Mimi Ito, a MacArthur colleague, writes about the sociocultural contexts of game based learning. We’re excited to check out her book, Engineering Play: A Cultural History of Children’s Software (John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation Series on Digital Media and Learning)
There are some great snippets that we’ll excerpt here:
In particular, we have found that the contemporary social and recreational media environment is ripe for opportunities for self-directed, customized, and interest-driven learning, that in some instances mesh with science-oriented learning (Ito, et al. 2009).
Gaming can become a powerful vehicle for self-directed, interest driven learning that results in collateral learning related to technology, engineering, and knowledge seeking and exchange.
While kids develop some capacity for knowledge networking through local peer groups, the online environment facilitates access to more sophisticated and specialized forms of knowledge and inquiry.
Shifting focus from the more purely social and recreational contexts of gaming to contexts that are more adult guided, certain forms of gaming have historically enjoyed a privileged status as an “enrichment” activity… intergenerational gaming that has a more explicit learning agenda, that can be linked to more structured learning settings, and is not dominated by the commercial gaming industry and the logic of existing kids’ peer cultures.
One their own, these games become absorbed into the dynamics of kids’ play culture, and kids were more focused on “beating” the game and playing with the special effects then engagement with the scientific content domain (Ito 2009).
In order for games to be successful in home-based and recreational space, they need to acquire legitimacy and status within kids’ peer cultures of play, and explicit scientific content is a difficult sell, particularly for older kids.
(Remember this previous post that I wrote with Urkel? This is exactly what I mean. Geeking out has to become cool again. A huge part of the reason we changed our project’s name from “Learnt” to BettrAt less than a year ago). Everyone wants to get better at something. Learning is an important byproduct of the journey of getting better, but not the initial attractor. The word “learning” is too deeply culturally embedded (and not in a good way, unless you’re talking to extremely motivated auto-didacts with a passion for knowledge).
Back to Ito’s post:
Most of the research on learning outcomes is derived from assessment methods designed for formal educational contexts where context is assumed to be relatively controlled, and outcomes are measured on an individual basis.
In informal environments such as the home or most afterschool contexts, players can exercise much more choice, both in the selection of the game as well as in determining the mode of play.
Some kids may orient towards scientific content, others towards knowledge networking, and others toward hacking and tinkering, all with the same gaming title. In fact, it is the ability to specialize and develop individualized and interest-driven trajectories that is one of the most important features of the informal learning space.
Evaluating learning in these kinds of contexts needs to rely less on standardized measures of skill and knowledge and more on an assessment of the properties of particular contexts to support diverse and specialized knowledge seeking, exchange, and interest-driven learning.
…In order to bridge existing social practices and cultural genres, we need to spend much more energy intervening on the broader sociocultural and political economic conditions that condition how technologies are marketed, distributed, and taken up by diverse players.
Infusing scientific learning into kids play and social life, and conversely, mobilizing kids passions for interest-driven learning for science, both require new kinds of institutional and economic alliances, bringing parents, commercial industries, and community organizations more effectively into the agenda of science education.
While BettrAt is not explicitly a “game” by conventional standards, we have incorporated game-like elements that enable stickiness and enjoin users into contributing and learning from peer groups (see BettrAt Challenges). Needless to say, we are purposefully built around learning in interest nets. We’re living in exciting times in learning and looking forward to working with partners that share our vision of personalized instruction, and the delivery of custom experiences for people who are intrinsically motivated to get better at things.
Contact us or sign up for the BettrAt beta to learn more!
Loading ...