There are bad ideas that become iconic for every era because they were popular fads. Pet Rocks, the Pacer, Supply Side Economics, and .com groceries all come to mind.
Looking back we all scratch our heads and wonder – why?
Gamification, ripping the reward and recognition systems out of video games and applying them to behavioral modification is likely to stand in for our current times in the future.
My 17 year old son is in the other room using a kayak paddle with chain saws attached at either end to slice zombies in half. I’m sitting here minding my own business when out of the blue he says “Dad, this game is great for teaching time management skills.”
In Dead Rising you have 72 hours in a zombie infested town to build a bike, rescue your daughter, and escape the military. Along the way anything you find can be weaponized against the slow moving brain noshers. Shovels, gasoline, saw blades, pitchforks, shotguns, drills, buckets, are among the things that can be combined in new and amazing ways. Yes, even a stuffed moose head.
Call me a proud papa – this concept was coming from a teen who is wrestling with time management (i.e. he gets A’s when does the damn work which isn’t often enough). The fact that he was metacogizant of this while playing astounded and pleased me.
I’ll be reviewing the findings of the white paper I wrote for SIIA on Best Practices for Implementing Games & Simulations in the Classroom today at 4 ET (corrected). The webinar and the paper are free.
We interviewed teachers, administrators, and vendors who have successfully implemented edugames and distilled the lessons they learned about how to sell the idea, how to prepare, and classroom management issues. It is a very practical hands on look at this arena and has implications for educators and people designing edugames.
The webinar is part of EdWeb’s lively Game Based Learning Community (500+ members). It is the first in a series of webinars with luminaries like Jim Bower, Chris Dede, and Dan Norton.
Richard Carey points to an outstanding article by Shane Snow on using game mechanics to power your business over at Mashable.
This rings true in my personal use of social media (see here re Foursquare) as well as in a lot of the thinking that has gone into what will happen to learning materials as they migrate from print to digital.
The one thing missing from the article that I think is a critical element is narrative thread. Here are some comments of on how that applies to education.
A new free white paper that tackles the practical challenges teachers face when they use video games was released this week by the Software Information Industry Association (SIIA). I was the author of the paper and the co-chair of the working group that produced the paper.
Barrels of ink and pixels by the gigabit have been spilled trying to answer the question “Do video games work as teaching tools?” We started from a simpler perspective – assuming that games can support learning what are the practical tips that teachers can use to boost the odds of success? We interviewed the pioneers in the classroom and at the companies that have developed successful games and summarized their hard won insights in the paper.
I excerpt the executive summary below and over the coming days will post some of the more detailed findings. For the complete paper visit the SIIA’s website and download the PDF.
FETC 2008 starts tomorrow and I’m looking forward to catching up with friends and colleagues from across the Education Technology industry.
I’m participating in a panel discussion on Thursday afternoon about games and education that will balance practitioners with vendors in a discussion about the state of games and learning. From the practitioner side John Rice of the Education Games Research Blog will be there along with Gary Weidenhamer, Education Technology Manager at Palm Beach County District. Dave Martz from Muzzy Lane Software and I will be speaking from the business perspective and Karen Billings from SIIA’s Education Division will be moderating.
The panel runs from 1:50-2:45 PM Thursday in room CS4. Hope to see you there!
The Education Business Blog