Education - Games and Educational Game Design

Week 13 - Games and Educational Game Design

Prior to class we were asked to play a game for 10 mins and think about what makes us play and keep playing the game? So as I was reading this instruction at home I was sitting at our kitchen table with our two children Mr 7 and Miss 8 who were playing Roblox. They are now only allowed play for limited times on the weekend as they were getting so addicted and turning into rude zombies during the week. So I asked them why do they play and what makes them keep playing?

Mr 7 said “I play because it’s fun and entertaining, and I keep playing because it it gets more fun and I save up for something like more than 3000 so I can buy my 2nd floor of my noob invasion house.”

Miss 8 said “I like listening to all the music, and I like saving up for stuff I even make lists of all the stuff I want to save up for. I love being pretend characters too”

I have on occasion played things like Tetris back in the day or the Farmville game on Facebook and I guess for me it has been a way of escaping, switching off or procrastinating from doing other things and there was always something just out of reach that I could achieve if I just kept playing. So I guess in terms of learning it is bit like how we scaffold learning or work on things just out of our reach or our comfort zone and then when we get there we a satisfied for a moment then start working on learning the next thing. It also reminds me of my martial arts training, there is always another belt grade to look forward to or something to improve or new to learn, there are others just ahead of us showing us the way which keeps us motivated and inspired. There is something addictive about ‘levelling up’. But are we ‘addicted’ to healthy habits/games or unhealthy habits/games or both at times? Despite doing a fair bit of exercise during the week I do enjoy indulging in food too.

We were also asked to watch the Seth Priebatsch's 4 game mechanics video. He talks about 4 game dynamics that can be used to influence behaviour. He describes a game layer on top of the world that has started to develop but it is just kind of boring and sux. He talks about examples such as loyalty cards etc. He says we can design better games and it has started in the last decade with the social layer of connections with Facebook etc. The next decade is the game layer which we will develop further which is all about influencing behaviour, including what, where and how you do things. The tools to build this layer are game dynamics which we have to be purposeful about using. He talks about 4 important ones:

• Appointment dynamic - Players do something at a particular place and time. In real life this is like the ‘happy hour’ idea. An extremely popular game example is Farmville, you have to water your plants within a timeframe or they die. Another example is an app that helps people take their medication on time.
• Influence and status dynamic - Players want to work hard to achieve something like a badge/status etc. For example in games you play to move up levels like school.
• Progressions dynamic - Gradual success displayed through completion of tasks. For example % complete displays for setting up profiles on Linkedin. We want to finish things when reminded such as progress bars.
• Communal discovery - everyone works together to achieve something. On Digg.com people find and source the best stories and you get points, people worked together to remain on top of the leaderboard. This made me think of countdowns cards, where together people swapped cards etc to get complete sets.

So the challenge is how can we build in some game dynamics to keep people motivated and influence desired behaviours when learning and leading?

We further explored these ideas by playing as a whole class group. The game was called Cat on Yer Head, it starts with everyone standing around but within touching distance of others, then one person starts as the cat who repeats ‘cat, cat, etc’ until they touch another person who becomes the cat. At the same time someone starts as the mouse and repeats ‘mouse, mouse, etc’ until they touch someone and they become the mouse. The objective is for the cat to catch the mouse, so if you get tagged by a cat or a mouse you are switching roles to help the mouse escape or get the cat to catch the mouse. It was crazy trying to switch and keep up at times.

We had a few goes then went inside to reflect and try to modify the game to try to enhance the experience. To make it more engaging we decided to use ping pong balls as the mouse or the cat to pass around rather than speaking and the balls were more easily hidden so everyone had to pay more attention in the game. This kept everyone on their toes. Then we decided to add a dog to chase the cat and mouse, this kept it even more interesting.

So we found ways to improve the flow of the game. Flow theory is the essence of games, it is the balance between the skill you have and the difficulty of the game. So it is a moving target and your target changes as your skills develop. You can change the rules of a game to improve the flow experience. I guess as a teacher I have always thought of this as knowing the learner so you can provide collapsing scaffolds and try to find that zone of proximal development (Vygotsky). I just hadn’t really realised how much this flow idea in good game development was related to effective learning experiences.

We also took a look at 4 keys to fun from Nicole Lazzaro which is focused on 4 key emotions as follows:

• People Fun (friendship)
• Hard Fun (challenge)
• Easy Fun (novelty)
• Serious Fun (meaning)

According to Amory (2007), Educational computer games should:

• Be relevant, explorative, emotive and engaging
• Include complex challenges, puzzles or quests
• Be gender-inclusive and non-confrontational
• Provide appropriate role models
• Develop democracy and social capital through dialogue
• Support authentic learning activities
• Support the construction of tacit knowledge

We played http://www.kupuhono.co.nz/ and looks at aspects of game design within this game. James Paul Gee also has some interesting ideas about video games, theory of learning and how you can play games instead of teaching and taking tests because while you play the game you are completing the test and learning as you go along so you don’t need at test as such at the end.

Now going back to Mr 7 and Miss 8 maybe they weren't so much turning into rude zombies, they were actually in the flow state of playing the game, but I guess the bigger question is about the impact of particular games on our children and how can we harness this flow state for purposeful learning.

So lots of great themes this week and I guess it boils down to the classic reflection as a teacher about how can we have more fun with our learning as well as what can we do to make sure we are supporting students with challenges that push the students enough to not be bored and on the flip side are not too tricky leaving them to struggle too much as we want to ensure the learners are often in the flow state. So this must involve getting to know your learners and understanding the impact you are having in trying support students in their flow of learning and maybe ultimately helping them to be more aware of how they can take charge of their own learner agency and flow state. Much to ponder after this weeks learning.

References
Amory, A. (2007). Game object model version II: a theoretical framework for educational game development. Educational Technology Research & Development, 55(1), 51–77

Davis, R. (2014). Cat On Yer Head. Playniac Ltd. Retrieved from http://www.catonyerhead.com/