Study: Scientific Method Best Taught in Video Games

Tom Hanson is editor of the highly regarded OpenEducation.net. We talked earlier via e-mail about an excellent post he has on empirical research by Constance Steinkuehler over at U. Wisconsin and doc student Sean Duncan. The title of their paper sums up nicely Steinkuehler’s and Duncan’s research: Scientific Habits of Mind Within Virtual Worlds, accepted for publication in the Journal of Science Education and Technology and due to appear in the Spring issue. They looked at online discussion forums for World of Warcraft, long the most popular MMORPG, and found the vast majority of the posts consisted of “social knowledge construction” rather then “social banter.” About 2,000 posts in 85 threads were examined.

Over half of the posts evidenced systems based reasoning, one in ten evidenced model-based reasoning, and 65% displayed an evaluative epistemology in which
knowledge is treated as an open-ended process of evaluation and argument.

Steinkuehler and Duncan suggest that scientific habits of mind, developing proper skills of inquiry and increasing students’ scientific literacy, are not effectively developed in traditional school environments. On the other hand, virtual worlds and online games like World of Warcraft do engage students and encourage them to use the scientific method, or at least certain elements of it, along with teamwork and persistence to solve problems.

Hanson notes a recent interview in Wired between Dr. Steinkuehler and Clive Thompson, in which she describes her epiphany regarding the potential of MMORPGs for instilling scientific habits of mind. It occurred during 12 hour stints in Lineage, playing mostly with young boys scattered across the four corners. She and the boys would construct a theoretical model on defeating a raid boss, try it and see what worked; modify accordingly and try again. She realized she was witnessing the scientific method put to work within an online gaming environment, often without the participants realizing it. Thompson states it thusly:

This led Steinkuehler to a fascinating and provocative conclusion: Videogames are becoming the new hotbed of scientific thinking for kids today.

Click on over to Tom Hanson’s summary. I think you’ll find that his OpenEducation.net is well worth visiting.

Games Empower Learners: Gee’s Speech at GLS4

James Paul Gee over at Arizona State is renowned among educational gamers because he wrote what is widely considered to be the first scholarly book on educational applications of videogames: What Video Games Have to Teach Us About Learning and Literacy (2003). Recently, he keynoted the 4th annual Games, Learning, and Society Conference. Michael Abbott over at Gamasutra caught up with him and detailed the meat of his speech here. Some excerpts:

Gee sees the current U.S. educational system as inadequate to the task of addressing the problems of an increasingly complex world. He stated that “21st century learning must be about understanding complex systems,” and he believes many video games do a better job at this than the antiquated sender-receiver teaching model that dominates American classrooms.

Passion communities encourage and enable people of all ages to do extraordinary things. Gee believes the ‘amateur knowledge’ that arises from this immersive involvement often surpasses ‘expert knowledge,’ and cited fantasy baseball as an example.

Other highlights:

- Passion communities give users power and control, not necessarily money.

- He cites a young lady who learned PhotoShop in order to make better clothes for her Sims characters, later for avatars in Second Life. She remains uninterested in fashion, though, preferring computers because they empower her.

- Gee cited the game Portal, which could be construed as a parody of school life, as a means of allowing players tools to construct reality in the game’s environment. RL schools should be like this, Gee mused. “Education isn’t about telling people stuff, it’s about giving them tools that enable them to see the world in a new and useful way.”

- Complex games engender involvement in whole new ways for players. Mods allow players to manipulate the environment in ways they see fit. Mods are tools allowing players to put personal play theories to the test.

Abbot sums up:

Gee clearly situates video games within an overall theory of learning and literacy with genuine power to transform students and equip them to address complex problems.

References:
Abbot, M. (2008, July 14). Analysis: Games create ‘passion communities’ for learning. Gamasutra. [Online]. Available: http://www.gamasutra.com/php-bin/news_index.php?story=19389

Why We Shouldn’t Ban “Ender’s Game” From AP Reading Lists

I was interested to read about a recent kerfuffle erupting over Orson Scott Card’s Ender’s Game. A parent protested the book’s status as required reading in AP English at a junior high school in Alvin, Texas (near Houston). The parent was concerned about violence and profanity in the book.

It has been a while since I’ve read it, but I don’t recall being annoyed by the level of profanity in Ender’s Game. In contrast, I recently finished Cryptonomicon by Neal Stephenson. This book was overly laced with profanity. One of the lead characters is Bobby Shaftoe, a rough and ready US Marine who frequently drops the F-bomb whether planting corpses with false information intended for the Nazis or killing Japanese soldiers in the Philippines. Shaftoe comes up with a cornucopia of imaginative profanity, and spews it out page after page. I just don’t recall nearly so much profanity from the Mormon author Card in Ender’s Game.

What intrigues educational gaming advocates about Ender’s Game is the vision Card painted of training and educating with games. For instance, videogames were used effectively as battle simulators to train soldiers. Battle simulators are old news nowadays, but not in 1985. Kurt Squire and Henry Jenkins noted in 2003 the prophetic value of Card’s book for educational gaming:

In Orson Scott Card’s 1985 science fiction novel Ender’s Game, the Earth is facing a life-and-death battle with invading aliens. The best and brightest young minds are gathered together and trained through a curriculum that consists almost entirely of games—both electronic and physical. Teachers play almost no overt role in the process, shaping the children’s development primarily through the recruitment of players, the design of game rules, and the construction of contested spaces. Games become the central focus of the students’ lives: they play games in classes, in their off-hours, even as part of their private contemplation. Much of the learning occurs through participation in gaming communities, as the most gifted players pass along what they have learned to the other players.

As a parent myself, and educator to boot, I can certainly empathize with parents wishing to shield their children from inappropriate material. However, I also like to read the books my kids read. We’re all active readers. There are books that express worldviews I don’t agree with, and when my children read those we talk about the role of fiction and how we can enjoy a book or a movie or a television show while disagreeing with its worldview. This holds in videogames as well.

My oldest has rediscovered Oblivion on the Xbox, and has been leveling up a thief. He can sneak into a town and steal the shirt off a guard’s back and get away with it. But, we’ve discussed how thievery is not what we’re about in RL. I remind the kids of the time one of them walked out of the nearby country store with a pack of gum without paying. When I discovered it, we drove back to the store and paid for the gum. We are not thieves; it’s part of our morals, part of our worldview. However, leveling a thief in Oblivion, a fictional environment, is okay just as reading about a character who is a thief is also okay.

And so it goes. While I empathize with a parent wanting to monitor the fiction their child reads, I can’t agree with banning Ender’s Game from an AP reading list. The violence in the book involves killing enemy space aliens, and I don’t recall it being gratuitous or overly bloody. Battle scenes are common in many books for young people, including the Narnia series and Tolkein’s Middle Earth tales.

Finally, I was interested to find out the book is required reading for Marine privates wishing to level up to corporal. According to the Marine spokesman quoted in the news article, the book is about leadership in combat; therefore, the Marine Corps says aspiring corporals should read it. I’m sure Bobby Shaftoe would approve.

References:
Jenkins, H., & Squire, K. (2003) Harnessing the power of games in education. Insight, 3, 5-33.

Tompkins, J. (2008, June 15). Alvin ISD mother protests novel. The Facts. [Online]. Available: http://www.thefacts.com/story.lasso?ewcd=b56d920d8eb0be82

CFP: IADIS International Conference Gaming 2008

– CALL FOR PAPERS – Deadline for submissions: 25 February 2008 –

IADIS INTERNATIONAL CONFERENCE GAMING 2008: DESIGN FOR ENGAGING EXPERIENCE AND SOCIAL INTERACTION

Amsterdam, The Netherlands, 25 to 27 July 2008

(http://www.gaming-conf.org/)

part of the IADIS Multi Conference on Computer Science and Information Systems (MCCSIS 2008) Amsterdam, The Netherlands, 22 to 27 July 2008
(http://www.mccsis.org)

* Keynote Speaker
Constance Steinkuehler, University of Wisconsin – Madison, USA

* Conference background and goals
As gaming becomes more pervasive we are challenged in our job, learning and personal life by the growing access to virtual spaces and communities that offer opportunities for everyday needs and aesthetic experiences. ‘Creative Industries’ have a need for design measures that reveal new interaction methods, scenario metaphors and in-depth co-creation. This conference bring together research and best practices in creative media design for this new challenging field.

* Format of the Conference
The conference will comprise of invited talks and oral presentations. The proceedings of the conference will be published in the form of a book and CD-ROM with ISBN, and will be available also in the IADIS Digital Library (accessible on-line). The best paper authors will be invited to publish extended versions of their papers in the IADIS Journal on Computer Science and Information Systems (ISSN: 1646-3692).

* Types of submissions
Full and Short Papers, Reflection Papers, Posters/Demonstrations, Tutorials, Panels and Doctoral Consortium. All submissions are subject to a blind refereeing process.

* Topics related to Gaming: Design for Engaging Experience and Social Interaction are of interest. These include, but are not limited to the following areas and topics:

- Creativity and Resonant Interaction
- Multi-modal communication
- Immersiveness
- Experience design
- Perception and performance metaphors
- Alternate and mixed realities
- Creative industries
- Research methodologies in creative practice
- Assessment of exploratory technologies
- (Social and Audiovisual) Usability and playability
- Adaptivity
- Cognition, representation, communication
- User/player centered design
- Game interpretation for design
- Psychological, social, and cultural differences in perception and participation
- Communities, networks, social interaction and social capital
- Cross-cultural and intercultural approaches
- Mechanisms of exclusion
- Game criticism
- Applications in Serious Gaming
- Assessment of exploratory learning approaches
- Emerging practices

* Important Dates:
- Submission Deadline: 25 February 2008
- Notification to Authors: Until 31 March 2008
- Final Camera-Ready Submission and Early Registration: Until 21 April 2008
- Late Registration: After 21 April 2008
- Conference: Amsterdam, The Netherlands, 25 to 27 July 2008

* Conference Location
The conference will be held in Amsterdam, The Netherlands.

* Secretariat
IADIS Secretariat – IADIS INTERNATIONAL CONFERENCE GAMING 2008 : DESIGN FOR ENGAGING EXPERIENCE AND SOCIAL INTERACTION Rua Sao Sebastiao da Pedreira, 100, 3
1050-209 Lisbon, Portugal
E-mail: secretariat@gaming-conf.org
Web site: http://www.gaming-conf.org/

* Program Committee
Gaming 2008 Conference Program Chair:
Eleonore ten Thij, Utrecht University, the Netherlands

General MCCSIS Conference Co-Chairs:
Piet Kommers, University of Twente, The Netherlands Pedro Isaías, Universidade Aberta (Portuguese Open University), Portugal Nian-Shing Chen, National Sun Yat-sen University, Taiwan

Committee Members: *
* for committee list please refer to http://www.gaming-conf.org/committees.asp

Civilization Mods for Teaching History

Want to use Sid Meier’s Civilization video game series for history and social studies in the classroom? Why reinvent the wheel when these two sites provide all you need for successfully incorporating a unit on history through playing Civilization.

The first site is called CivWorld, and is based over at U. Wisconsin. Kurt Squire’s dissertation centered on researching the uses of Civilization within educational environments. The site offers a host of mods for teaching from AD 100 to the Industrial Age, and comes complete with related curriculum.
URL: http://civworld.gameslearningsociety.org/

Our friends north of the border offer the History Canada Game. Here’s a site devoted to Civilization III mods that guide students in Canadian history from 1534 onwards. Players can choose from the British, French, Ojibwe, or Mi’kmaq perspectives. A slew of related resources are also available.
URL: http://www.historycanadagame.com/

Influential Academic Gamers

Next Generation has an article entitled, “Gaming’s 30 Most Influential Outsiders.” Included in the list are six academics:

-          Tanya Byron: “Leading the UK government review on gaming violence.”

-          Janet Eke: “Project Coordinator ‘Preserving Virtual Worlds,’ University of Illinois”

-          James Paul Gee: “Professor of Learning Sciences, University of Wisconsin” (Didn’t he move to Arizona recently?)

-          Henry Jenkins: “Professor of Humanities, MIT”

-          Paul Levinson: “Professor of Media Studies, Fordham University”

-          Randy Pausch: “Professor of Computer Science, Carnegie Mellon”

Slaying More Myths About Videogames

Last month I wrote about fellow Texan and Education Business Blog guru Lee Wilson’s excellent article on myths about educational videogames that ran in Technology & Learning. This month, Part 2 was published, and Wilson explores three more commonly held misconceptions on the topic.

First, Wilson addresses one of the strongest criticisms against educational games, mainly that instructional elements are akin to pearls on swine. In other words, an innately fun medium is being bent and stretched to accommodate educational purposes. Wilson allows that people like Justin Peters are partly right: good game design is needed, regardless of the serious or recreational nature of the game. But, there are many, many successful educational games that are both fun and … educational. He points out Whyville at University of Texas as a prime example. Instant gratification is not the point for complex videogames. Wilson points to several games that require hours of dedication in order to achieve goals. He notes that Steven Johnson said in his book Everything Bad Is Good for You, that “… compared to most forms of popular entertainment, games turn out to be all about delayed gratification—sometimes so long delayed that you wonder if the gratification is ever going to show.” The Civilization series and World of Warcraft are brought in to buttress this point.

Next, Wilson tackles the notion that games are good enough to teach kids on their own, without help from the teacher. This myth kind of goes to the opposite extreme of other myths that stand against the use of games in the classroom. Wilson brings in David Shaffer over at U. Wisconsin, author of How Computer Games Help Children Learn to argue the point: “Wandering around in a rich computer environment without guidance is a bad way to learn … The knowledge that matters in any domain is the knowledge that experts have …” [I’ve long noted that programs don’t teach kids, teachers do; programs are just tools that teachers use. Skilled teachers will teach well with whatever tools are available.] Wilson also noted the last NECC get together had 18 conference topics dealing with incorporating games into core curricula. Likewise universities are increasingly ramping up efforts to inculcate gaming into teacher preparatory programs.

Finally, Wilson addresses the most vexing notion of all, that there is no scientific literature backing up the use of gaming in educational environments. To fight this myth, Wilson notes the plethora of research activity surrounding Harvard’s River City project, Indiana’s Quest Atlantis project, and one of the many research efforts focused on World of Warcraft.

This myth is particularly pernicious. The main focus of this blog is to explore the wealth of published research out there centered around instructional gaming. Just browsing through the last couple dozen or so blog entries should dispel the notion there is no research backing up educational videogames. Yet, the myth persists. Recently, Miguel Guhlin wrote in his excellent ed tech blog about the notion that Marc Prensky misstated research surrounding his ideas on digital natives and immigrants. Yet, Prensky is a practitioner, not a researcher.

Be sure and check out part two of Wilson’s article. He has made a significant contribution to the discussion with these two articles.

References
Wilson, L. (2007, October 15). Getting it wrong: Slaying myths about video games (part 2). Technology & Learning. [Online]. Available: http://www.techlearning.com/story/showArticle.php?articleID=196604734

Study Shows Videogames Offer Spatial Skills Improvement for Women

Here’s an interesting comparison of the sexes insofar as video gaming goes. Doctoral student Jing Feng at U. Toronto led a study finding that action videogames can improve spatial skills for women. Men’s skills improved too, but women in the study started with lower spatial skills than men.

Gaming Today quoted Jing Feng from the press release:

“On average, women are not quite as good at rapidly switching attention among different objects and this may be one reason why women do not do as well on spatial tasks. But more important than finding that difference, our second experiment showed that both men and women can improve their spatial skills by playing a video game and that the women catch up to the men,” Feng added. “Moreover, the improved performance of both sexes was maintained when we assessed them again after five months.”

Dr. Ian Spence, director of the engineering psychology lab at Toronto, added this neat quote: “Clearly, something dramatic is happening in the brain when we see marked improvements in spatial skills after only 10 hours of game playing and these improvements are maintained for many months.”

This study is already generating buzz in academia. Here is a link to Dr. Deric Bounds’ (U. Wisconsin) MindBlog. Alas, the full text of the article is a $29 download from Blackwell Publishing. Fortunately, Dr. Bounds has graciously linked to a PDF of the article that is freely available. If Dr. Bounds’ link gets taken down, readers can still access the abstract:

We demonstrate a previously unknown gender difference in the distribution of spatial attention, a basic capacity that supports higher-level spatial cognition. More remarkably, we found that playing an action video game can virtually eliminate this gender difference in spatial attention and simultaneously decrease the gender disparity in mental rotation ability, a higher-level process in spatial cognition. After only 10 hr of training with an action video game, subjects realized substantial gains in both spatial attention and mental rotation, with women benefiting more than men. Control subjects who played a non-action game showed no improvement. Given that superior spatial skills are important in the mathematical and engineering sciences, these findings have practical implications for attracting men and women to these fields.

And finally, here’s the importance of the study, as summed up in the final paragraph of the paper:

Superior spatial ability is related to employment in engineering and science (McGee, 1979), and females, who typically score lower than males on tests of spatial skills, are underrepresented in these fields, with worldwide participation rates as low as one in five. Given that our first experiment and others (e.g., Greenfield & Cocking, 1996; McGillicuddy-De Lisi & De Lisi, 2002) have shown that particular cognitive capacities are associated with educational and career choices, training with appropriately designed action video games could play a significant role as part of a larger strategy designed to interest women in science and engineering careers (Quaiser-Pohl et al., 2006). Non-video-game players in our study realized large gains after only 10 hr of training; we can only imagine the benefits that might be realized after weeks, months, or even years of action-video-gaming experience.

To wit: there is much concern regarding the low numbers of women in STEM fields. This study purports to touch on possible causes for the low numbers, and offers appropriate videogames as a solution. The authors have made an important contribution to the research in this area.

References
Feng, J., Spence, I., & Pratt, J. (2007, October). Playing an action video game reduces gender differences in spatial cognition. Psychological Science 18(10), 850–855.

Study shows playing video games improves women’s spatial skills. (2007, October 3). Gaming Today. [Online]. Available: http://news.filefront.com/study-shows-playing-
video-games-improves-womens-spatial-skills/

Pop.Cosmo: Constance Steinkuehler’s New Blog on VWs

Constance Steinkuehler, over at U. Wisconsin, is shepherding a grant from the MacArthur Foundation to explore the pedagogical potentials within virtual worlds. Consequently, Steinkuehler and colleagues have begun a blog called pop.cosmo. Contributing authors to the blog include David Simkins and Sean Duncan.

In explaining the name, Steinkuehler notes that pop cosmopolitan refers to, “the ways that virtual worlds are becoming novel contexts for the development of new forms of civic engagement in a global, networked world.”  

The blog will serve as a platform for the research team to discuss ongoing research as well as transfer information regarding after school projects and other related goings-on. In a post on Terra Nova, Steinkuehler elaborates on the research team’s raison d’être:

… we empirically investigate key literacy practices that constitute successful MMO gameplay (such as scientific literacy, computational literacy, and reciprocal apprenticeship) & how those literacy practices connect up with life and learning beyond the virtual worlds themselves. Then, based on this understanding, we develop after school instructional programs that leverage MMOs to get kids involved in what we see as core 21st century skills (that are often under-emphasized in classrooms).

It looks like an interesting blog, and those interested in ongoing research of virtual worlds in education should stop by to take a look.