Gaming in Education

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Permalink Reply by Kate Fanelli on October 1, 2008 at 7:42pm

Kev,

It was interesting to read your take on games in education, because I have also been trying to use principles of gaming in the way I present material. I think this is a really interesting way to approach curriculum delivery. The thing is that video games are hard to learn, play and master, but kids will spend hours trying to do it. Why? A lot of the stuff I teach isn't nearly as hard to figure out as these video games and they won't even do the equivalent of pick up the box and read the back.

So I read up on principles of learning in games and what makes games so compelling to kids and I am basing my curriculum delivery on the concept of moving up levels, customizing a character that represents the learner, and gaining status for doing good things.

I call it MathLand.

As such, I have organized the entire state curriculum into 8 units (2 per quarter). Each unit is divided into 5 "levels." The first is Level D, and when the student completes this level he has earned a D for the course. Before finishing Level D, students have a 0. Then he does the second set of assignments called Level C to earn a C and so forth through levels B, A, and A+. The units are front loaded so the biggest ideas and most important stuff is in the first couple of levels. It is profoundly and amazingly motivating. Students love to move up levels. They make a little paper person who is turned into a magnet and put onto the front board. As they move through the levels, their person moves from one part of the board to the next, so they see their progress.

Then, because games also let you customize your avatar and let your avatar get better stuff if you play a lot and do well, I also let the students earn little circle stickers to put on their avatars if they are in class, completing work, turning in homework, and doing well on quizzes. The more circle stickers they have, the better they can make their avatar. They begin with a plain clothed avatar and on the way they get to add accessories, faces, and hair, and ultimately they get to ditch the whole person and make their avatar anything (we've had snowmen, TVs, storm troopers).

Again, just getting a little circle sticker is amazingly motivating.

As students gain status with their stickers and evolving avatars they also get certificates in the hallway. So, if they are good "players" they have cooler avatars and get their names in the hallway (not unlike those people who play too much NTN trivia in bars and restaurants and get those little symbols next to their names).

I teach adolescent emotionally impaired students in a day treatment center. Very little motivates them to do school work. This motivates them. They are constantly looking at what level they are on and how many circle stickers their guy has. And it is even more fun to watch because of who they are.

MathLand let's the kids play as individuals or in student chosen groups. They move at their own pace through the levels. If they finish, they can do bonus opportunities until the next unit starts (based on the idea of bonus levels and special challenges in video games). In addition to helping to motivate kids it has also solved a lot of problems of continuity and kids falling behind because they never fall behind. They are always where they where they were in the curriculum when they were last in class. And they never fall behind or see their grade dip. MathLand is a one way street toward A+. (originally the levels were E through A, but it was too depressing to work for days to earn an E, so I changed to D through A+).

That's how I've been using principles of gaming in my classroom. Most of it was created based on principles of games and learning that I heard in a presentation by Marc Prensky, and that I read about in stuff by James Paul Gee and David Williamson Schaeffer (I think that's his name).

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Permalink Reply by Nancy Bosch on October 1, 2008 at 8:12pm

Kate, Pretty darn amazing, kudos to you for putting to use what we logically know.

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Permalink Reply by Kate Fanelli on October 1, 2008 at 7:45pm

So, when you figure out how the Bungie Philosophy works in the classroom, I'd love to hear it. That's a great premise.

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Permalink Reply by Kev on October 1, 2008 at 8:10pm

What I'm doing this year is a class-wide game, though I played around with the idea of avatars over the summer I'm going to hold that off as a next step.

I haven't gotten the 30 seconds part down but I'm working on the frequent rewards and upgrade model. With the class game there is always a score running on the board (just like in any classroom management point system) but they can earn points in new ways all the time. I have point cards hidden in various books on the shelf, they can unlock "cheat" codes by playing the games I've put up on my website, and there are weekly class challenges (100% turn in rate, avg of 80+ on a test, etc.) I have tried to push the idea that no matter what the kids are doing with my class whether it is an assignment, free time or on the website they are still in the game.

The only real twist is that on Fridays we take 5 minutes to give the kids a chance to "spend" some of their points on what basically amount to Chance cards. They pay 10 points to buy a card which can give them bonus points, steal points from another period or even cost them more points.

I also do "leveled" assignments somewhat in the way you mentioned. My students choose their own work every few weeks and they can only choose the "big" (and usually more fun) assignments if they have first passed the lower levels for the unit (which are typically reading comprehension type things).

Again, this is all a work in progress but it is great to know there are others out there playing with the idea as well.

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Permalink Reply by Kate Fanelli on October 2, 2008 at 7:57pm

That's awesome. The funny thing about structuring a class like a game is that it's based on pretty simple principles, but putting into action is actually fairly complex. When I try to explain my system to parents and administration, the basis is simple, but the way kids move up, make choices, earn status, etc. is pretty involved. That struck me as I was reading your description of your program.

But, modern video games are complicated, too. And it's nothing for our students to learn and navigate a "game" that's really complicated. Likewise, they totally get all of the in's and out's of MathLand, as I'm sure they understand your game, too.

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Permalink Reply by Kate Fanelli on October 4, 2008 at 12:32pm

Hello.

My students are in 10th through 12th grade. They attend a day treatment center for emotionally impaired students, and our special ed laws limit class size to 10 students. I'm not sure how MathLand would translate to a larger class. That's just one warning.

As for motivation, it worked instantly. I've done it for one and half years and I'm doing it again this year. I didn't have to sell it or anything. The kids figured it out pretty quickly and they are totally invested. I would never tell them that I notice how easily they took to it, because then they would probably stop allowing themselves to be motivated :).

When I look at ning or moodle or other vehicles for online learning I think MathLand is a perfect fit. I even thought about trying to turn it into a Second Life or Sloodle type environment, but I didn't want to loose the human element, and I like having their avatars move across the front board.

I think anything with leveled accomplishments is good. That's what MathLand has taught me. We aren't competitive. They don't directly compete with each other. At any given time they can look at the board and see where their guy is compared to the other people's, or see how many and what color circle stickers they have compared to other people, but they really don't directly compete. They really seem to be in a competition with themselves. Mostly, they want to finish their work so they can get to the bonus levels. Sometimes they get to the bonus levels with a week left in the unit and I worry that I didn't make the assignments big enough, but the truth is, without MathLand, they wouldn't have accomplished even half of that. It is the built in motivational things that allow them to finish work more efficiently

As for putting it on your blog, I totally don't mind as long as you give me credit by name.

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Permalink Reply by Kev on October 5, 2008 at 6:30pm

My kids are 11-13 (7th graders) and no, they weren't super excited about it day 1. It wasn't until they first got to spend their points that I knew I had them. Part of the problem is when I get the kids they are brand new to our school and getting any reaction out of them is tough. They were never against the idea of the interaction - I just had to sell it (and I continue to).

The way the game works is fairly simple (for now, look for my upcoming post on building an ARG to see how I intend to add to the complexity!). Each period gets 100 points a week to start. They gain points for just about anything (completing tasks on the website, solving brain teasers in class, high work return rate, asking questions during lecture, posting to the class blog, etc.) They can lose points for behavior issues though it happens rarely. On Fridays they can spend 10 points to spin a wheel (virtually, I made it in powerpoint) and get random bonuses (extra points, steal points, knock points off another class, etc.).

The problem I am running into is that I have really only 4-5 kids in each period (if that) doing the online stuff. They are very intimidated by it (I come from a very low e-literacy area) and it may take a bit more to get them using it regularly.

To your specific question, currently, I post a game each week on the website that students can complete if they choose to. That earns them points for their class. I will, soon, be adding a list of Challenges on the site build on the model of Achievements on the Xbox 360. For those who don't know those are preset conditions that once met earn you a certain amount of Gamerscore points. GS points are WORTHLESS in every sense of the word yet they are incredibly addictive to attain. My hope is that by putting these challenges up online only students will go to the site to find them and earn their class some extra points.

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Permalink Reply by Chris Woodside on October 26, 2008 at 11:18pm

drebables,

I teach 7th grade social studies and I use a point system similar to the one kev mentioned. I've been doing it for 4 years in one form or another. It is extremely effective for classroom management and motivation. But I have started using built-in thresholds. The class earns points by completing challenges on my site, getting A's on quizzes, doing good deeds, keeping the class clean (fill-in-the-blank) and the first period to reach the threshold (say 2,000 class points) wins some sort of reward (free period, movie, board games party, donuts).

The most important part is that they know the target number of points that will earn the reward. In RPG video games, you can level up your character by defeating enemies. If you know how many more enemies you need to kill before you level up, you are motivated to press on until you do. Similarly, students will strive to reach your target number. This is very similar to the elementary school jar of marbles thing.

The only thing I suggest here is that the first target number be reachable within two weeks. That way they know you're serious.

For your class, I would suggest you use a system like this for more than just ning, but I am rather confident that you would see ning participation increase (in proportion to how much each post is worth).

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Permalink Reply by Michael j. Trout on December 21, 2009 at 9:52am

was this Dr. Peter H. Diamandis, Chairman and CEO talking? I am attending TED Global 2010 and your comment gave me an idea. Why not have him announce a ePrize for the group that develops the FOSS eSinguarlity platform for global education... a platform build about remixing multimedia content and eduGames ... here is our vision for India and here is the talk I am working on for next July.

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Permalink Reply by Or-Tal Kiriati on October 2, 2008 at 6:01am

I am more interested in game in homework, rather than in the classroom.
Anyone has experience with it?

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Permalink Reply by Lynn Marentette on October 5, 2008 at 9:54am

This picture was from a recent article in the CS Monitor about games and education.

Hi.

There are lots of learning mini-games for mobile phones that I think could be harnessed for use for homework. There are even SAT-prep related games.

Mike Sharples is considered to be the "godfather" of mobile learning, including mobile learning games. The handheld learning website has a page devoted to video presentations of people discussing this topic, including Sharples:

Mike Sharples - Hero Innovator

Personal Inquiry is about science learning between home and school, and the students can conduct little science experiments outside of schools.

For another good overview, read this report from Futurlab, in the UK. Although it was written in 2004, it is a good beginning, and it provides several links. Some of the resources relate to learning games.

Literature Review in Mobile Technologies and Learning (pdf)

Here is Perdue's e-Games web page about mobile games, Targeting the 550+ million cell phones in the hands of students. There are a few links to related articles on that page.

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Permalink Reply by Millis High School on October 2, 2008 at 7:38am

Our Advanced Web 2.0 class is charged with evaluating educational games. Does anyone know of a mechanism to evaluate a game's appropriateness for the classroom. A rubric, a checklist, etc?

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