Inspire Connect Engage Create
Is the Label “Games Based Learning” Useful?
Whichever way you look at it the words Games Based Learning create a very neat little box. In that box we are meant to see all “learning” that is centred on, or “based” around a game – which invariably and most recently refers to a console or computer game.
In the recent few days I have come to question the terminology we use. Two things have sparked such curiosity. The first was reading Doug Belshaw’s book “Best of Belshaw” – in which he includes a blog post titled “The problem(s) of 21st century literacy/ies“. The term “literacies” intrigued me and Doug’s quote from Doyle (1994) made me think about the term “games based learning”.
In the last decade a variety of “literacies” have been proposed, including cultural, computer, scientific, technical, global and mathematical. All of these literacies focus on a compartmentalized aspect of literacy. Information literacy, on the other hand, is an inclusive term. Through information literacy, the other literacies can be achieved (Breivik, 1991). In attaining information literacy, students gain proficiency in inquiry as they learn to interpret and use information (Kuhlthau, 1987).
If we continue to use the term Games Based Learning are we just perpetuating a compartmentalised aspect of learning?
Ewan McIntosh underlined my thinking in reference to his recent blog post about the lack of mainstream attention gaming receives and how this impacts negatively upon the use of it in education:
The potential to learn in the game, as well as learn from their production, is lost to all but the most culturally open and connected of educators
In reply to a question on Twitter Ewan said we have to be careful that the terminology doesn’t compartmentalise what is going on when using a game in the classroom- in much the same way the rhetoric of “literacies” has done.
I am undecided, for two reasons.
Part of me knows that when I am explaining about gaming in the classroom to people who have no prior experience, the term “Games Based Learning” helps to succinctly phrase what I mean. It also puts the words “games” and “learning” together.
On the other hand if we set it apart from everything else, if we make the neat little (x)box for it to go in, are we missing the point? Surely it is all really just about learning, in all of its polka-dot and peanut butter flavours and forms – no matter whether it is from a game or from a film.
Similar Ideas
| Print article | This entry was posted by tbarrett on December 21, 2009 at 8:45 pm, and is filed under Games Based Learning. Follow any responses to this post through RSS 2.0. You can leave a response or trackback from your own site. |
No trackbacks yet.
What Am I Good At?
about 2 months ago - View Comments
On a Friday our school has a celebration assembly that allows us to share the great things going on in school. It occured to me this week how important our role is in helping children find their specialism, the one thing in life that they are great at, that they enjoy and even have a
Reflections on Being A Foundation Teacher
about 3 months ago - View Comments
I have spent the last half term as a Foundation 2 (4 and 5 year olds) classteacher in my new school. Combined with a multitude of other factors, including finding my feet as a Deputy Headteacher, it has been the most challenging and intense seven weeks of my teaching career.
I thought I would take
Challenge, Instinct and Resilience
about 4 months ago - View Comments
My first week in my new post as Deputy Head Teacher has probably been the most challenging five days of my career. Unfortunately I cannot be as candid about my experiences as I normally would be, due to a number of reasons, including some legal ones. Let’s just say “a baptism of fire” would be
I Hope…
about 5 months ago - View Comments
My son will soon be pitched headlong into full time education. As a father and a teacher I have certain hopes for the kind of experiences he will have in the next 15 years or so.
I hope he will be in classrooms that are bright and engaging.
I hope that he will think school is exciting, where
Looking Back
about 8 months ago - View Comments
The sun will soon be rising on 2010 and I just wanted to look back at a hugely eventful year for me personally. Here are some of the things that have been memorable.
Last Christmas we spent our holidays in Australia. It was an amazing trip for me and I would dearly love to return to
Ban Consoles at Home
about 8 months ago - View Comments
Imagine for a moment you have a Nintendo Wii, or similar, in your classroom (perhaps you do already) which you use for games based learning. Topics or subject units you teach are centred around the use of a specific game and you are in the middle of one such topic.
One day a parent comes into
Taking the Game out of the Console
about 9 months ago - View Comments
I have been lucky enough to have developed the use of the Nintendo Wii and DS consoles in our school. We have used the Wiis in our year group in a number of different ways across the curriculum. However the use of Endless Ocean as an integral part of our Sealife curriculum unit has really
Consoles for Classrooms
about 9 months ago - View Comments
I think that every classroom should have a console.
That is basically what this blog post is proposing, you can read on and find out why I think that, but that is it in a nutshell. You could stop reading right now, but please take away that first sentence, those first 9 words and consider them carefully
Using Endless Ocean (Wii) in the Classroom – Making a Class Aquarium for Descriptive Writing
about 10 months ago - View Comments
I remember when I first explained on Twitter we were doing Sealife as our next topic I was sent a link to this beautiful footage of the Okinawa Churaumi Aquarium in Japan. Put down what you were doing, take your shoes off and watch this for four and half minutes.
This main tank, the ‘Kuroshio Sea’,
Finding the Blue Whale
about 10 months ago - View Comments
To kick off Whale Week (the final few days of work using Endless Ocean in our Sealife topic) with my class I planned to discover the Blue Whale in the Nintendo Wii game.
Planning a discovery is I suppose a bit odd, but in a moment of solitary gameplay, I mean planning, in the classroom I
about 8 months ago
Thanks for this post. I'm becoming more and more conviced that GBL is going to be one of the major ways of encouraging disaffected (male) pupils. The issue seems to me that a large number of people in education who aren't gamers themselves are quite suspicious of gaming and are fightened (?) of their impact on children. I can only say that the biggest impact on developing my so's reading wasn't me – I'm an English teacher, by the way – or books: it was playing games like Zelda on his NDS and Halo on the 360. I saw a sudden leap in his reading because he had to understand the text to play games. I've no doubt that he also developed a range of other skills alongside that, too. I wonder how much the government would invest in decent GBL – it would certainly have more impact than all the National Strategies resources they've bombarded schools with.
Great site, by the way!
about 8 months ago
Thanks for this post. I'm becoming more and more conviced that GBL is going to be one of the major ways of encouraging disaffected (male) pupils. The issue seems to me that a large number of people in education who aren't gamers themselves are quite suspicious of gaming and are fightened (?) of their impact on children. I can only say that the biggest impact on developing my so's reading wasn't me – I'm an English teacher, by the way – or books: it was playing games like Zelda on his NDS and Halo on the 360. I saw a sudden leap in his reading because he had to understand the text to play games. I've no doubt that he also developed a range of other skills alongside that, too. I wonder how much the government would invest in decent GBL – it would certainly have more impact than all the National Strategies resources they've bombarded schools with.
Great site, by the way!
about 8 months ago
I also do believe the word “games” comes with a lot of baggage.
A game can be anything from an novel amusement to a deep and accurate simulation – While these ideas all have a place in a classroom some things are better than others.
The phrase that most stuck with into me many years ago was “the person who learns the most from a CD-ROM is the one who programs it”.
I think it is the same today for games – it is one things to consume a game and utilise the content to support teaching and learning and another level again to create games and simulations. We need a series of terms to avoid Game Based Learning tp become – the use of commercial off the shelf games in the classroom.
If I had an order – I would put tools like Alice and Algodoo/Phun and Scratch and Lego Robots above the guitar hero's of the world. A school fighting robot league is as much a game for kids as something on a console – a game can be social play.
about 8 months ago
Tom, thousands of games are played each day on Primary Games Arena during the school holidays. That can't be a bad thing can it? I think its mostly due to the easy entry point that kids like them. I'm not pro or anti gaming, I take advice from guys like you but there is obviously a demand for “games based learning”. I hope we are doing a good enough job to provide quality resources that educators approve of!
about 8 months ago
Tom, I applaud what your doing in the classroom but I would like to see how it works in the secondary world and with research to reinforce it. Normal learning presents enormous problems and I would like to see a set of principles established that would help me use these tools.
about 8 months ago
I am not sure it is necessarily negative, in fact it is a useful, simple phrase to communicate what we do. But it is much more complex and wide-reaching than that simple phrase.
about 8 months ago
Perhaps if using gaming in the classroom is ever going to break from it's niche then it needs people to be aware of the facets your refer to Ewan.
From using “Endless Ocean” it has made me more aware of the ways a sandbox game can be used in the classroom. It is open and allows us, as educators, to layer structure in any form we like. Using World of Goo is different, for example, it presents opportunities for different interactions for the gamer. Making teachers aware of these distinctions seems important to me.
Your reference to the “Taxonomy of Gamers” post is an interesting one – I agree with the two polarities of “tourist” and “skill-player” but find it too clear cut. I would consider them with more credence if on a sliding scale. I think I am both – I can jump the hoops, but enjoy the minutiae as well. Are we not just creating another neat compartment? I think the type of gamer you are is more complex, just as we are complex learners – nothing like the shallow visual, auditory and kinaesthetic labels all too often used.
When we use games with our classes are we taking into account the types of gamers/learners that children are? When we choose a type of game to use, are we just steering children to use it in a specific way?
about 8 months ago
Blended Learning makes a lot of sense to me as it fits in with the way I believe things should be done in the elementary/primary classroom. It is about providing choice for learners to express themselves.
I think we all need to get over the novelty of working with consoles, online or PC games. We need to get over the fact they engage our youngsters. I am not sure what sort of educator you can be if you don't know that already. But as you say knowing is one thing, leveraging it is another.
about 8 months ago
I am not so sure that I separate the terminology to such a fine grained level David. If curriculum content is built for the PSP, Wii or any other type of console – then surely if it is worth the investment it will be in the medium of games. I don't exclude curriculum based content such as yours from the phrase.
about 8 months ago
I suppose if people use GBL when referring to fairly unique and innovative use of consoles it can stick. But the phrase of course can relate to any type of game.
about 8 months ago
It certainly encapsulates some things for those who have never thought about it, I agree. It is an easy term to use for, as you say, the uninitiated.
about 8 months ago
I think you're spot on, Dean (and it needs more than 140 characters to explain what's wrong with 'games-based learning' as a compartmentalisation). There is actually more nuance by looking at games in their genres, rather than as a non-existent homogeneous grouping. There is no such thing as a 'typical' game, and therefore using the games-based tag is wrong, as it implies there is.
For an example of some of the different ways we could approach this, with students' own personalities and learning journeys in mind, take a look at some of the thinking on gamer-types (as opposed to game-types):
http://insultswordfighting.blogspot.com/2008/01...
If that's just for the gamers, what about the games themselves and then what about the different pedagogical approaches? ONE catchall phrase will never be enough in the long term to a) show educational value and b) uncover all the facets video games can reveal.
about 8 months ago
Great post Tom. I'm agreeing with the compartmentalisation. I'm still going to use the phrase to try and communicate with various groups although I am aware that I may just be perpetuating negativity.
about 8 months ago
Confusion occurs, I think, because teachers do not encounter pedagogies beyond those installed in University and perpetuated in the culture of schools. That being that most learning is done by absorbtion and that students are our cognitive apprentices. Games based learning is a subjective notion, so is surrounded in ideals and interpretation. It is however a recognised 'theme' for academic research and writing. Today, Game means social immersion. Be that in the game or in the action of playing with others. Game developers know exactly how to motivate players. I
think that Game-Blended is probably more realistic, but we do like use buzzy-terms like student-centred and 'something' based. It is possible to teach a struggling student maths using a mmo like World of Warcraft, or to immerse primary kids in Quest Atlantis — if you a) understand and are active in exploring games and b) have a conceptual ability to blend learning (which few seem to be willing/able).
I am also suspicious of the teaching desire to 'showcase' student work as an extension of themselves. I don't think that many see value in games in the first place — and very few are out and out ripping up the seats in the way Ewan (did) or Derek (does). It is also parent-based. My 8 year old runs a level 80 toon in WoW and a Guild with about 20 kids under 10 in it around the world. Does he need his teacher to get all 21C learning – have these kids already not mastered the soft skills though at least a year's hard work. Friends that visit my house are horrified to find a 4 year old playing Poptropica – but to me he's learning to deal with computer-mediated-information.
Game based learning – no thanks … just call it immersive education.
Lets talk money. Avatar the movie took $265million in the first weekend. Transformers took $60million. Kids are not influenced are hold any retention for movies … they have a very short self life. In comparison Call of Duty : Modern Warfare 2 – took $365million in the UK and USA alone on it's first day. World of Warcraft cost $80million to make and brings in at least that amount every month for Blizzard.
We have to recognise that kids see games as a social network. Even the most eager Web2.0 teacher-fanbois won't include game in their teaching strategy, but having said that few will explore project; scenario or game – based learning in terms of academic process and design. The basic tenant of all of those is that they world well if the teacher is prepared to think instructionally, let go of the power-trip and explore blended learning with students.
about 8 months ago
Personally I find the term “games based learning” very unhelpful. It tends to be used in a way that excludes curriculum based content like SUMS Maths, which runs on games consoles (like the Sony PSP and Wii) but also gets widely used on PCs, laptops, netbooks etc. As far as we are concerned, if we create interactivity such that the student feels that they are playing a game, then that is what matters, not whether the graphics are 3D or whether celebrities are used to advertise it to families on TV.
In short, the term 'game' has been kidnapped by traditional games console content, and it is time to rescue it.
about 8 months ago
Use of terminology is always problematic in my experience. I am an e-learning specialist. I work in e-learning. When I go into a meeting with colleagues they have a tendency to see just the 'e', not the 'learning'.
So they either think I am there to make the technology work or to build the learning community in the VLE – actually I'm there to create the optimum blend for the learning to take place – with and without technoloy.
So I agree – it's actually useful to have a 'hook' like games-based learning because it's a really quick way of getting everyone to get a handle on what you are talking about but it can easily get in the way and tends to immediately narrow people's expectations down – “Oh yes that stuff with Nintendo Wiis” – regardless of the actual games technology used. This is a bit like talking about learning theory – people can use it as a shorthand without understanding it themselves – or more worryingly, without making sure the audience having any real understanding of the concept. You see it all the time in tender returns for e-learning work.
Anyway, thanks for raising this – it's always useful to question assumptions – and terminology!
about 8 months ago
It's a difficult one, isn't it Tom? On the one hand, you want to contribute to something more long-lasting (i.e. jettison the compartment) but on the other hand the compartment serves to explain it to people better.
Glad my book got you thinking.
about 8 months ago
We are about all learning but Games Based Learning is a really neat way of explaining to the uninitiated – won my Head over…