Listening, to Learn

This Ted Talks was perfect timing as I began my research in understanding the connection of Gaming and learning. I will spend much of time listening to the students to understand how they are interacting with 3dGame Lab and gaming in general to learn.

Initial Reflection: Gaming to Learning in a Digital Classroom

What initially began as an interest in understanding why so many kids are drawn to digital games, has now turned into a research path for investigating the effectiveness of gaming in education.

Over the last several years, the gaming industry has multiplied dramatically. And the number of users has exponentially grown. In addition, the types of games being played have diversified as well, from small Facebook apps, to full-blown massive multi-player online role playing games, such as World of Warcraft (WoW).  What is perhaps most fascinating about the youth and gaming is the obsession with playing or mastering the game, with the game industry capitalizing on this aspect to increase sales.

Thus I began to wonder,  what exactly draws youth into playing these games,  making them want to play non-stop and creating a very focused skill to reach mastery? Furthermore, could this tactic also be used in education to help students reach the level of obsession for learning, much like what was/ is demonstrated by such scholars as Einstein, Edison, Socrates, DeCarte, O'Keefe, Frank Lloyd Wright, or Van Gogh. Can obession for learning to be the best at what we are passionate about be a path for increased success in schools where students are struggling, knowing every student can and will succeed given the chance? When we are driven by a passion, are we not more likely to succeed? Could there be a correlation between this and gaming? If so what is it? Can students increase their learning by being passionate game players? Or is gaming more of an entertainment component and not likely connected to learning? In other words, what connection exists between gaming and passion for learning?

This interest, like many interests, began a connection of people, blogs and websites on my rss reader, Facebook and Twitter. Which is how I found out about 3D GameLab, which was a posting on my Facebook page from a friend of a friend on my professional page.  As I watched the video, I knew that it was something I needed to follow up on and get involved in, as I believed it could answer some of the questions I was curious about. After several phone calls and emails, I found out I was still able to participate, and  I jumped on the opportunity to attend the workshop. 3D GameLab is an online platform designed to provide students with learning quests (like in WoW) that they can choose from. These quests are small to large standards-based lessons, activities, or projects that students can master to continue on their learning path to meet their goals. Along the way, they earn badges and awards for mastery of particular "chunks" of learning. Furthermore, this has all been set up on a social platform so students can share in quests and badges or complete quests together.

Though this online platform is fairly unique, it demonstrates anytime, anywhere learning online. Something that is a large component of gaming. In any game, once a skill is mastered you can move further in the game. But most games provide mastery of several skills to choose from, and WOW in particular provides the ability to complete may quests at once independently or as a team.

I found myself to be very engaged by the initial Quests and driven to complete the activities, similar to when you are hiking or biking and you want to go a little bit further to see what is around the corner. Furthermore, each quest provided a different activity or format making each one fresh and unique. 


So the question with 3d Gamelab is still two-fold, will students be engaged with the platform and learning because of the anytime anywhere learning, or because of the quest choice and mastery to level up resulting in the winning of badges or awards, which are used largely on Facebook Apps.

Hence this blog will be dedicated to the research, exploration and path of learning to investigate and attempt to answer these questions. I hope to coalesce the research on gaming, draw to gaming, and to identify how gaming and game design are connected, if indeed they are. Finally, I hope to run a trail class through the 3d Game lab collecting data on student success compared to a class using the same curriculum but not integrated in 3d Gamelab.

Furthermore, I hope to demonstrate the use of an online classroom in a game setting for two components that are not normally thought of in terms of distance education or online learning, Physical Education and Earth Science, for the obvious reasons that Physical Education requires aerobic activity, strength and endurance building, and use of motor skills. While sciences require hands on labs and activity to really grasp the concepts seen and demonstrated for scientific inquiry and scientific method.

We have come to a very interesting peak in education, where technology and the Internet provide a wealth of information, and we now have all become sorters of information, with those in society that are successful are the ones that have skills for mastering independent learning, any time, any where on any subject.