No Need to Reinvent the Wheel to Revolutionize Educational Video Games

(Fellow blogger Tom DeRosa and I are trading posts this week. He runs the excellent blog, I Want to Teach Forever. Be sure and take a look at his book, too.  Details after the article – JR)

I am not a gamer. I don’t own any consoles, and the only game I play with any regularity is Tetris online. When I look at video games today, I usually see them through the eyes of an educator. This is why I’m so convinced that everything we need to make paradigm-shifting educational video games that kids will actually play has already been created. Instead of starting from scratch, educators need to team up with innovative video game studios and merely tweak the powerful learning-based game models that already exist.

My revelation came over winter break as I was visiting my family in New Jersey. What was to be a very busy holiday turned into a week of me sitting on my Dad’s couch, sick as a dog. My father has an xBox 360 and regularly plays games that involve running around and shooting things (first person shooters or FPS in gamer parlance), none of which I’ve had interest in. This year he was focused on a game that was very different, where he was given a wide open world with innumerable choices and methods of achieving goals and completing tasks: Fallout 3, widely regarded as one of the best xBox titles ever (if not best video game ever).

It is a mix of first person shooter, role playing game (RPG), puzzle (in the vein of Myst or Riven) and open-world exploration (like a single player Second Life) on a scale that by all accounts is hard to find elsewhere. In this game, you make decisions that change your character, and who you are changes the possibilities of what you can do.  You solve difficult problems, most of which have more than one answer. It’s the kind of thinking that we want students to do in school, that we know they need for college and beyond, but it often gets buried beneath rote memorization and test-prep strategies.

Fallout 3 represents a world of well-designed, immersive, and most importantly popular video games that have most or all of the structural elements that make learning possible. These elements are now fairly common in top games:

• Players make decisions that effect not only themselves, but the world around them.
• Players are faced with multi-step problems that require logic and reasoning skills.
• Collaboration and cooperation is encouraged (if not required).
• An engrossing story creates a context that’s fun and far different than their school-influenced concept of “learning”.
• Players are given small, specific tasks to complete, keeping meaningful goals in clear sight.
• Each small task completed is often part of a bigger picture, and each one opens up the possibility for other tasks that keep the player going.
• Most tasks or problems have multiple solutions.
• A comprehensive, fairly automatic system tracks players’ achievements, and can be referred back to at any time.
• There’s some level of freedom to explore and to choose which tasks they will do first (or at all).
• Often, tasks require or would be made easier with background knowledge of a subject players might not already know about. They are often forced to look up and learn about these topics if they truly want to reach their goals.
• Players are encouraged to go back and replay part or all of the game differently in order to reach measurable goals.

If you replaced the word “players” with “students” above, wouldn’t this list appear to be the features of an excellent, high-achieving classroom?

The immersive video game of today encourages, even requires learning and higher order thinking. The structure is there. More importantly, let’s not forget that these games represent the most popular and ubiquitous games available, with a generally bigger audience than movies and TV shows.

The only thing missing is for educators to partner with the studios to incorporate content across the curriculum, taking advantage of what’s already there. Isn’t that what the best teachers always do?

This is a guest post by Tom DeRosa, aka “Mr. D” of I Want to Teach Forever. You can find more ideas, resources and inspiration for teachers on his blog, or in his book Ten Cheap Lessons: Second Edition.

Exploring the Renaissance Through Videogames

Shortly after Assassin’s Creed 2 came out, gamers noticed the rich historical detail included in the game’s setting. The protagonist who players guide through the game is sent back in time to Italy, AD 1499, there to prowl around buildings and streets and attack villains. The developers, self-avowed history nerds, hired consultants to ensure the buildings were rich in period detail. Here’s how The Wall Street Journal reported on their efforts:

They hired Renaissance scholars to advise on period garb, architecture, urban planning, weaponry and the like. They took tens of thousands of photographs of interiors and streets. They used Google Earth liberally to piece together the ground-up and sky-down perspectives through which the action flows. …

The game’s creative director, a Montrealer named Patrice Desilets, lived in Italy for some years, where he acquired a feel for the vivid intrigues of the Renaissance. He grew fascinated, he says, with the notion that “finally people can control time, and relive the past, through games.” The producer, Sebastien Puel, was born in the south of France, in the fortified medieval French town of Carcassonne, and grew up surrounded by history. The head writer, a Harvard graduate from Los Angeles and former screenwriter, Corey May, was driven, he says, by the challenge of “telling a story that feels real and is set among real people who existed.” …

Overall, though, Assassin’s Creed II is as close as we’ve managed to get to real time travel. The grown-ups can lap it up as a kind of virtual tourism. For the high schoolers, still the main audience, the video offers a kind of education by stealth. History matters more if your life depends on it, even as Ezio, and even if you’ve got lives to spare.

The amazing thing is developers of a highly anticipated release would even care to get most of the details right. If modifications of the game are allowed, it may find its way into history courses. It may find its way into classes regardless. Other academic efforts, such as Rome Reborn offer students only the opportunity to explore architecture. In AC2 students can fight bad guys while exploring.

Now, another major game focusing at least in part on the Italian Renaissance is due for release. This one is based on Dante’s Inferno. Yes, players will plumb the depths of hell, as envisioned by Dante, in this game from Electronic Arts. As you might imagine, hell is a bit graphic. Also, if you’ll recall, Dante described levels associated with the seven deadly sins. In the game, the level for lust is particularly graphic, replete with phallic symbols and nudity. This and other extreme graphics earn the game an M rating.

Producers are releasing a print edition of the poem illustrated by pictures from the game, hoping to encourage players to read Dante’s original work. Maybe kids who talk their parents into buying the game, despite its M rating, can actually learn something about the original work. But, I suspect parents would prefer the old-fashioned text version of the poem rather than an explicit video game.

References:
Kaylan, M. (2010, January 12). Time travel gets closer to reality. The Wall Street Journal, D7.

Toy Spy Robots: A Practical Way to Teach Programming

Seymour Papert taught us years ago the most effective way to teach computer programming to children was to make it fun, and MIT’s Logo programming language remains popular (and free). Since then, other languages designed to teach programming concepts have been developed, including Scratch, Game Maker, and Alice. (I wrote an article on educational programming languages for TechEdge that is online here.)

From a commercial standpoint, especially with languages like Logo, the urge to combine programming with real world robotics has been highly successful, most notably with the Lego Mindstorms line of products. Now, a new company has developed a toy spy robot that will encourage the creation and posting of programs by its fans.

The Spy Video TRAKR from Wild Planet Entertainment will blend online and offline fun for budding robotics enthusiasts. Offline, the target market of eight-year-old and older boys can guide the remote controlled vehicle into other rooms and use its wireless camera for surveillance. Taking a tip from Webkinz, which ties an online product with toys in the real world, the Spy Video TRAKR will offer strong inducements to play on their site. Here’s a quote from a recent news article:

Wild Planet says the Trakr goes a step further than other Web-tied toys. It sends children online to create application and then brings them back to the toy, instead of just leaving them playing related games online.

The marketing pitch for this seems brilliant. The toy will function as a spy robot right out of the box, but for the kid who wants more, plenty of customization is offered, whether it’s an app downloaded from the site or one he makes on his own. Here’s part of the press release:

Though the Spy Video TRAKR can be used without ever being hooked up to a computer, tech-minded kids will be quick to connect their toy and start the customization process. Beginners can access an online application modulator that will allow them to modify existing apps as they familiarize themselves with writing code. All the tools they need to write their own unique programs will be available online, for free.

The toy will be available in October, in time for Christmas, and should retail for about $120. I wish the best for Wild Planet, and I hope their new product is highly successful. Also, hopefully, it will encourage many new future programmers to pursue careers in the STEM fields.

References:
Zimmerman, A. (February 10, 2010). I spy a market for kids. The Wall Street Journal, D1.

The Chasm Between Educational and Commercial Games

Elaine Alhadeff and I have been talking via e-mail to Jeremy Pesner, a recent Computer Science grad from Dickinson College who has been working on educational games that focus on the human immune system. Pesner served as co-author on a paper presented at the ACM Southeast Regional Conference last year. He presented with Patrick Clements over at U. South Carolina on “an educational game that simulates the processes of human immune systems by using a ‘Tower defense’-type game.”

Pesner next will be contributing to a new chapter book edited by Patrick Felicia over at the Waterford Institute of Technology in Ireland. The Handbook of Research on Improving Learning and Motivation through Educational Games: Multidisciplinary Approaches is scheduled to be released in 2011. Pesner’s contribution will explore the “chasm” that has formed between commercial and educational games in terms of “enticing and appealing qualities” between the two genres.

This is a particularly juicy topic ripe for social science research, since it’s so fuzzy. What are the elements in commercial games making them so appealing? Conversely, what makes educational games so dull? How would we measure the difference? What can educational game makers learn from commercial game makers? I think I can speak for Elaine when I say both of us very much are looking forward to Dr. Felicia’s book and Pesner’s contribution.

References:
Clements, P., Pesner, J., & Shepherd, J. (2009). The teaching of immunology using educational gaming paradigms. Proceedings of the 47th Annual Southeast Regional Conference. [Online.] Available: http://portal.acm.org/citation.cfm?id=1566474

Learning STEMs from McLarin’s Adventures in Oklahoma

Justin Bathon over at EdJurist sent a note the other day discussing McLarin’s Adventures. This is an interesting educational video game developed under the leadership of Scott Wilson, director of educational gaming initiatives at OU’s K20 Center. It follows sound 3D learning doctrine in order to achieve pedagogical objectives, placing students in a quest-based MMORPG to map an uncharted island. Teamwork is key as students work together on goals in the game.

Funding came through a US Dept. of Ed. STAR Schools Grant. The game is STEM-based, focused primarily on physics and the other sciences, with feedback for teachers to pinpoint needs for individual students. Here’s the introductory video:

For more technical details on how the game works in a school environment, take a look at the McLarin’s Adventures Task Manager below (no sound in this video). Note the objectives window and task manager window, and details for network managers:

It’s evident the team at OU has done a great job. An article in Oklahoma City’s The Journal Record reports student workers in various majors were contracted for programming, graphics, and voice dubbing. Sounds like a monumental coordinated effort that paid off with a premium product.

Finally, the project offers a teacher portal for stakeholder discussion and information dissemination, including calendars, shared docs, and a place to report bugs. All in all, the folks over at the K20 Center at OU have done an outstanding job in developing a functional, and by all accounts fun to play, pedagogical game.

References:
Brus, B. (2009, May 5). A gamer’s paradise found in Oklahoma’s classrooms. The Journal Record. [Online.] Retrieved January 13, 2010 from:  http://findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_qn4182/is_20090505/ai_n31627592/

How to Design an Educational Video Game: Three Important Considerations

I’ve been talking with folks from the foundation affiliated with a Fortune 100 company recently about designing an educational game that would promote some of the foundation’s objectives. The project is in its infancy, so I’m withholding details. But the conversations we had led me to formulate some considerations for any company or individual to seriously consider before designing an educational game from the ground up. Three top considerations should guide the project from its beginnings all the way to the final product.

-+-

1. Playing the game should be educational, rather than simply having educational content inserted into the gaming experience.

Students learn by playing. This is a critical component of good educational games. Allow me to illustrate with a basic example. Traditional dominoes is an excellent game for teaching math skills to children, especially for adding up fives. If a player can make the tail ends of the dominoes add to five or a number divisible by five, he scores points. If not, he may strategize to prevent his opponent from scoring. You can see children mentally adding while playing … three plus two equals five … four plus six equals ten … The game cannot be played without adding up the points on the table, so basic math is an integral part of the game.

Likewise, math, logic and strategy are integral to 42, a version of dominoes on steroids, a trick-taking game similar to hearts. A player must mentally calculate whether or not her hand is capable of winning a bid based on the potential points in her own hand, and a good guess as to the tricks her partner can take.

Rather than having a child solve math problems before advancing to the next level, a good game should simply integrate math within the game play. Considerable research backs up this approach.

Both traditional dominoes and 42 require basic math skills; 42 requires higher reasoning while dominoes requires simple addition. Because these elements are integral to the games, indeed a fundamental part of both games, they reinforce skills and hold high educational value for children. Likewise, a good educational video game should require the exercising of skills in order to successfully play the game.

–+–

2. If looking to increase academic skills, reading and writing should probably be integral to game play.

A rising tide raises all ships, and the more reading and writing a student engages in, the higher his achievement scores potentially climb. Of course, information absorption is integral to any high end video game, especially 3D virtual interactive environments. But when students have to read and process specific information regarding game play, they’ll be absorbing the content you are interested in instilling.

On the other hand, if you are not interested in instilling academic content, say instead life skills or machinery operation, then reading and writing in the game are not as crucial. But if, for example, you are interested in increasing the understanding of Elizabethan English, then reading and writing will be very important.

Some common examples include history games and those in the Civilization series. Sometimes the reading takes place offline, for instance when a student peruses a history book to better understand strategies for winning in Civilization. Other times students read in-game for clues to solve mysteries and puzzles, such as in the old Where in the World is Carmen Sandiego. Sometimes, especially for the younger set, reading simply is the game. We find this in the old Living Books series, especially the one modeled on Dr. Seuss’ ABC.

–+–

3. The game should be interesting, engaging, and generate excitement for the topic.

There have been studies where academics spent lots of time, money, and effort creating video games that were absolutely educational by every measure. Yet, when kids finally were allowed to sit down and play the games, they found them … boring. These studies are valuable to educational game designers, and their lessons need to be heeded when starting from scratch.

What do players enjoy about games? They like to explore, socialize, rack up achievements and do stuff (mainly killing things, according to Richard Bartle, but the doing stuff can be other things besides killing in an educational game, provided it’s richly interactive). The game needs to be robust enough and engaging enough to meet the needs of its players. Keeping that in mind while designing and producing an educational video game will lead to a satisfying product that students will enjoy playing, and hopefully learn desired content along the way.

-+-

These were the first three things springing to mind when discussing the genesis of a new educational gaming product. If I missed a crucial component in your opinion, drop me a line.

Educational Game Developers Can Track Steam Reports for Latest Trends

Steam is sort of like iTunes for video games. Once players buy a game, they can download and play it on any computer. Consequently, it is a major force in PC gaming.

A nice feature of serving gamers online is Steam’s ability to garner data from each player’s PC. Since most indy games and many educational games are introduced on the PC platform, statistics on the platform are welcome.

Head over to Steam’s Game Stats section for details on various top game achievements and content server data. Most interesting of all is the Steam Hardware Survey. Here we find such interesting nuggets as the majority of PC gamers in December 2009 were Windows XP 32 bit users, running at least 2 gigs of RAM on a motherboard with an Intel chip 2.3 gigs Mhz or higher in speed. More users had graphics cards made by Nvidia than ATI, and RealTek led the installed audio devices base. Other info on hard drive size, broadband speed, and available processing and graphics RAM might provide game makers valuable insight into typical user specs when developing products.

Astronomical Science Learning Through WJU’s Selene Videogame

I’ve had a pleasant e-mail conversation with Dr. Debbie Denise Reese over at Wheeling Jesuit University in West Virginia concerning the Selene Project, a multi-million dollar NASA and National Science Foundation funded learning project designed to teach students lunar science through a remarkable videogame.

Dr. Reese is the senior educational researcher at the Center for Educational Technologies at WJU, which started CyGaMEs, or Cyberlearning through Game-based Metaphor Enhanced Learning Objects, in 2006. Selene is a CyGaMEs videogame seeking to instruct students through the construction of virtual moons, learning a number of science-based standards and a few things about making videogames along the way.

The amazing work on Selene includes ample classroom materials. It is clear education was the primary focus of the videogame, and federal standards as well as state standards for Texas and Illinois are included in the accompanying online materials. The STEM focus is strong, and data points collected from embedded assessments allow for promising research material to be expounded upon in future papers.

The main Selene site is here, the CyGaMEs site is here, and the Center for Educational Technologies site is here. A recent radio feature and news article from West Virginia Public Broadcasting on the Selene Project is here.

References
Brown, K. (2009, November 27). Videogame research at WJU brings lunar science to life. [Online.] Retrieved December 1, 2009 from http://www.wvpubcast.org/newsarticle.aspx?id=12175

Introducing Astropolis: The Video Game Suite Designed to Help Study Autism

Matthew Belmonte over at Cornell is leading a team that has designed a suite of video games specifically to study autism. The game suite, called Astropolis, has all the adventure and science fiction elements so popular with young boys. It was developed and research is ongoing thanks to funding in part by the National Science Foundation, the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act, and Autism Speaks.

Aimed at children ages 10-15 diagnosed autistic, the games contain activities allowing researchers to test differing hypotheses within the framework of autism research. A past problem with autism research is that it often takes place strictly in lab environments, outside of natural settings for the subjects. Belmonte hopes these video games will provide immersive environments that will yield richer information than traditional lab settings.

Another benefit promoting natural environments: the games capture information while the subjects play that can be retrieved later. Thus, subjects can install the game suite on laptops taken home and played in familiar surroundings, and info can be retrieved when the laptops return to the lab.

Belmonte also uses EEG measurements in lab settings with the subjects, a technique popularized by Mark Klinger at U. Alabama. (MRI scans are also popular measurement techniques to use on video game players.)

So far, Dr. Belmonte has released two research abstracts at conferences of the International Society of Autism Research, here and here. No doubt journal published, peer reviewed research is forthcoming.

Read the press release from Cornell here for much more information. Check out the Autism Collaborative Wiki here for notes on development and other background information.

Finally, since the software was developed with public grants, it is freely available as a download at AutismCollaborative.org.

References:
Professor uses video games to explore facets of autism. (October 13, 2009). [Online.] Available: http://www.physorg.com/news174650438.html

CNNMoney on Retailing Educational Video Games

This blog got some nice publicity recently when CNNMoney posted an article offering advice to entrepreneurs on entering the educational video game market. Kathleen Ryan O’Connor interviewed me a while back on the industry, and I was quoted in her piece with a link to this blog. The article is loaded with good advice for the one person shop just starting out.