Gaming Trends

I think a 2030 classroom could be anything, depending on what ends up trending at the time. I envision a halogram of a teacher, and students who sit in a virtual classroom and can see each other but they’re not there. If you ever saw the How I Met Your Mother episode "Another One Bites the Dust", You know what I mean. I caught the episode in passing and was impressed by the fact that one character was talking to another via halogrphic projection in the year 2021 from a smart phone. Brace yourself, it’s coming. I also think that schools will change drastically from funding cuts, and it will become expensive to send your child to a brick and mortar school. Writing skill criteria will change. Student will no longer use pens and pencils. Keyboarding and voice will be the way to record results. This is already the case in hospitals, etc. Gaming might be a part of curriculum, or it might be a passing by then. I think halo-gaming would be fun in a lot of ways. Kids could get exercise and they could see who they are talking to (which we found important in CP). I hope it doesn’t get ruined by marketing!

 

Gaming requires higher level thought processes, organization and communication. Also gamers need rewards. Alexia Tsotsis from the website TechCrunch states, “Pavlovian mechanics are crucial. It’s important as a user to feel like the time that you spent came up with a result, social elements like being able to see how you did with other people, and being able to play with other people play into this.” Seth Priebatsch from SCVNGR stated “Humans love progress bars, if you see a progress bar, you want to complete it.” Both game processes are cues that keep us interested in the game and the goal.

 

I love McGonigal’s concepts of enjoyable work and voluntary participation! This week I have been working with an esteemed colleague on a project for another class, and he made me think of this very topic. We were talking about Second Life and Google Earth and how much fun they are. He has been using both for a while now voluntarily, and has found many fun ways to use them for the things that interest him. I mentioned about Cloud Party and how we were all pretty amazed by it. Then I realized that this class in general has been enjoyable work. Perhaps it wasn’t voluntary participation in the beginning, but it certainly ended up that way in the end. I don’t know about you, but ending my reign as Ileen was difficult. I have made friends in the guild. I believe McGonigal is right, that we build relationships with complete strangers and we all have things in common with everyone. I also believe she is right about the fact that we can fix reality through gaming. We can see each other as assets, not competition, and we can work together to achieve much greater results that we can on our own.

 

McGonigal’s Rule of thumb: “always strive to keep your gaming in the sweet spot: 7 – 21 hours a week”. From what I have read, any more than that subtracts from the benefits of gaming. The research suggests that playing more than 40 hours a week becomes a hindrance. “By the time you’re spending 40 hours or more a week playing games, the psychological benefits of playing games have disappeared entirely – and are replaced with negative impacts on your physical health, relationships, and real-life goals”. I think this point is worth mentioning again because of the prospect of teaching k-12 students online. If coursework is presented strictly online, how will they be impacted? If students do spend 6 or more hours a day on the computer for a total of 30 to 40 hours a week if we include homework, will this have the same detrimental effects? How does gaming fit into a strictly DL school? Can gaming make up for the lack of physical movement by use of GPS-based activities and offset the ill effects of too much computer time? I believe that it can! In fact, gaming could take the form of one of the non-digital versions that McGonigal cited in her book, which would provide lots of physical, social and strategic activity for k-112 students. At that point, the only problem is proximity. Perhaps a weekly scavenger hunt outing would be in order, weather permitting. Students and schools could work within a network of other schools and review their findings together. Different lat/long will yield different results.

 

In the gamification video, DICE 2010: Design Outside the Box, Jesse Schell brings up the point I have been pondering. Facebook gaming does not appeal to me at the present time because I do not want to make Mark Zuckerburg’s corporation any richer, and I don’t think that gaming for money or credit is a good idea. I consider it akin to gambling addiction if I have to wait for my next paycheck in order to play. I noticed the money problem with Settlers as soon as I needed gems to buy gold mining rights to keep my mine open, well actually it was when I needed Settlers to build up troops. Ok, it was constant. I also don’t agree with the idea of selling our personal info to corporations for solicitation. What I get from the video is that we can use all of the hooks that the “for profit” folks do as we (teachers) develop gaming for the classroom. To realize a profit, devs use psych tricks such as the use of the elastic velvet rope, emotional attachment to object or idea, game is not very expensive at first but is over time, social media competition and the time investment value. Lee Sheldon is a genius about grading in schools. Teachers have always used a point system, and students would like this approach. This was the first thing I thought of when we started the course. Unfortunately I thought of the repercussion as well. Gaming is fun, but if it becomes a norm it won’t be. If it is mandated it won’t be. Not sure how that will all pan out. For right now it is new and fun and we should do it. The next big thing in education depends on it.

 

Sources:

 

McGonigal, Jane. 8 January, 2011. Big Ideas. Practical Advice for Gamers. realityisbroken.org. Retrieved from http://realityisbroken.org/2011/

Schell, Jesse. 2010. DICE 2010: Design Outside the Box. g4tv.com. Retrieved from http://www.g4tv.com/videos/44277/DICE-2010-Design-Outside-the-Box-Presentation/

Tsotsis, Alexia. 1 August, 2010. The New Games People Play: How Game Mechanics Have Changed In The Age Of Social. techcrunch.com. Retrieved from http://techcrunch.com/2010/08/01/the-new-games-people-play-game-mechanics-in-the-age-of-social/