The best and most effective learning game

[Enzo Silva]

hi all,

I see so many serious games that can't retain the learners' attention because they compete for it with high tech mainstream games such as GTA, WoW, Warhammer, the Quake series, etc. So, for me, motivation via intriguing stories of which the players take part and collaboratively build in conjunction with the latest graphics and technology (by this I don't just mean amazing 3D elves) and various options for player interaction inside and outside the game are some of the most motivating characteristics of games that learning games often miss. Treating the game as simply "instruction" (piece of information that needs to be transfered) rather than a "learning experience" in which learners build knowledge by collaboratively weaving together a contextual narrative around topics of interest as they use their real life skills and their characters' skills combined with their peers'. We dont see that many educational MMORPGs out there, calling the games 'serious' games would probably not help much with a younger generation, but that is another story.
There is definitely more to it, but I would like to ask you:

- What would make the best learning game both from an instructional perspective and from a player perspective?

[AC]

Many of the best pieces of learning software aren't really games but rather 'flight simulators' that train the user in a particular real world scenario, using a 3D 'game engine'. e.g. this medical trainer:


http://www.blitzgames.com/

[Nils Norman Haukås]

This seems like a very informative game. :) I guess the players would have to have learned a bit before playing.

[Nils Norman Haukås]

A good question. :)

In my view I believe that serious games should be based around principles derived from the knowledge. In a lecture i attended about organizational psychology the lecturers gave the audience different tasks of makebelieve that helped illustrate points. We got in touch with the fundamentals of what they were trying to tell us.

So what makes a good learning game? It certainly needs to be engaging. Furthermore it should perhaps "boil the knowledge down" a bit. Playing Spore (link) one touches upon the principles of evolution, instead off getting facts crammed down your throat either.

Will Wright himself pointed out that his aim was to make a toy, that would teach principles about evolution. I think a good mindset in making serious games could be; "focusing on highly interactive toys based around a selection of central principles."

[AC]

This is an excellent 3D game that is used to teach maths concepts in US schools:

http://www.dimenxian.com/

And this 3D game introduces Shakespeare:


http://www.canadianshakespeares.ca/speare.cfm#Speare_literacy_game

I think in both cases the player must solve learning puzzles to progress through a traditional 3D shooting game.

[Julien Llanas]

Hi, a tiny message to inform you that we (a group of French teachers) just created a Facebook Group called Pedagame about using games to teach... it's an English-speaking friendly group to try to bridge the gap between French and Anglo-Saxon innovators in education... feel free to join, post or just visit us : http://tinyurl.com/6pmpsy

[Julien Llanas]

In my point of view the best and only solution is to develop a market for video games to teach (I'm not using the notion of "Seirous Games" because seriousness frighten me) and initiate partnerships between instructional designers and the video games industry to make some commercial games to teach or... video game that can be easily adapt to teacher's needs... by designing maps or creating mods.

[Brian Bauer]

there's a great concept called "80% fun". it is possible to engage the "player" and convey critical business info while also creating a game that people want to play because it is fun. Sun Microsystems is a great Use Case, so is Foldit. Imagine non-scientists coming up with the optimal ways to fold protein molecules. sounds tedious right? guess again, its very popular. I believe that far too often people design serous games with completely the wrong approach. Instead, we all need to look at what makes a game successful, then copy all the best parts before applying our serious content

[Joel Josephson]

In my opinion, and with the experience of putting together an EU project to make an ARG for language motivation http://arg.paisley.ac.uk/index.php, there is one real problem between 'Player engagement' and 'The learning experience', and that is MONEY. When I first wanted to create a game for language motivation I spoke to MMORPG designers, a minimum of 2 to 4 million dollars were required to even consider the process. That is why we devolved to an ARG produced on a shoe-string budget.

The basic problem is that to make a high value and competitive 'Player engagement' game that will attract and engage young players today, commercial games makers are investing millions of dollars. The interaction and sophistication of current games just grows and grows, and this is what young players know and use. There is no way that games made for education can find the money to compete for young peoples attention, at that level.

The answer is to look sideways and NOT even try to compete with the console and MMORPG games, but to look at games that engage for a shorter time frame or cost massively less, but can still engage our students.

There are many examples of these games for free on the net. For example, Point and Click games, Room escape games and strategy games. see http://www.freegamesnews.com/en/ for some great examples. We need to use great graphics, engaging but short storylines, and creativity interwoven with the learning object.

The BBC quite recently made a good attempt at combining a Point and Click game and learning with their 'Questionaut' game, see http://www.bbc.co.uk/schools/ks2bitesize/games/questionaut/pop.shtml . This is a classic point and click in the style of 'Wogger Mini' (this game has reached Episode 129, each about 2 to 10 minutes of game play, all episodes available on FreeGamesNews http://www.freegamesnews.com/en/). Questionaut does not directly interweave the learning objective in to the storyline but the graphics and gameplay are engaging enough to hold the attention of students for the length of the game.

Conclusion, have a look at some of these Point and Click games, feel the creativity and engagement, locate wonderful designers, interweave learning objects et voila !!!

Esklavos1 - http://www.freegamesnews.com/en/games/Esklavos1.html
Grow Island - http://shingakunet.com/school/0000002190/special/19024701/0285/inde...
Daymare Town 2 - http://www.freegamesnews.com/en/games/2008/DaymareTown2.html
Hapland World - http://www.freegamesnews.com/en/?p=165

[UAG]

Very interesting thread.

I ran a toy and learning products company for children with special needs for 14 years. I became convinced that games of this type were absolutely critical new educational devices for our children.

Soo....

http://www.universalaccesgames.com

These are fairly well-funded new titles (very well funded, for our little niche), in a new development framework built specifically for the task. Going on sale now, big free downloads for parents coming in a couple of weeks.

We are doing studies on the effect of the games in various populations. Our academic partner's (google Dr. Tony Sztrum video game) are publishing their first chapter in an upcoming book, and they include the early trials with kids who have fetal alcohol syndrome.

Back to flight sim's, recently I gave a lecture to government and academia talking about my own experiences with educational games and flight sims. My oldest son did much flight training on our Mac with X-Plane. He is an excellent young pilot, with commercial ground school complete by 17 years old. Neat lecture, proud dad.

If games don't teach in amazing new ways, I just invested my retirement fund on a lark. Given that I am a fairly conservative investor, I obviously believe games teach, and teach well.

Over the next 4 years, we will collect and analyze learning data of many kinds. We will publish results that might illustrate profound learning effects from properly built educational games in some unexpected and exciting new ways.

Don't know what the best and most effective learning game type are. I'd say, simply, it depends....

Certainly, though, with all of us working on it, we'll make some incredible learning games. I think that's good enough for now.