Solving technology problems, one at a time
A group of researchers headed by Katherine Wilson has done a review of the literature about the effectiveness of serious games. They found that very hard evidence is available: most is anecdotal and suggestive, particularly with respect to which game elements promote which outcomes in learning. However the existing research is suggestive of relationships that could be the subject of future research. Wilson’s group listed fourteen proposals for such research, which could be very useful as guidelines in designing learning games, even if they aren’t scientifically proven.
Continue readingHow realistic does a simulation have to be? The answer is: just high enough to achieve your specific learning objectives.
“Although games can be effective learning environments, not all games are effective, nor are all games educational. Similarly, not all games are good for all learners or for all learning outcomes.”
– Diana Oblinger, 2006
Some of the possible issues to watch out for:
“Without motivation there is no learning”
-James Paul Gee
“If a learner is motivated, there’s no stopping him [or her]”
-Will Wright
Why is there so much excitement around the idea of using games for
workplace training? Simply put, games have some advantages that make
them exceptionally suited for training in certain situations.
Virtual Knee Surgery is designed to teach high school students some of the
concepts and steps in a knee replacement procedure. It is fairly simplistic but demonstrates some typical game structures and objectives well. You can try the real Virtual Knee Surgery game here, or just follow along with some of the screenshots below.
From Transforming Professional Healthcare Narratives into Structured Game-Informed-Learning Activities by Begg, et.al.
The Virtual Patient specification was developed to take advantage of the natural affinity for the branching narrative style of much of medical education. The Virtual Patient is a common standard by which patient cases can be structured in a manner that can be read by many game and simulation systems.
A virtual patient represents whichever characteristics of the patient are relevant to the current educational context.
Continue readingNote: This series of posts is from the handout for a talk on serious games, given at UMHS on May 12.
We all have an idea of what a game is, but it is not so easy to define precisely what makes games different from other activities. No definition of games is entirely complete, but we can approach an understanding by considering games in relation to similar activities, such as
reading stories, watching movies, playing with toys, solving puzzles,
and so on, and try to see where the significant differences lie.
Stories, games, toys, puzzles, races, etc. all have some attributes in common, but the proportions of those
attributes make some activities more gamelike. Thinking about the role
of attributes such as interactivity, representation, challenge, and risk can help us understand the nature of a particular learning game,
what types of learning objectives it might be most effectively used
for, and what kind of learner might benefit from it.