My Developing Research #1
for CEP 900 Proseminar | December 2003
Contents
Appendix: Materials
Introduction: My
Background
- Educator
- Taught high school
- Plan to teach and research in a teacher education program
- Gamer: play, design, discuss, study...
- Computer games, video games
- Board games, card games
- Tabletop role-playing games, online role-playing games
- Teaching using games combines two of my greatest passions
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Example: A Scene from Warcraft 3
- As you watch, consider
- What's the setting? (costumes, technology, culture)
- Who's the protagonist? (How do you know?)
- Does the king remind you of anyone? (Think Shakespeare)
- Look for foreshadowing
Concept art for Warcraft 3
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Why Games?
Co-opt the technologies students already play with.
- This is my "big idea"
- Educators are doing this with the World Wide Web
- Co-opt means "steal, nicely, for the common good"
- Three levels of co-opting: finding, adapting, and creating
- e.g., Warcraft cut-scene (found)
- e.g., the Web (adapted)
- e.g., created (educational game)
Each level of co-opting requires greater investment, with potentially greater
return
"Each time one prematurely teaches a child something he
could have discovered for himself, that child is kept from inventing it and
consequently from understanding it completely." -Piaget (in Miller, 1989)
Mastery depends on proficiency and engagement
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Sketching a Theoretical Framework
- There isn't an existing, robust framework for rigorously
studying and designing educational games
- Instead, I'm looking to existing perspectives and metaphors,
and related research
- These are some highlights
Behaviorism
- Players continue playing when they're rewarded with novel,
satisfying experiences
Piaget
Good games allow players to enjoy brief but palpable plateaus of mastery
Bruner
- "To learn structure... is to learn how things are related"
(Bruner, 1977)
- Simulations are powerful tools for representing
structure and relationships, for discovery by students
Vygotsky
- Dialectic
- Desires and constraints
- Ideas and objects
- Creativity and identity
- Role-playing games can make identity fluid, and can
foster identity experimentation
Spiro
- Cognitive flexibility
- How is leadership and teamwork possible in an ill-structured
domain like a group?
- How do we learn and teach the necessary skills?
Marcia
- Dialectic and identity fluidity in identity development
in adolescents
- Identity crises are desirable, if they compel and
inform mindful investments in identity
- Role-playing games may foster crises by proxy, by confronting
players with complex choices
Educational Technology
- My strongest and weakest area
- e.g., Seymour Papert (influenced by Piaget)
- Learning spaces (e.g., LOGO) for discovery, through "constructionism"
- "The learner is engaged in the construction
of something external or at least shareable" (Papert, in Scott
et al., 1992)
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Belief
Some Important Relationships
- Belief is owning knowledge. It's arrived at through skepticism
and critical thinking.
- Belief is a mixture of convergent thinking and healthy divergent
thinking.
- Empathy is understanding and believing in another person's
perspective.
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Creativity
Some Important Relationships
- Creativity is an act of divergent thinking.
- Creativity is caused by challenges. Such challenges can
be unexpected or sought.
- Jarring moments are surprising events or ideas that challenge
belief.
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Leadership
Some Important Relationships
- Teamwork depends on some convergent thinking.
- Smooth group dynamics depend on harmonious roles.
- A good leader accepts the authority and responsibility of
his role.
- A good leader has empathy.
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Play
Some Important Relationships
- Role-playing games play with perceptions. People pretend
to have different identities.
- Games include challenges. Such challenges can be jarring
moments, if players must adapt and grow.
- Jarring moments are a conflict between perceptions and reality.
Like paradoxes, the conflict is illusory. By resolving the conflict, a person
can understand the reality behind the illusion.
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Conclusion: An Example
Two real people, Joe and Samantha, can communicate
through the dialog of imaginary characters, Thesius and Diana
From role-playing to empathy
- Joe
is playing the character Thesius.
Samantha is playing the character
Diana.
- Every person has a mental model of his background, abilities,
motives, etc.
- Each player constructs a mental model of his character's
background, abilities, motives, etc.
- Thesius
and Diana are having a conversation
in the game.
- Joe
can understand more about Samantha
by studying the dialog.
- What Diana
says illustrates Samantha's
model for Diana.
- Samantha's
model for Diana illustrates
some of Samantha's model
for herself.
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Appendix: Materials
- Laptop, projector
- Speakers
- Powerstrip
- Internet connection or site files
- Art of Warcraft book (to pass around)
- Warcraft 3 DVD
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