Educational Gaming Part 3

Educational Gaming part 3 was the last session on using gaming as an educational tool, highlights that we need to step out of our comfort zone of teaching and try to integrate gaming into lessons for engaged learning. Students from the 21st century, also known as digital natives might not very receptive towards the traditional teaching method. Therefore it is up to the teachers to wake up and embrace this reality!

From the past 3 weeks of the educational gaming session, the games played in the MxL was of course based on one of the Gee's 36 learning principles on gaming. This man was trying to convey the message that teachers need to use the strategies in the elements of gaming, modify and integrate it into lessons. Why do students love gaming yet hate studying? If a teacher is able to identify the motivation force or strategy that captures the student's interest in gaming and use it to integrate into lessons, I think learning will be fun and engaging with less barriers.

However, I personally feel that it is not that hard to identify the key elements that attract students to play games according to Gee's principles, but it is difficcult to integrate gaming into lessons because based on our educational system, the environment still does not provide sufficient flexibility and resources.

Based on today's lesson, educational gaming benefits students in terms of 3 main areas such as cognitively, affectively and in pscyhomotor. The last gaming station visited was www.mcvideogame.com where I feel that it enhances our cognitive skills because as we played, we strategize and multi-task and use the limited resources provided to make the best out of the situation. As explained by Prof, when we play games, we tend to pick up skills that we do not even notice, so gaming benefits students subconciously. From this, I remembered a module that I took in NUS, Consumer Behaviour which focuses on the psyhcological core of the human mind. One of the topic was about we as humans are able to perceive information better at subconcious level, which explains why we tend to 'like' certain products over the same product line. Now it comes clear to me why the selection of content of the games played is important because if students are exposed to violent games too much, they might subconciuosly pick up negative elements, which explains why they behave in a certain manner. Since subconcious plays such a vital role in learning and predicting our choices, maybe somehow teachers can manipulate this strategy in teaching.

After the 3 sessions of educational gaming, I came to realize that gaming has a lot more benefits than I can imagine. Other than adding excitement to lessons, it promotes collaboration and enhances the problem-solving skills of students. Students can learn faster and better when playing Role-playing games because they are able to put themselves into the character's shoes and so the teacher can cultivate positive values among students. Some students might have a challenge managing their time if they somehow become addicted to gaming and here parents need to come in to monitor their kids.

Educational Gaming Part 2

Well, this week I've played the Nintendo Wii (sports/fit). There was this bowling game and how do we play it? Play it as if we are really in the bowling area! So cool! If I have a Wii at home, I can just practice anytime I want without going out of my house! Then we played a boxing game and another game that is testing on our balancing. So, I found out that the similarity across the 3 games was that it requires physical action as if we were playing the real game in a virtual world!
So i think that, this Nintendo Wii (sports/fit) might more be suitable for athletes for practice purpose to enhance their psychomotor skills and coordination! Well for people me who is lazy to go out to enjoy sports, Nintendo Wii gives me the opportunity to exercise at my own comfort zone. Of course there are also other benefits from this such as to inculcate the never-say-die attitude because we get to try all over again after game over!

Next we proceeded to station 5 where I've learnt that there are actually 36 Gee's learning principles of games! That's a lot but my group was focusing on the 9th principle: self-knowledge principle. Self-knowledge refers to one's particular mental state, including beliefs, desires and sensation. This principle is emphasizing on people learn more about themselves and their current potential capacities. For example, before attending today's lesson, all these while I thought that I could not play bowling well, but after the game session, I've discovered that I was able to score!

The article, How to choose and use appropriate computer games in the classroom, facinated me because I've always wanted to know what type of game is considered as educational and that has a balance of some aspects of fun and some aspects of engage learning. Because to me, students tend to be blinded by "fun" while gaming and end up learning nothing. From the article, countries such as the UK actually maintain a standard of the contents of games by filtering out what is considered as unsuitable using the PEGI scheme. Games are actually classified into different genres ranging from action adventure, management games, role playing games to world buiding games. So for educational gaming, it is important to note that content of the game must match the requirements of the curriculum of subject and the objective of the intended lessons. The game itself must be able to deliver a few functions to the players such as promoting team collaboration and has a few elements of the Gee's learning principle of games. Other issues that can be considered is the length of time taken to become familiar with the basic control of the game impact the time needed to address certain learning strategies. I also feel that games should have access to different levels of complexity and scenarios to test how far we can go.

Educational Gaming

Last session was fun because we played 2 educational games.
For the first time in my life, I actually played a game on saving a dying patient using the Wii. I think from that game, the team members really need to work as a group and divide task equally and act fast! The game was trying to create an environment where students need to collaborate as a team instead of competing against each other in order to save the dying wounded patient. Speaking of gaming in collaboration I thought of another game, Dota.. haha.
Apart from that, this game also introduces psychomotor benefits and let the players use different approaches each time when saving the patient.

Another game that we played was the online flash games. We played this game on english vocabs. I've learnt a few new english vocabs from the flash games. I feel that the flash game was based on repetition. I think it's useful and powerful because I managed to absorbed the new words easily, maybe because through gaming, we get to see the words, feel the excitement, and hear the background music. We get to associate more stuff when learning new things.

Looking back, I still remember this game called 'Torin's Passage' that really captured my interest when I was still a kid. After attending ICT's educational gaming, I finally knew that the game I played many years ago was actually a strategy based game in an adventure environment. I felt that the game actually trained kids to listen attentively for instructions, look out for hints in the surrounding area and use the limited resources provided to solve the puzzles. The game was easy to navigate and it was fun, yet at the same time, training kids to think critically and enchance their problem-solving skills!

Well in general, educational gaming is another informal way of learning!

E-learning week: Managing technology integration

A) Face to face learning environments:

Full Computer Laboratory ,Half Computer Laboratory, Learning Centres,Single Computer classroom, using Notebook.
1) Time management
Issues:
1. Teacher unable to finish lesson within a fixed time period.
2. Students unable to complete task assigned in given period of time.
Strategies:
• Plan lessons wisely by not inserting too many activities and anticipate some technical problems.
• Give constant reminders of the time left for certain activities at various points to alert students and keep them task oriented.

2) Resource planning
Issues:
1. Teachers have insufficient time preparing ICT-mediated lessons.
Strategies:
• Hold monthly sharing sessions where collaboration among teachers in lesson planning, ICT resources and professional development takes place.


Full Computer Laboratory,Half Computer Laboratory, Learning centres
1) Nature of learning activities and class management.
Issues:
1. Smoothness of lesson pacing and transition between different activities interrupted when students distracted either disruption from technical problems or deviant behaviours (Learning centres).
2. Different group of students doing different activities at the same time (Full and half computer lab).
Strategies:
• Clear instructions regarding the objective of the lesson and a general overview of all the activities must be explained before start of lesson.
• Incorporate routines that promote efficiency when changing activities such as giving a short deadline to save work to log off or letting students enter or exit computer lab in ordered groups.
• Use designated signals to stop students working on certain activities and switch to a new activity.
• Explain rules to students before using the computer lab such as no eating and drinking.
• Keep students attention by asking stimulating questions to students from different corners of classroom and constantly brief on various activities.



Full Computer Laboratory , Half Computer Laboratory
1) Student and teacher ICT literacy.
Issues:
1. Students who cannot work proficiently with ICT tool are turned off when overwhelmed.
2. Some teachers don’t have adequate knowledge creating ICT-mediated lessons.
3. Teachers unable to solve technical difficulties due to poor ICT knowledge causing disruption during lesson.
Strategies:
• Provide step-by-step printed handouts containing instructions for students and include a demonstration.
• Assign students who are ICT-trained to provide technical assistance to other students facing difficulties.
• Assign a technical assistant in the classroom can aid both teacher and students by imparting ICT knowledge.
• Schools should set up ICT-committee made up of teachers who are ICT-savvy to help other teachers.


2) Teacher monitoring and physical settings in school.
Issues:
1. The computer monitors block students view causing students unable to see demonstrations on projector screens.
2. Unable to be certain whether students are listening to instructions as teacher unable to see students face behind monitors.
Strategies:
• In a demo, ask the students to fold their arms and move away from monitors to maintain eye-contact with them. This is to keep students from doing unrelated tasks.
• Teacher should station in a location where can see all students (with-it-ness) at the same time monitor the class (overlapping).


B) Online learning:

1) Cyberbullying
Issues:
1. Students are unlikely to report cyberbullying to school and parents because fear of loss online privileges.
2. Students are unaware of strategies in request of removal of objectionable websites.
3. Students don’t respond as helpful bystanders when witnessing cruel online behavior.
Strategies:
• Make parents and students read and sign the school’s policies regarding acceptable use of technology accompanying these policies with literature on cyberbullying.
• Design classroom lessons on cyber bullying to ensure that students understand that targeting classmates through negative messages or images online is a form of bullying.
• Educate students never give out personal information such as passwords, P.I.N. numbers, be polite to others when online.
• Setting up a website for parents, students and teachers on cyber- bullying and its consequences both for the victims and the perpetrators.


2) Internet pronography
Issues:
1. Exposed to pornography when surfing internet in forms of pop-ups.
2. Students are “mousetrapped" into another sex site while trying to get out of the one they were in.
Strategies:
• Educate students to switch web browser to “safe search” mode, don’t click on pop-ups or hyperlinks from suspicious email and delete suspicious email.
• Parents should install filtering software such as McAfee Parental Controls to monitor the sites child visits, set time limit for online and block inappropriate sites.



References:

Lim, C. P., Pek, M. S., & Chai, C. S. (2005). Classroom Management Issues in Information and Communication Technology (ICT)-Mediated Learning Environments: Back to the Basics. Journal of Educaional Multimedia and Hypermedia , 4 (14), 391-414.

Lim, C. P., & Khine, M. S. (2006). Managing teachers’ barriers to ICT integration in Singapore schools. Journal of Technology and Teacher Education, 14(1), 97-125.

Patricia W. Agatston, Ph.D., Robin Kowalski, Ph.D., & Susan Limber, Ph.D. (2007). Students’ Perspectives on Cyber Bullying. Journal of Adolescent Health, 41(6), S59-S60.

http://www.cyberbullying.ca/
http://www3.moe.edu.sg/edumall/tl/cyberwellness.htm
http://www.saferinternet.org/ww/en/pub/insafe/safety_issues/faqs/bullying.htm
http://www.netsmartz.org/news/Mar03-03.htm