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Who’s Got Game?
I’m usually pretty excited to get my hands on each year’s NMC Horizon Report. I love to see what people think may be the next big, new thing. In fact, if you ask my teammates, I’m sure they’d tell you that I’m the “new adopter” in the group; always willing to jump in and try things out, even those things might yet be half baked. In fact, I’m probably the ‘Mikey’ (remember Life cereal?) of the group. So when I downloaded my copy of the 2012 Higher Edition version of the report, I quickly turned to the contents page to see what the future of education holds. And, honestly, I wasn’t surprised. It seems that the list of things to change culture and education has stabilized. Nothing is quite brand-spakin’ new. Right now, the neonates on the scene are just growing. For instance, we’ve all seen and critiqued the iPad by now and the ‘new’ iPad is a simply the next version of a known quantity.
As I thought about this, I realized that what I really want to know is not what might be next in education, I want to know what new is being done now.
Let’s take one of this year’s emerging technologies that’s made a strong presence on the 2-to-3-year-out list for the last two years running: game-based learning. Many articles and blogs and research papers have been written over the last couple (ok, ten) years, including an interesting blog post by Justin Marquis on the merits of game-based learning in higher education. In the post, Justin summarizes and analyzes a TED talk by Jane McGonical where she asserts four ways gaming can help solve our world problems taking queues from World of Warcraft gamers. (Quick aside: Who are these World of Warcraft people anyway? I mean, who creates this world that is so engaging and thrilling that millions of hours are spent in it? Or, perhaps the better question is, what can we as educators learn from them?) Similarly, James Gee gives twelve ways games can teach. Ok, so we’ve heard a lot that game-based learning can be good teaching. But is it being done?
Yes, there are the ‘usual suspects’ (Evoke, Septris, 3D GameLab), but these all could fall into the ‘special cases’ or ‘special efforts ‘category. What I want to know is if game-based learning is making it into the regular flow of curriculum and course design. The Horizon report says “The average age of the American gamer is now 35-years-old” which means two things: 1) I’m older than I thought and 2) at 35 there have got to be a lot of gamers out there in education. I have to believe that at least some of the instructional designers and faculty working today fall into the range of 35 +/- 8 years or so.
Have you or a colleague played around (yes, pun intended) with applying game theory or any gaming elements to your course, curriculum, assessment or even program? What did you try? What was the response? Will game-based learning be a generational movement in education? Is there resistance to game-based learning at your institution? Why? Lack of time? Not convinced there are benefits? Join the conversation our our Pearson eCollege Academic Training & Consulting team Facebook page.
Luke Cable | Academic Trainer & Consultant
Do As I Say, Not As I Do
These people still clapped at the end of the session...
How low is your conference bar set these days? What does it take to make your experience "worth it" anymore? Is it 1 good keynote and 1 good session? Is that enough? Maybe it's a solid pre-conference workshop and two good sessions. Or is it even less?
I go to 30-40 conferences (led by educators) each year. Typically I present a keynote address, a few workshops, or possibly a pre-conference session, but I certainly have plenty of time to see and hear a lot of other presenters. This also means that I end up eating lunch or an occasional dinner with dozens, if not hundreds of strangers. So, I've been doing some research around the gambling that takes place at conferences. No, not dice in the back of the kitchen or inviting strangers back to a hotel room...(Those are the tech conferences.) I'm talking about the conference session roulette that everyone takes part in. Come on lucky session #4...daddy needs a new educational game!
Some conference attendees "double down" on their bets. Good move. I watch as more and more often, session participants sit in the back of the room. They give the presenter(s) about 3 minutes to "hook" them. If there is no "hook" then out the door and off to another session they go! Two for one sessions - nice! And, most conference presenters are making it hard too. It seems that the "catchy title" is the order of the day, regardless of whether or not the session will actually provide value. Sprinkle in Web 2.0, or YouTube, or Serious Game and you've got a session title that will make people do a double take! Come on Serious Games for YouTube and Facebook via Web 2.0 in the Classroom...Daddy needs a new assessment idea!
In my extremely unscientific research, here is what I looked for. Great sessions (regardless of the identified mode), meaning keynote addresses, workshops, pre-conference, poster, and panel sessions were all game. I looked for a few simple indicators to determine a successful presentation.
- Great content - this is usually determined by the "buzz" after the session and often corresponds with the number of questioners who stick around to talk. (My personal research seems to indicate that 3 people will stick around regardless of how good or bad a session is.) This also includes "buzzing" conversations that follow the session to lunch.
- Great presenters - these are definitely harder to find, but my indicator here was pretty simple. Who, or better, how many (in the audience) was paying attention to the presentation?
- Great interaction - this one is tough for me. A lot of conferences are demanding audience "participation" these days. My problem? Often the audience members are not subject matter experts, they are simply professors who enjoy sharing their opinions (which is why we're professors, right?) or worse, they simply want to play devil's advocate throughout the session. So, in both of those situations, other audience members come away feeling like the session was useless. However, when interaction with multiple audience members takes place regularly (not simply because an audience member forced a question in), it should be noted.
So, after months of tallying on my iPad or iPhone -I love you Evernote - I have some informal numbers. This is from 22 conferences, 103 sessions, and includes a lot of conference goers...I have no idea how many. I should also mention that if I didn't go to the presentation, but simply heard about the presentation after the fact, it was not included here. (I wonder sometimes if those conversations are legitimate...it's like the guy in high school who was always trying to convince you the swimsuit models showed up to every party JUST after you left...) Anyway, here you go:
- 92/103 sessions had poor content, which means 11 sessions had great content.
- 99/103 sessions had poor presenters, which means 4 sessions had great presenters.
- 99/103 sessions had no audience interaction, which means 4 session had great interaction.
- 2 sessions had both a great presenter AND great content (although no interaction).
For those of you scoring at home, that does not even begin to approach an 'F'. Even in aggregate, less than 16% of the presentations I attended were...well, quite frankly they were pretty bad.
At least I got all of my email answered during this session
Let me give you one fresh example from a conference I attended in December. There were 75-100 people in the lecture style, tiered room. I was in the very back, at the top, looking down on the presenters and audience members (I was preparing for my session in that same room, which was next.) Let me describe for you the middle row of about 25 people.
- 3 were visibly asleep
- 4 were checking email on their laptops
- 6 were checking sports sites - mostly fantasy football on their laptops
- 10 were using their phones (texting for help perhaps?)
- 1 was writing on a notepad
- 2 were passing notes back and forth to each other
It doesn't seem to matter what the topic is, what kind of conference it is, or who the speaker / audience members are, these sessions don't seem to be very helpful. When I attended my own discipline's Communication conference last year, with people who explain to college students how to effectively communicate a message, there was no difference. When I went to a K-12 conference with teachers who certainly need more energy and enthusiasm to reach younger people, it was no different. When I went to International conferences, it was no different. (In fact, it was often worse as many of those conferences are made up of "conference papers" - essentially a person sitting in front of the audience reading a research paper out loud...seriously.)
OK...so, enough of the agonizing landscape. You get it. In fact, many of you are probably starting to develop a twitch as I've reminded you of things you would prefer to forget. But here is my big question.
Why is it a surprise that education is having such trouble reaching students?
Apparently, we (educators) have a difficult time communicating with each other. How can we possibly expect to communicate effectively with our 1, 2, and sometimes 3 generations younger students? Why don't we apply what we know to work? Why don't we use what we know to be helpful?
Tell, Show, Do, Review, and Ask in a multi-modal, multi-nodal way and we'll reach a LOT of people. Why don't we do that? Use ethos, pathos, logos, and mythos (if you're dying to think about it old-school) and we'll reach a LOT of people. Why don't we do that? Incorporate serious games, focus shifts, multimedia, and interactive strategies and we'll reach a LOT of people. Why don't we do that?
I truly believe that we are our own enemy here. I KNOW that there are some really creative, innovative, strategic instructors out there who are doing great things...but when they get to a conference to share it, they get very uptight. The idea of presenting to peers is quite intimidating for many, so those ideas never really get a chance to shine.
Then, there are the conference submission boards who miss out on great stuff. They don't seem to read or review survey results from previous conferences, giving preference to people who get super positive comments, having thereby illustrated that they have great content, are a great presenter, or include interaction effectively. I watched a professor at Online-Educa Berlin present a fantastic workshop on rubrics. She was poised, dynamic, and her content was top notch. When I told her that she should give that session at some conferences back in the USA, she explained that she tried over a dozen times and never got accepted. Something about the presentation just wasn't "sexy" enough for the committees, even though I watched her knock it out of the park in Germany.
So let me finish with this. Let's change the way conference presentations currently run. Let's all take a pact. When we're given the opportunity to share our clever, creative, innovative, effective, or useful ideas from our classes with our colleagues...let's not blow off the performance until the plane ride. Let's not forget what goes into a good presentation - effective nonverbals, logical reasoning, and passionate verbals. Let's include some of the "cool" factor when we can, to illustrate the concept. Let's not forget the power of story. Let's agree to NEVER, EVER, under ANY circumstances READ our notes or (worse) READ our PowerPoint to the audience again!
We can do this. It's not like we don't know how audiences respond most effectively. We know that the lecture is one of the poorest ways we can communicate if we want our audience to retain, comprehend, and be engaged. We KNOW what it takes. So, let's just change it. Yes, that simply, let's change our conference behavior. Let us never again imply that what we say and what we do are not supposed to be joined at the hip.
Good luck and good teaching...and good conference-going!
(BTW - did anyone notice the ironic metaphor for education here? Boring lectures, audience members not paying attention, little audience interaction, etc? Hmmm...I guess that's another blog.)
Philosophy of Teaching Twitter Challenge!
This post could have been titled “What’s Your Teaching Philosophy in 110 Characters or Less?” because we’re asking you to participate in a challenge related to developing and succinctly crafting a version of your philosophy of teaching!
The Challenge*
Please review this this post and the examples provided below about writing a brief teaching philosophy. Then, we challenge our readers here to try it for yourself! We would like to receive your submissions via our Twitter account using a hashtag and to mention our Twitter name in your post. So, how do you do it? When posting your 110 character philosophy of teaching to twitter, please include the following in your post so we can follow your responses: @atcecollege #teachphilosophy
What is a Philosophy of Teaching? Why Should I Write One?
Though many formal teaching philosophy statements run two or more pages, having even a brief framework of your philosophy can be beneficial. According to Chapnick (2009), “creating a philosophy of teaching and learning statement is ultimately both personally and professionally rewarding, and is therefore well worth the effort” (p. 4). Defining our philosophy of teaching helps to provide a framework for our practice as educators.
Do you believe timeliness and access are important, as Stevens III (2009) does in this example of his principles? “The principles I follow are simple: be accessible to students and treat them with respect. Accessibility means being available not just during class and office hours, but at any reasonable time. I encourage them to call me at home, and I promise them a response to email messages within 24 hours” (p. 11). If yes, for example, your philosophy would feature timeliness and access as important to you and in your practice you would work to achieve these principles.
What the philosophy includes might reflect a diverse set of information and depends on the audience. The Teaching Center (2007) offers these as guiding questions: (1) Why do you teach? (2) What do you teach? (3) How do you teach? and (4) How do you measure your effectiveness? Let’s apply that framework here in our challenge!
Can I See an Example?
Of Course! Following the model described above, here are some examples:
Inspiring humanity social science and education engaging and interactive
authentic experience designs @atcecollege #teachphilosophy
Learning experiencing sharing knowing doing frequent engagement
anywhere anytime @atcecollege #teachphilosophy
Lisa Marie Johnson, Ph.D.
Academic Trainer & Consultant
Pearson eCollege
*Notes
- Do you want to follow the tweets associated with @atcecollege or the tag #teachphilosophy? You can search without a twitter account by going to the Twitter Search page: http://twitter.com/search/
- Hashtags on Twitter allow for “tagging” a post to twitter (tweet) that makes it easier to search for on twitter. When you include the Twitter name preceded by the at-symbol - @ - it is a Mention of the account and your post shows up in a list of tweets that refer to that account.
- If you do not have a Twitter account, but are on Facebook, you could instead post to our ATC eCollege Facebook account in response to the comment about this post: http://twitter.com/search/
- Hashtags on Twitter allow for “tagging” a post to twitter (tweet) that makes it easier to search for on twitter. When you include the Twitter name preceded by the at-symbol - @ - it is a Mention of the account and your post shows up in a list of tweets that refer to that account.
- If you do not have a Twitter account, but are on Facebook, you could instead post to our ATC eCollege Facebook account in response to the comment about this post: MindShift.
References
Chapnick, A. (2009). How to write a philosophy of teaching and learning statement (pp. 4-5). Faculty Focus Special Report - Philosophy of Teaching Statements: Examples and Tips on How to Write a Teaching Philosophy Statement. Magna Publications. Available from http://www.facultyfocus.com/topic/free-reports/
Stevens III, R. S. (2009). Education as becoming: A philosophy of teaching (pp. 11). Faculty Focus Special Report - Philosophy of Teaching Statements: Examples and Tips on How to Write a Teaching Philosophy Statement. Magna Publications. Available from http://www.facultyfocus.com/topic/free-reports/
The Teaching Center (2007). Writing a teaching philosophy statement. Available from the Washington University in St. Louis: http://teachingcenter.wustl.edu/writing-teaching-philosophy-statement
2009 Conference Reflections
Over the past year I’ve attended academic conferences in the U.S., Mexico, Spain, and Bahrain. Here are a few key takeaways I can offer from my perspective as a higher education assessment consultant.
Academics worldwide are debating the scholarship of teaching and learning quite intensely due largely to the disrupting change of the online for-profits, the ubiquitous acceptance of social networking, and the reality of user created content. An article in last week’s The Chronicle of Higher Education nicely summarized the online for profit sector’s impact on challenging all colleges and universities to do a better job not only of creating and tracking student learning outcomes but also for using the data collected to refine curriculum and instruction with an eye toward improving the student learning experience. Most online programs are able to track all activity in a course including page visits, class discussions, assignment uploads, exams, and grades. They are also able to standardize learning outcomes for all sections of a course to ensure comparability of data. This is the point where traditional academics will raise the academic freedom argument, however, I’ve seen traditional faculty agree on a common set of outcomes and even common assessment rubrics even though the assignments they develop to assess student progress may differ by instructor.
I also just returned from the SACS-Commission on Colleges Annual Meeting in Atlanta. I noticed that many universities were talking about course level assessment of student learning outcomes this year which was new. This is an area where I’ve been focusing for the past 18 months so it was nice to see the academy starting to recognize the importance of getting more granular in the assessment of student learning. Previously nearly everyone was satisfied with program level assessment. Program assessment is still important but it should be triangulated with course level assessment data along with indirect measures such as NSSE, CSSE, or Noel Levitz. Many institutions also participate in either the Voluntary System of Accountability (VSA) or the University and College Accountability Network.
The rise of social networking and user created content is another salient takeaway this year. If Web 2.0 or education gaming was in the session title you could count on a packed room. This was the case worldwide. These technologies are moving beyond the early adaptor stage and more into the mainstream. It is important for digital immigrants (those born before 1995) to recognize that digital natives are used to processing multiple channels at once and having just in time access to information. There are theories circulating that indeed even the structure of a digital native’s brain is different. This means we must adapt our method of teaching to be more of a facilitator as opposed to a lecturer who disseminates knowledge. During a Web 2.0 presentation in Guadalajara, Mexico last week I challenged participants to start using at least one new Web 2.0 application first in their personal lives and then to try to integrate the application into their teaching in the Spring semester. I’d be happy to share my presentation with anyone who’s interested. You can email me at briane@ecollege.com if you’re interested.
It’s truly an exciting time in higher education. The next decade is going to bring about dramatic changes at colleges and universities. I look forward to participating in dialogue with many of you as we do our best to make education more accessible and effective for both learners and employers.
Brian McKay Epp
Academic Trainer and Consultant
A.R.G.
We try really hard to come up with new and innovative ideas at eCollege. It's actually even more creative around here since Pearson took over. We get to flex our academic muscle against technology and financial viability on a regular basis. We talk about CBL (confidence based learning - basically where competence and confidence meet), we discuss programatic and institutional data mining (correlating, comparing, and contrasting grade data, completion metrics, user activity, etc.), and much, much more.
A lot of this has gone relatively unnoticed by the general population. Purdue University recently made a splash on CBS about how they are finding ways to get data across the institution out of the LMS and how it's leading to actionable, data-driven decisions. We've actually done that for years...
But one area that our academic training & consulting team first talked about at a conference 2 years ago is starting to get some traction. It's the notion of alternative reality games for education - ARG's for short.
I happen to get Wired magazine - I highly recommend it! A few years back there was an article about Nine Inch Nails lead singer Trent Reznor and how he created an ARG to market a new album, as well as to try and enlighten folks about the government, global warming, and other things. Without repeating the whole article, the group essentially had thousands of players engaged in a game that they didn't know they were playing. It started with a shirt that had bolded letters on it which spelled out a website and ended with people coming to California to get on buses with blacked out windows and head to a "rally" that turned into a N.I.N concert. But the idea stuck with me.
Why couldn't teachers create games for their students with the students having no idea they were playing? I started by creating a list of learning objectives in my class. Each starting letter of the list was a corresponding letter of my personal website. To my surprise, several students found it, went to my site, and got a small bit of extra credit! So, I started trying other things. I placed "hot spots" on my pages - white text that blended into the background - the when rolled over sent students to a YouTube video. Some students found it. Meanwhile, other students found a puzzle that I created and, upon solving it, found their way to a wiki. There were 4 sets of students working the game from different angles and they didn't realize it until they were well into the game. But here's the cool part...the game was all about the educational stuff I was teaching normally!
Yep - these same students who complained regularly about not having time to dedicate to my class, became entrenched in a game that forced them to learn specific concepts in order to "unlock" puzzle clues. By the time they were into my alternative reality of speech communication, they were already learning! So, my team and I created a game for our user's conference that incorporated many of these same elements.
Fast forward 2 years. At our last user's conference a teacher explained how he played a game of educational clue with his students. He was really just testing the theory - replicating the action to see if it worked. And you know what? It did. He said that students got involved immediately. Students were engaged from start to finish. And he was able to teach them important concepts through the game.
The bottom line is that there are several types of games you might play with your students. But the ramifications are real. Games work. Just Google, "Serious games" and see what you find. You'll find research, data, comprehension statistics, retention numbers, etc., all of which illustrate the power of a game in an educational setting. So give it a shot. Try creating a game that students don't know they're playing until they are in it. You'll be the clever, cool instructor who uses social networks or puzzles or whatever. They will be the enlightened students who remember the details about the theory. You both will be winners.
Jeff D Borden, M.A.
Senior Director of Teaching & Learning
Ed Gaming – A Trend to Watch
“Games have moved beyond 'edutainment' into complex topics that require higher-order thinking.” – Brandon Hall, Chief Learning Officer |
According to http://screentime.org the average American watches 4 hours and 35 minutes of television every day. The same organization cites a study saying 1 in 4 children under the age of 2 have a television in their rooms. In fact, a 2009 report by ABC News found that back in 1999 a survey of seventh grade students in Montreal revealed that 50% of boys and 25% of girls self-reported spending at least 42 hours a week in front of a screen (Dotinga, 2009). Given the advancements in technology one can only assume this number has increased since then.
As an educator, I continually hear teachers at all levels mourning the loss of attention spans among students caused by excessive screen usage. But is there a way to leverage this tendency to actually motivate and engage students in learning? Bryan Alexander, a researcher at the National Institute for Technology and Liberal Education, explains that games can nurture the following list of pedagogical principles: “repetition, scaffolding, multimedia reinforcement, assessment, taking learners to the edge of their zone of proximal development, and increasing challenges over time” (2008).
Creating a culture of gaming on campus requires faculty to be engaged in uncovering quality games for their content areas along with university libraries acquiring digital game assets and promoting them to students. Finally, IT staff must be consulted regarding the bandwidth required to support high-demand software on campus.
As I researched this topic I found myself easily distracted by the wide variety of gaming options for a wide variety of content areas. The first to catch my attention was developed in the UK to educate the pubic on the spread of the swine flu virus http://www.clinical-virology.org/killerflu/killerflu.html. Be careful, you may end up entranced for hours.
Here are some sites that have been highlighted by thought leaders in educational gaming:
- http://www.bogost.com/games/
- http://www.persuasivegames.com/
- http://seriousgames.ning.com/
- http://www.seriousgamessource.com/
- http://www.watercoolergames.org/
A good first step would be to search for a game that would be appropriate for your course and then include it as an assignment with a threaded discussion follow-up activity where students reflect on the content that was presented. Just try not to spend too much time in front of a screen as you’re putting this activity together.
References
Alexander, B. (2008). Games for Higher Education: 2008. EduCause Review, 43 (4).
Hall, B. (2009, January). Five Learning Trends for 2009. Retrieved August 5, 2009 from Chief Learning Officer, http://www.clomedia.com/take-five/brandon-hall/2009/January/2503/index.php
Dotinga, R. (2009). Teens Spending Too Much Screen Time. Retrieved August 4, 2009 from ABC News, Health http://abcnews.go.com/Health/Healthday/Story?id=4510769&page=1
Brian McKay Epp
Academic Trainer and Consultant
Game On!
Do you want to play a game? These words have been uttered in several movies to varying degrees of audienCe fright and delight. From Joshua in War Games to Saw, as a (human) race, we seem fascinated by games. Board games, basketball games, the Olympic games, head games, miNd games, digital games, children’s games, and the list of Games we play as a people goes on and on.
So, why have games gotten such a bad Reputation in educational contexts? After all, we know that games are a great way to teach foundational skills. Ask any 1st grade teAcher about the games they use to teach various subjects and the list will likely be lengthy. Memory, flash cards, word games, and the like are used with great effecTiveness as children learn math, reading, science, and other skills.
But when yoU hear “game” used in any context past 5th grade, it’s generally negative. We talk about people “gaming” the system – there is a popular YouTube video directed at educators which taLks about students learning to “game” school for example. (These students learn just enough to pass, just enough to take the test, etc.) In fact, to try and combat these negative assumptions, educators who reseArch and create games for the classroom have to create phrases like “serious games” or “educational games” just to try and give credibility to the medium.
But games have tremendous teaching and learning potential! NoTe, I’m not just talking about Battleship or Pac Man, but about games that integrate currIculum, increase comprehension, or augment content. I’m talking about gaming in its various forms like simulations, puzzles, word play, alternative reality games, first person narrative games, timed events, logic brainteasers, riddles, and even 3rd person mysteries.
I’m talking abOut River City, created by Chris Dede from Harvard, that allows students to learn about history, chemistry, group communication, biology, research, and math by playing a game in a virtual world. I’m talking about Mystery at M.I.T., the game that integrates political science, logic, journalism, engineering, biology, and other disciplines. I’m referriNg to Discover Babylon, the first person game created by the Foundation of American Scientists and Sony Playstation. From the simulated surgeries at www.edheads.org to the M.U.V.E. (multi-user virtual environment) gameS, educational relevance is well researched and effectiveness is proven.
There are waYs for you to create yOur own, find free downloads, or share resoUrces with others when it comes to gaming. There are conferences, conventions, websites, forums, books, and Journals dedicated to games in educational contexts. BUt I think gaming in the clasSroom comes down to this.
If you don’T think you have time for games, you’re probably right. If you don’t think Games work, you probably won’t find any that do. (I’m A big believer in the self-fulfilling prophecy.) But I would argue that these mindsets are uninforMed and narrow-minded. There are pre-created games in almost every discipline. From political science to math to education to music, games are being used quite imprEssively in schools around the globe. So go find some. In this day and age, we (eDucators) had all better be fantastic “Googlers” – or we can’t stay relevant anyway. So here are a few suggested searches! Type in your discipline followed by the word “game” or the word “applet” or the word “simulation” and see what comes up. You might be pleasantly surprised at what’s out there to support your efforts and (more importantly) your student’s learning.
--J Borden--
Director of Academic Training & Consulting
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