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.
I am currently thinking about Virtual worlds and their utility for education and writing a book chapter on this subject that is specifically related to Science Education. Public education is coming to crisis point due to the changing attitudes of learners and the changing nature of our techno driven world. Our learning environments lack flexibility and are very slow to change due to them being government driven. Lets hope that VWs and other innovative ways of learning start to permeate the system soon - but how to kick start this process is an issue. We are currently locked in by too much commercialisation of products leading to a lack of educational content, but until we get traction in the education arena that's unlikely to change. A dilemma!
I've recently arrived in Montreal where I will be spending a years sabbatical at McGill University. I hope to analyse data and write. This should include regular entries into my blog (all going well). I'm starting to settle in although I haven't yet got used to the cold - it's -12 today and there is 10 inches of snow on the ground!
