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The Virtue of Failure: Designing Games You Can’t Win for Learning
No full textJust what do we learn from playing serious games?
Especially common in games for learning is the notion that participants need to be able to win the game, but is it always necessary for the player to win in order to ‘get’ our message? In his studies of productive failure, Kapur (2008) has suggested that failure can be important to learning. Indeed, when we think back on our most memorable learning experiences we often find that these lessons are things learned through failure rather than success. Learning through failure is an effective way to help people learn how to cope with situations where there is no clear solution (Dorner, et al., 1990), and for certain kinds of messages negative messages delivered via games you can’t win may be more powerful than those you can.
This presentation explores a class of games where ‘winning’ doesn’t look the way we expect it to look. Some games don’t allow players to win at all, in which case the ‘message’ is effectively a cautionary tale. The authors refer to these games as “games you can’t win”, and they form a distinctly different approach to game design (examples include: Sweatshop, Darfur is Dying, and September 12th). This presentation will examine the philosophical background of games in education, the design of serious games, and look at both accidental and deliberately designed unwinnable games and how this relates to learning objectives
4 pillars of DGBL: a structured rating system for games for learning
No full textVideogames are interactive by nature - people proceed in games by doing things, and this experiential quality lies at the very core of game design. Without interaction, it isn’t a game. Videogames are popular precisely because of the experience - games designed for learning can do no less. However, to be feasible for use in formal educational settings, they must do more, and while we are making progress studying games in classrooms, there remain few structured approaches to analysing games that do not include classroom testing.
This presentation will outline the author’s Four Pillars of Game-Based Learning and show using examples how they can be used to perform a structured analysis of both COTS and serious games to assess whether or not a game has potential for use in the classroom.
These four pillars are:
1. Gameplay - How is it as a game? Is it fun? Is it Interesting? How does it measure up esthetically?
2. Educational Content - Are there one or more recognizable educational objectives, discernible either from the game itself or from the accompanying support materials.
3. Teacher Support - Is there adequate teacher support to make viable for use in a formal setting?
4. Balance - This section examines the game through the lens of the Magic Bullet model to see how well the various learning elements are balanced.
Together these four pillars highlight the key issues associated with the use of games in the classroom
4 Pillars of DGBL: A Structured Rating System for Games for Learning
No full textVideogames are interactive by nature - people proceed in games by doing things, and this experiential quality lies at the very core of game design. Without interaction, it isn’t a game. Videogames are popular precisely because of the experience - games designed for learning can do no less. However, to be feasible for use in formal educational settings, they must do more, and while we are making progress studying games in classrooms, there remain few structured approaches to analysing games that do not include classroom testing.
This presentation will outline the author’s Four Pillars of Game-Based Learning and show using examples how they can be used to perform a structured analysis of both COTS and serious games to assess whether or not a game has potential for use in the classroom.
These four pillars are:
1. Gameplay - How is it as a game? Is it fun? Is it Interesting? How does it measure up esthetically?
2. Educational Content - Are there one or more recognizable educational objectives, discernible either from the game itself or from the accompanying support materials.
3. Teacher Support - Is there adequate teacher support to make viable for use in a formal setting?
4. Balance - This section examines the game through the lens of the Magic Bullet model to see how well the various learning elements are balanced.
Together these four pillars highlight the key issues associated with the use of games in the classroom
2014 Symposium on Scholarship of Teaching and Learning: Conference Program
No full text5th Annual Symposium on Scholarship of Teaching and Learning
Banff, Alberta Canada
November 6 - 8, 2014.
This gathering of teacher/scholars is a practitioner’s conference dedicated to developing teaching and learning research, sharing initial findings, going public with results of completed projects, and building an extended scholarly community. In its 5th year, the conference annually draws together faculty, students, and administrators interested in the systematic inquiry of teaching and learning. The conference will features concurrent sessions of presentations and workshops, a poster session, reception, and four plenary keynote presentations
Are Adult Educators and Learners ‘Digital Immigrants’? Examining the Evidence and Impacts for Continuing Education
Get PDFOver the past decade, Prensky’s distinctions between “digital immigrants” and “digital natives” have been oft-referenced. Much has been written about digital native students as a part of the Net generation or as Millennials. However, little work fully considers the impact of digital immigrant discourse within the fields of adult learning and continuing education. It is promising that rather than being digitally challenged immigrants for whom new learning technologies are completely foreign, adults of different ages can bring valuable knowledge and skills to e-learning environments that enable them to achieve academic success. These are important findings, since e-learning is increasingly recognized as an important part of learning across the life-course. With the growing body of research evidence countering common digital native and immigrant distinctions and critiquing an underlying technological determinism informing such arguments, how might practitioners respond to these discourses in their own educational contexts? With a focus on digital immigrants, the purpose of this article is to provide critical consideration of current research evidence on digital native/immigrant distinctions that impact educators and learners within the field of continuing educatio
Reading Through Connections: A phenomenographic study of student connections to scholarly text.
No full textPresented at International Society for the Scholarship of Teaching and Learning Conference, Raleigh, NC.Presentation for International Society for the Scholarship of Teaching and Learning Conference
Evidence Summary: Undergraduate Students Who Use Library Resources Are Also More Likely to Stay Enrolled
Get PDFA Review of:
Haddow, G. (2013). Academic library use and student retention: A quantitative analysis. Library &
Information Science Research, 35(2), 127-136. doi:10.1016/j.lisr.2012.12.00
Identification of the strengths, concerns and educational needs of the Rural Sexual Assault Service in rural and Aboriginal communities of Alberta (Canada).
No full textWomen in rural communities do not regularly receive comprehensive health care following sexual assaults, resulting in increased rates of mental illness, substance abuse, re-victimization, and chronic health problems. Additionally, women are at risk for secondary victimization, the stigmatization and re-victimization that results from the responses of others to the assault. Secondary victimization is amplified when victims must be transported out of a rural community for treatment, receive delays in services, when professionals react negatively towards them, or provide incomplete services. A research study sought to find ways of addressing these risks and understanding the educational resources needed for crisis care workers in rural and Aboriginal communities. The findings from focus group interviews with interdisciplinary professionals in rural Alberta, Canada, identified strengths, challenges and priority educational needs for those caring for sexual assault victims