Digital Gaming

Time-to-Adoption: Two to Three Years

Gaming, particularly in the form of simulations and role playing, has been a part of education for years. In its digital forms, games can include immersive experiences that explore culture, synthetic worlds, or micro-landscapes, or that build upon years of experience in using visualization as a tool for the exploration of large data sets. Gaming can be used in disciplines outside of computer, technology, or new media studies; designing games can also incorporate other aspects of social or cultural studies into technology fields. Gaming is also being used as a way to increase enrollment and retention rates in computer programming and science fields.

Digital gaming can take the form of using computers or other digital devices in place of mechanical or material components in traditional games, or can engage in its own world-building. Gaming itself is a sort of lowest common denominator of human interactivity; everyone has played games. Just as children use games to learn skills for adulthood, gaming can be incorporated into education as a platform for knowledge-based learning. Games do not need to be framed as win/lose scenarios but can be exploratory and collaborative.

Relevance for Teaching, Learning & Creative Expression

• can be used to teach concepts across multiple fields in an engaging way
• allows re-enactment of difficult situations to try new responses or pose creative solutions
• enhances visual learning and develops technological skills
• can be done in groups, encouraging collaboration and interaction

Examples

• Michigan State University's Digital Media Arts and Technology has a project funded by the National Science Foundation called Girls as Game Designers, which does research on how girls and boys approach games, and how games affect them. One of the projects that has grown out of the Girls as Game Designers research is Alien Games, which is designed to interest high school and middle school girls in biology and space science. http://spacepioneers.msu.edu/

• The University of California at Berkeley offered an anthropology field work course in fall 2005 emphasizing digital storytelling as a way to express material culture. In the course, students "bring the archaeological experience to 6th graders through facilitated play with a variety of media, including: digital storytelling (video production), computer games, web browsing, hands-on exploration of real artifacts, etc." http://anthropology.berkeley.edu/courses.html

For Further Reading

Play and Learn
(David Stonehouse, The Age, August 27, 2005.) Outlines the educational possibilities for gaming, raises pertinent questions, and gives an overview of the academic movement toward digital gaming. http://theage.com.au/articles/2005/08/23/1124562860174.html

Proof of Learning: Assessment in Serious Games
(Sande Chen and David Michael, Gamasutra, October 19, 2005.) Discusses the challenges and issues of assessing game-based learning. http://www.gamasutra.com/features/20051019/chen_01.shtml

Designing Courses: Digital Games for Learning
This website includes a detailed annotated bibliography with links to game-related articles. http://www.ibritt.com/resources/dc_games.htm