Games and Gaming

Learning via computer games: the very idea can seem surreal or outrageous. Yet for the past five years, a movement has been afoot to examine how digital games work as pedagogical devices. Starting with the publication in 2003 of James Paul Gee’s landmark What Video Games Have to Teach Us about Learning and Literacy, faculty, technologists, and librarians have been exploring how we can learn from and also teach within computer games. This column will survey what this movement has discovered.

Educational games and simulations can engage students in higher-level cognitive thinking, such as interpreting, analyzing, discovering, evaluating, acting, and problem solving. Recent technical advances in multiplayer, user-created virtual worlds have significantly expanded the capabilities of user interaction and development within these simulated worlds. This ability to develop and interact with your own simulated world offers many new and exciting educational possibilities. This article explores the technical capabilities and educational potential of these new worlds. Additionally, it presents and illustrates a model, which uses interaction combinations, to identify course content and topics having educational applications in virtual worlds.

'Emerging technologies for learning' aims to help readers consider how emerging technologies may impact on education in the medium term. The publications are not intended to be a comprehensive review of educational technologies, but offer some highlights across the broad spectrum of developments and trends. It should open readers up to some of the possibilities that are developing and the potential for technology to transform our ways of working, learning and interacting over the next three to five years.

Once relegated to the fringes of the games industry, virtual worlds such as Second Life are now viewed as a promising instructional platform. College instructors use this emerging technology to teach courses on topics ranging from architecture and anthropology to history, literature and computer programming, and a growing number of Fortune 500 companies conduct employee training in virtual worlds. In 2007 alone, educational institutions were responsible for the creation of more than 1,200 islands in Second Life.

While many educators are excited about the potential of virtual worlds, others are deeply wary. Some fear that virtual worlds are a faddish technology that actually degrades student learning. In this presentation, Professor Aaron Delwiche of Trinity University suggests that there are grounds for both enthusiasm and skepticism. Virtual worlds are certainly not an educational panacea, and they present many challenges for students, instructors, and administrators. When coupled with thoughtful strategies grounded in situated learning theory, however, these emerging technologies can be very powerful educational tools.

LITRE, the Learning in a Technology-Rich Environment, is a North Carolina State initiative that has researched the impact of various technologies on student learning over the past three years. This session will discuss LITRE's evolution and three current projects: innovative learning environments using multiuser gaming; video, podcasts, and other technologies; and computer-based problem solving.

Experience our quest for a campus-wide program that explores teaching and learning with simulations and games. This interactive presentation uses the game structure of a quest to involve the audience in our journey. Join us for "The Call to Adventure," "The Road of Trials," and "A Return to the Ordinary World."

We are collaborating to create the Garden of Wellness, a web-based, interactive, "serious" game where women with disabilities can actively learn how to improve their physical, psychological, and social health. We hope this new learning environment will overcome attendance problems that prevent women from benefiting from seminars on this material.

The CITES Help Desk at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign needs an effective training program in our dynamic workplace. Learn how training games help us reinforce our traditional training, enrich the job skills of our student consultants, provide information on existing services, and foster teamwork among our staff.

Trinity University's Coates Library adapted an immersive marketing campaign strategy known as an alternate reality game when designing the library's 2006 new student orientation. Objectives emphasized critical thinking skills, orientation to the online and physical environments, interactions with librarians, and entertaining engagement.