According to author Clark Aldrich "Leadership requires timing, intuition, and personalization. It’s about the when and the how, not just the what.
New Directions in e-Learning: Personalization, Simulation and Program Assessment
This paper discusses three areas of recent innovative work: personalization and e-portfolios, simulation-based assessments, and research-based criteria for e-learning. A new web-based personal application illustrates the strengths of both generic tools and customized systems in e-portfolios.
Video Games in Education
Computer and video games are a maturing medium and industry and have caught the attention of scholars across a variety of disciplines. By and large, computer and video games have been ignored by educators.
Do They REALLY Think Differently?-- Neuroscience Says Yes
In Digital Natives, Digital Immigrants: Part I, Prensky "discussed how the differences between
our Digital Native students and their Digital Immigrant teachers lie at the root of a great
many of today’s educational problems. I suggested that Digital Natives’ brains are likely
physically different as a result of the digital input they received growing up.
Educators Turn to Games for Help
Video games have come under tremendous political pressure in recent years because of an increase in violent and sexual content. But schools soon may be using the technology that powers those games to help teach America's children.
Structures Underlying Student Achievement and On-task Responses in the Cook School District Simulation
Cook School District is a web-based simulation activity designed for teacher preparation students (candidates, or users) to practice their skills in drawing connections between their teaching decisions and the academic achievement and classroom behavior of their students. This paper explains the conceptual structure and computational procedures that control the responses of the simulated students within the Cook simulation.
Semantic Web Applications for E-Learning - SITE2005 paper
Web-based E-learning applications can take advantage of the Semantic Web’s interoperability standards to effect more responsive interactions among teachers, learners and resources. This article outlines how the emerging capabilities are made possible and explores some of the implications for the personalization of resources, educational experiences and assessment design and delivery.
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