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At the Software & Information Industry Association (SIIA) conference in New York City in December, 2009 one of the most interesting panels was about educational games. The panel discussion demonstrated the case of educational gaming, that serious games can engage students and provide opportunities to learn the content.
The four panelists were Paul Skiera of Sebit, LLC and Arizona State University’s SkySong, Joy Smith of the Florida Virtual School, Victoria Van Voorhis of Second Avenue Software and Bert Snow of Muzzy Lane Software. Skiera works with SkySong to help create educational gaming software. Florida Virtual Schools is developing two educational games – one on history and one that promotes reading. Muzzy Lane software is developing American Dynasties a history/civics game series for the Corporation for Public Broadcasting, Second Avenue Software is developing software primarily for the STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering, and Mathematics) area.
The goal of the companies is to create engaging software that will advance content knowledge by creating environments where students use the content they are learning. Utilizing game structure encourages students to be active with the content. Why do students work well with games? Well designed games are very close to real life, and the panelists believe that education needs to be more true to life.
The President’s Educate to Innovate campaign is stressing that schools need to get more creative and work harder at improving the science, technology, engineering, and mathematics curriculum. How do we get people to become more involved in STEM? By creating opportunities for them to participate in the projects that are STEM-based and that can be done through a game structure. Game-based learning provides curriculum solutions in mathematics and science for grades 5-12. A web-based digital learning system is designed to engage students in hands-on learning.
The panelists agreed that they can determine the game’s success when the students:
· are engaged in the game
· understand the content
· pass tests on the content of the games
There were nine essential points made about educational gaming:
1. Students become involved with the content of the game; the process of playing a game requires the players to learn the rules, the structure, and the goals. All students appreciate a challenge that engages them.
2. The games encourage 21st century skills such as critical thinking, problem solving, communication, and collaboration.
3. STEM subjects are learned best through gaming; games encourage students to learn the content through role playing.
4. Assessment can be built into the games.
5. Barriers to games include tradition, expense, and standards.
6. Students learn best when they are actively challenged.
7. Games promote personalization of learning; quite often students can adapt games for themselves.
8. Gaming is no longer a gender oriented activity. There are more and more female game designers and female students have become as involved as male students with the games.
9. For many educational gaming companies, formal testing by an outside agency has not occurred, but the companies themselves do test their products for validity.
The panel discussion ended with a series of questions that demonstrated how much more work is still to be done on this new field.
· How can educational games move from the sidelines to a central position in curriculum development and implementation? What are the key factors?
· What barriers are in the way of educational games being more readily adopted?
· What game genres and mechanics work best to address different subject areas and learning objectives?
· How can games be designed to engage multiple different types of learners and players?
· How is pedagogy integrated with game-design principles in the structure of the game?
· What do games provide that other educational mediums and methods do not?
· In good video games, the game is already its own best test; no one needs to give a test after the game is over. Why can’t assessment work this way in other areas of learning? What can gaming teach us about assessment?
Educational gaming is gaining the respect of the educational community. It already has the respect of the students who recognize immediacy in their learning not found in their text books.
