The Power of Gaming- Pokemon Go

There is an ebb and flow in the attitudes and buzz around gaming in education. This week, with the release of Pokemon Go, I saw, once again, the power of gaming in action. Pokemon Go was released. Pokemon Go is an augmented reality game that allows users to interact with a Pokemon world overlaid on the real world.

My younger kids play it (10,12) of course delighting in the Pokemon they find as we drive around town. My 22-year-old son and 26-year-old nephew are also enjoying it. Reliving parts of their childhood they are interacting and discovering the hidden world around them.

Next to my house there is a park, now visiting the gazebo gives you Pokeballs and the sign is a Poke Gym. Traffic around the park has more than doubled with kids teens and adults stopping to explore the digital and the real.

My point is not to celebrate this particular game. My point is that gaming is something that appeals to the digital generation. This app makes participants move (you need 2K steps to hatch a Pomkemon egg). If done correctly it can generate learning, motivation and a sense of adventure. I can easily see a game app at a museum, sending users to find specific exhibits and discover ideas and histories. There can be a real reward but just as easily you can just have a leaderboard and levels that seem to motivate gamers. Imagine a city creating an app that provides points for each landmark, and cultural event.

Just imagine what we can do!

Generation D- the impulse to re-engineer

I was playing a quiet game of Candy Crush yesterday and my 8 (soon to be 9) year old son Itai came and sat next to me. For me, casual games like Candy Crush are a great way to pass a few minutes and do some problem solving. Itai, however, is generation D (digital) child and reacted to the game in a very different way.       

As I was olaying Itai was making suggestions about moves and figuring out how the game worked. Finally he said: "Wouldn't it be great if you could design your own board and could decide where the jelly and chocolate went?" He continued musing: "you could design your own special candy like a cross between the fish and chocolate". His stream of ideas went on as I was playing and I cannot remember them all, but what I do remember is how easily he has focused on the creation side. 

This of course is not accidental. I have been observing in schools and at home the impact of games like Minecraft and Little Big Planet. For adults they are games, but I argue that for kids they create new ways of thinking. As a result generation D maybe growing up the most creative one yet, a generation that has a creative instinct. A generation that idenftifies a problem and doesn't just want to solve it, they want to re-engineer it. The question for us is how do we design schools that cultivate and support this world view?

A Note from the Minecraft Underground- Expertise, Mining and Music

  by  Andrew Beeston 

We had the TechEDGE 12 conference on campus two weeks ago. Rick Marlatt presented about Minecraft. He was excited about the presentation but I was secretly worried that very few will come to his presentation. Most of the participants teach or plan to teach in Elementary schools and I was not sure they will be excited about minecraft. Well I was utterly wrong. The session was full of faculty current and future teachers.

In conversations with my students afterwards I got the gist. For example M said "students talk about Minecraft all the time I have to at least find out what it is. They take turns reading the few Minecraft books we have".

Ann Brown called young students universal novices, at the same time we all strive for competency usually stemming from our areas of expertise be it football, brain science, or Harry Potter trivia. Minecraft provides a niche of expertise. Compared to most adults even fairly beginning Minecrafters have expertise. Minecraft has a rich vocabulary that includes complex words like bedrock, obsidian, and creepers to name a few. Jargon flies whenever students get together. And practice, practice, practice, hours of effort go into it.

This is very similar to what happens to students as they learn to play an instrument. They practice, get better, and with others get a sense of growing expertise. At the same time they watch others play with new eyes and new understanding. Slowly they learn new vocabulary and can communicate in ways that others not privee to this domain will not understand. Finally they get the experience of "being in the orchestra" a sense of collborating and sharing with your peers sensing a whole greater than the sum.

The worlds with their unique construction and opportunities allow students to become experts and learn not just about skill and  citizenship but also about what it feels like being an expert.

Four things your students can learn from watching Minecraft videos

My two youngest kids have been playing minecraft for quite a long time. For those who are not familiar with minecraft think of a game platform with lego like blocks of many kinds that allows you to create or explore worlds created by others.

This summer, however, my kids got hooked on YouTube videos documenting the adventures of of others online. An example can be the Dumb and Dumber videos for an example click on the pic to the right. 

In the beginning I thought this was just a way to pass the time when they did not have access to Netflix or were not allowed to play (we have restriction on play time). Soon I found out that they sometimes prefer to watch the videos over other shows. This is something that is hard for me to understand. I like playing games but watching somebody else do it? That's something you do when you run out of quarters...

The phenomenon intrigued me. Why watch someone else play? Well I started with the obvious and asked my kids what they liked about it. Their answer was simple, we just like it. When I watched carefully I discovered a few ways that the videos afforded a great learning opportunity.

1. The video makers usually play in pairs or even three and a majority of the video centers around their collaboration. This model of collaboration has actually helped my kids learn to collaborate while playing and I even hear them produce a banter similar to the ones online.

2. In the videos that are usually in survival mode and require the players to solve many challenges. Since audio is a huge part of the attraction they actually produce something akin to a think aloud while engaged in problem solving. This model helps viewers get a window into complex problem solving.

3. Following different videos and finding new ones are part of information literacy skills that my kids who usually spend very little time on YouTube developed rather quickly.

4. The videos often share the creativity of the creators by sharing approaches ideas and actions. They provide a great model of divergent thinking and the joy of creation.

In short the videos provide a model for engagement with 21st century skills. As adults struggle to provide relevant 21st century models finding worthy individuals willing to share what and how they engage in creative activities provides exceptional learning opportunities.

Gaming in Education- Observing Minecraft in the Classroom

In the last couple of weeks I have observed a few classrooms from Kindergarten to middle school using Minecraft EDU to support 21st century learning. To be completely honest I have not played Minecraft before this week, although I have watched my kids play it on the iPad and computer. I understood the theoretical affordances but for the first time I actually saw it in action in classrooms.

My first visit was to a fourth grade classroom facilitated by Jason Wilmot. As we walked into the classroom you could immediately sense the buzz of activity. As Matt Gordon shared later: "the first thing you get is engagement". All students were engaged moving around (the virtual world), asking for peer help, showing each other how to accomplish specific task. We (Jason, Ji and I) decided to start students with unstructured time seeing what patterns emerge. Jason is weaving in specific skills required by district and state standards making sure that students are receiving all the skills necessary.

I settled next to two students building houses one right next to each other. They were discovering functions and clearly helping each other produce the outline for their respective creations making sure that they each have enough space. This simultaneous communication off and on line is something we have observed across all grades. This is a fantastic illustration of the 21st century skills of Communication and Collaboration.

Moving to a different group I saw a student avatar in what seemed to be a vast underground cavern creating bales of wool and setting them on fire in large quantity. As I watched I could see no real reason for his actions. I casually asked: "I see that you are lighting a lot on fire". "Yes" he answered eagerly, "you see I am lost and can't find my way out. My friend is in the area", here he tapped the shoulder of his friend on the adjacent computer "he knows where he is. I hope that if the fire is strong enough he can see it and help me get out." I smiled. What I initially saw as a mindless activity, turned to be Critical Thinking and Problem Solving.

Two students were introduced to me as the "resident experts" since they have been playing at home for a few months. These two were mindlessly building, it seemed as if their position as experts was actually stopping them from exploring and innovating. I asked "What are building?"
"a house" they both answered almost in unison.
"can you make doors or windows in Minecraft?" I asked. One started showing me how you can make windows and seemed invigorated by the more structured task. Later I challenged him to create a second story with stairs leading up. He seemed somewhat disinterested but before I left he proudly showed me his new house with a roof garden and stairs that actually worked. His friend switched to creating a water area, a challenge to create a pool with a slide sent him on a creative bend as well.

On a visit to Matt Gordon's class in Horizon Middle School in Kearny we saw a real "Digital Making Space". His classroom hosted a variety of students working in Minecraft (set of tasks), creating video with iPads, editing work and probably a few other tasks that I failed to catch.

Both Matt's and Jason's spaces showed that the interaction of virtual world and a challenge led to Creativity and Innovation.

The biggest challenge that I observed across settings is the power of students to damage each others creation. While this problem can be managed with the tools embedded in Minecraft EDU, we would like to challenge students to create a civil society and foster democratic principles in which students set the norms and explore implication of personal and community boundaries. In this way we can address not just digital citizenship but citizenship in it's broadest sense.

Benefits of Gaming

This week I have been thinking of the befits of gaming. It started as Jason initiated a conversation about MinecraftEDU. This was combined with an interest from Ji one of my graduate students. Minecraft is a veteran game that still engages millions around the world. The EDU version allows educators to create a self contained and "safe" environment for students to explore.

As it happened I also presented at NETA fall conference this Thursday and happened to see the tail end of Jason Schmidt's presentation on MinecraftEDU. We had lukewarm coffee right after my presentation and chatted about opportunities to not just do but also research. I am excited.

As Ji and I brainstormed the benefits of using Minecraft we came up with four areas that we think would matter greatly to our students growing up in the 21st century.

1. Collaboration- to be successful students must learn to work together toward common goals, coordinate and learn to create a code of conduct. We also expect distributed practice and cognition. These are key skills and Jason suggested that he has already seen it at work.
2. Problem solving- since mine craft is a Lego like world with it's own rules any task requires some creative problem solving to reach goals (both ones you set for yourself and one set from the outside).
3. Engagement- we expect that incorporating Minecraft will improve attitudes toward school and engagement in school activities.
4. Creativity- The open ended nature of the world and the tasks can naturally lead to creative thinking and solutions.
5. Language- we expect that students will develop a community of practice that will distinguish itself using specific jargon and develop efficient ways to communicate.

By Megx see here

6. Democracy and control- Minecraft rests most of the control in the hands of students teaching them about decision making and creating opportunities for learning social skills and tolerance.

Our biggest challenge:
How do we measure impact?

We are currently collecting literature on these issues BUT we are thinking of designing individual and group tasks using Lego and
Keva Planks. More to come...
Comments and ideas welcome!

Games and learning- evidence

I am attaching empirical results about the impact of games on learning. This is where empirical evidence trumps "common sense" it is not motivation. Instead it is combining traditional and game based instruction, group work and multiple sessions. A good preview to Jim Gee's visit to UNL on Aug 20th and his talk on Gaming in Education.

A meta-analysis of the cognitive and motivational effects of serious games.

By Wouters, Pieter; van Nimwegen, Christof; van Oostendorp, Herre; van der Spek, Erik D.

Journal of Educational Psychology, Vol 105(2), May 2013, 249-265.

Abstract

It is assumed that serious games influences learning in 2 ways, by changing cognitive processes and by affecting motivation. However, until now research has shown little evidence for these assumptions. We used meta-analytic techniques to investigate whether serious games are more effective in terms of learning and more motivating than conventional instruction methods (learning: k = 77, N 5,547; motivation: k = 31, N 2,216). Consistent with our hypotheses, serious games were found to be more effective in terms of learning (d= 0.29, p < .01) and retention (d = 0.36, p < .01), but they were not more motivating (d = 0.26, p > .05) than conventional instruction methods. Additional moderator analyses on the learning effects revealed that learners in serious games learned more, relative to those taught with conventional instruction methods, when the game was supplemented with other instruction methods, when multiple training sessions were involved, and when players worked in groups. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2013 APA, all rights reserved)

Gaming and being Social

A lot has been made about the role of gaming in creating lonely and isolated teens and possibly even adults. I think that it is a complex problem and that gaming can have multiple impacts on any individual- I would actually like to suggest that we stop treating the problem as a pro-con problem and instead admit that any impacts of gaming are complex (cognitive, social, emotional) and depend on both the gamer and the game.

I am a casual gamer, I usually like games that can be played with short bursts with minimal set-up times that can be learned quickly. I simply do not have the time or attention span for more. A few months ago I decided to try a social game on Facebook. I have played social word games before but not games that involved long term engagement. As I like strategy games I tried a strategy game that required me to manage resources and raise an army that can battle computer simulated foes as well as other players. When I started playing I immediately turned off the chat feature. I was not interested in the interaction just in the gaming experience. As the game is geared toward short bursts of activity I slowly built my forces over a few weeks until I decided that I was ready to challenge other players. I attacked a few small outposts. The next time I logged in I found that my forces have been attacked by multiple players and repeatedly laid to waste. This seemed to be more than just an attack. I turned the chat on and asked. The response came immediately: "This is not how we behave in this sector". At this point it dawned on me that by not understanding the social aspect of the game I was missing a window into how gamers are creating social norms and mores within games.

I do not know how this links with life outside gaming if at all. What is certain is that it does not necessarily true that gamers would be less capable socially- the need to communicate with peers whom you cannot see and develop norms and values may have great value in a digitally connected global society. There may be a great potential in developing such games to teach ideas in history and civics.
There might be some strength in helping students see the connection between their online social experiences including gaming and their behavior in the real world.

Happy New Year!

On Being Puzzled

A few weeks ago I found "The Room" from Fireproof Games for my iPad. It is a beautifully executed puzzle game but that is not the main point. I enjoyed playing and marveling at the quality and challenge of the game play. What I didn't expect was the excitement and joy that my two younger sons had helping me advance. Oren (8) and Itai (6) were full members of the team and we all had great ideas moving us forward at different points. Their joy in discovering another clue or opening another section was hard to contain- and they literally broke into a dance when we figured out a particularly hard puzzle.

The series of small joys at each step solved reminded me very much of Johnson's "Everything Bad is Good for You". The way video games can reward our brains in small bursts is almost unparalleled. To me this is what a learning game should be like. I try to avoid the term educational as it invokes unpleasant memories of unimaginative drill games. Well it is a learning game...
It teaches to think creatively, look closely, experiment and persist. These are skills that transfer well to any open ended problem that artists and scientists attend to. My play with my boys added another dimension, namely learning to work as a team: we take turns, practice patience, share victories and most importantly never play without the others.

We have since moved to new puzzle games not all of them as visually pleasing but the effects are still the same. They now insist on daily common gameplay and I happily concur. We are creating habits of mind and family bonding. I can only wish that we will find ways to combine this superb game play with content that reaches educational standards.

Dragons and the Curse of the 99₵ App

As I sift through hundreds of apps for our iPad in the classroom podcast I am occasionally surprised by quality apps. In our TechEDGE conference yesterday Rob McEntarffer from Lincoln Public Schools showed me DragonBox. In this brilliant app (see geek Dad review) students learn algebra in a way that "sneaks up" on them. It teaches them algebra principles through a true game environment (bringing Gee's vision to life) . Such brilliant apps are rare because they are brilliant. But in effect most of the educational apps have limited learning value. Most have limited content and focus on drill in ways that leave the educator in me cringing and hoping for more.

The problem though may be that the app store set the income margin too low. Right now an app for 5.99 is expensive and gives purchasers pause. The dominant modes are free and 99 cent apps. I just wonder if developers can create and maintain quality educational apps at these prices. I have gone through more than a thousand educational apps in the last year and I can answer with a "not yet". There are some great apps but most fail even my basic criteria to be useful.

I believe that mobile devices with an emphasis on tablets are going to be dominant in education in the next decade maybe even longer. Apps are an important part of this ecosystem but to be useful we need a bigger pool of great apps that serve students need to learn.

The lesson from the print news industry is that new pricing models connected with technology seem to create changes that are irreversible. Some companies are trying to buck this trend by creating educational subscriptions e.g. Footsteps 2 Brilliance and BrainPop.
This is an interesting direction that I hope can be successful but here I want to identify here other possible solutions.

As we discuss flipping classroom I would like to suggest flipping the curriculum and professional development equation. That is, providing the materials for free (or for a nominal sum say 99¢) and charging for backend services such as professional development and data services. This is a concept I have written about before and I think can potentially be viable. The Dynamic Indicators of Basics Early Literacy Skills (DIBELS) seem to have successfully followed this model providing the assessment for free but charging for training, data services and optional assessment materials. While it is a not-for-profit organization it still proves the concept.

An effort like this may benefit from a partnership with a university combining the entrepreneurship of start-ups and the educational know-how of university faculty. This combination can make excellent products for the educational market that mesh gaming concepts and excellent content that lead kids to learn.

Finally, states and districts can choose to partner with universities and invest in creating digital materials to replace the commercial curricula altogether. Such efforts would require upfront costs but may actually reduce the dependence on commercial products and save districts significant amounts of money that can then be invested in professional development and emerging learning technologies.

Talking About His (My) Generation

My oldest Erez is now 18, for a few years now he has been drawing on the generational divide between us as he makes his point about pop culture discussions. While I have a very different way of looking at the world I truly appreciate his point of view. It matters because this is how our students learn and if we do not adapt we will stop being relevant.

More than anything else I learned from Erez how to flow with change. He is an early adopter of new ways of doing and social media. At the same time he is an early deserter of new technologies as they wear thin.
This is how I observe the cycle. First he finds a new technology, a few years back it was StumbleUpon. For a few months Erez was on StumbleUpon everyday for a few others. In fact he stumbled so much that the service told him they were out of new webpages to share with him. For a while he continued visiting occasionally but now he rarely uses it anymore if at all.


So, contrary to commonly held beliefs, his generation does problems with attention. Instead they just use attention differently. It seems that he has learned to concentrate on one problem very intensely for short period of time and develop expertise that is very local. Once, however, that the technology has been mastered and maximized attention shifts quickly to something else. Considering the current and projected rates of change in technology it seems to be a very effective strategy- that holds no emotional or cognitive ties to a specific technology. Instead concentrates on maximizing short term benefits (even if they are social) and then moving to the next technology.

Erez adds:

I find it exciting to discover new ways to manipulate technologies that I am given. As before mentioned I master different technologies and move on. Though sometimes rather than move to a different technology I just modify the one I am given. For example after playing Fallout New Vegas non-stop until I finished, rather than immediately move on I stayed with FNV and installed mods which modify the game whether it be graphics or actual gameplay. This allowed me to be comfortable in the fact that I had basic knowledge of the technology, but now I have a new technology to master.



Frankly I am reminded of a book from a time when I still read books, I Robot by Isaac Asimov. In this book robots are powered by a brain that has become so complex that all the scientists are unsure of how its basics work, rather they just add on to it. I believe this is where my future is headed, the mods I have on FNV will have mods, and those mods will have more mods and so on and so forth until the original game no longer resembles what I play now. However, no one will complain because no one remembers the original, not because it's taken a long time, but rather because no one was attached to it like my father says above, "no emotion or cognitive ties to a specific technology." In truth I am unsure if this is a good thing that will continue until we have super robots, or a bad thing that will see us hit a capacity of understanding and watch the latest generation struggle to stay focused on one technology for a long time. Anyways, all we can do is wait and see.



Last word from Guy:
I find it interesting that Erez's goto metaphor is from gaming. I was thinking about it as I wrote my piece but was wondering if I was stretching the concept too far. Apparently it was not far enough.


Thank you to Erez for being a co-Blogger

Creativity, Literacy and Gaming: An Anecdote about Little Big Planet

My six years old son has been asking me to help him spell lately. "Dad" he shouts from the general vicinity of the TV "how do you spell test? Oh I got it". After a few questions I was curious so I came to see what he was doing (the yelling back and forth was getting less fun). I see Itai perched on the couch in front of the tv manipulating characters and obstacles as he is creating a level in the game LittleBigPlanet. He was integrating writing, his knowledge of games, and design decisions to create a game level. As I was expressing my wonderment about his creativity Asaf who is 16 turned to me and said. "He has been doing it for months!". "I knew he playing" I said "but has he published them online?" "Yes", was the answer, "he made about a hundred, but he can publish only 20".

My thought is something like this: while we argue about how much technology and how should be part of our children's educational experience they are actually moving ahead. But only if we give them great tools to work with: Lego, iPads, LittleBigPlanet, all commercial ideas yet all outstanding educational tools. With some guidance children of this generation can become the most imaginative generation the world has ever seen- combining powerful tools, experimenting and social dimensions. Piaget talked about the child as a scientist learning about the physical world about her. Now after the physical world they can start exploring virtual worlds of possibilities- expanding the potential for development.
This somehow made me hopeful.
Trailer About LittleBigPlanet Publishing