Educsite

I've just read an excellent paper by Kurt Squire . He is arguing for the educational power of video games by suggesting that they can be leveraged to design desirable educational experiences where "participants learn through the grammar of doing and being" (Squire, 2006, p19). He does however contend that there is a lot of research that still needs to be done before we can confidently inject serious time and money into them and be able to persuade traditionalists such as schooling institutions to convert. I particularly like the way he describes the way that people learn within games as "through a grammar of doing and being." In my opinion this is a step in the right direction for education because we must get our learners to 'do and be' within the realms of education far more than is current. We would still be able to present material in the more traditional manner and get learners to work through educational material such as practicing long division etc, even within computer games - but it is much more difficult to give learners the authentic experiences they need for meaningful, transferable learning to occur. However, to my mind some of the most important research is still to be done (as alluded to by Squire). For example how are the experiences within the simulated environment perceived by learners and how does this affect learning? What factors mediate this experience? Etc, etc....

Squire, K. (2006). From content to context: Videogames as designed experience. Educational Researcher, 35 (8), 19-29.