The Digital Game-Based Learning(3)

Many of the generational change ideas presented here, which come from a variety of sources, have been explored and very cogently and expertly presented by others, in particular Don Tapscott in his book Growing up Digital. Part of my goal is to extend and build on Tapscott’s work. As he points out so well, the N-generation, play and learning (as well as play and many other things, such as business) are beginning to come together and be one and the same, and that an important way this is happening is through the invention, creation, dissemination and use of digital games for learning and training — not just for children, but for adults as well

But an important element of this book, Digital Game-Based Learning, is that it is not only theoretical, about how the generations are different, but also practical, about how we can bridge the generations in the area of learning and training.

The second key piece of my thesis is that learning through Digital Games is a wave of the future. Here I am indebted to J.C. Herz and her wonderful book Joystick Nation, as well as her reviews of games in the Game Theory column she initiated and wrote for the Circuits Section of the New York Times from 1996-1999.

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增强现实 虚拟现实 人机交互

It is becoming clear that one reason we are not more successful at educating our children and workforce, despite no lack of effort on our part, is because we are working hard to educate a new generation in old ways, using tools that have ceased to be effective.

No less an authority than the late Dr. Albert Shanker, head of both the New York City Teachers Union (UFT) and later the national teachers union (AFT) claimed, as far back as 1988, that “only 20 to 25 percent of students currently in school can learn effectively from traditional methods of teaching.” 12

And in 1999 John Chambers, CEO of Cisco Systems, stated “technology is moving too fast right now for companies’ traditional hire-and-train methods to work.” 13

Anyone who is barely awake knows that today's kids, teens and young adults — Generations X, Y, and Z — don't relate well to traditional teaching methods. "Every time I go to school I have to power down!" complains one student. Corporate education and training are even worse.

Many blame the students. But as Colin Powell said to the 2000 Republican Convention, “Our children are not the problem, the problem is us!” We are all living through an immense technological revolution, yet mainstream education and training have done precious little to accommodate the new learning styles of those individuals raised on Sesame Street, MTV, fast action films, video games, Walkmen, Gameboys and the Internet. For a generation that taught itself computers, their approach is still the same old “tell-test” methodology as always. And despite the growing number of Web-based offerings, the dirty little secret of most Web-based training is that completion rates are appalling!

It’s all so boring!

“The reason most kids don’t like school is not that the work is too hard,” ,says Dr. Seymour Papert, MIT Professor, “but that it is utterly boring!” 14 Ditto, triple and quadruple for most corporate training!

Why is this so? Why is most learning — whether in schools or corporations, whether instructor-led or computer-based — so incredibly unengaging? And does it have to be the case? Although there are many points of view on this issue, it is my view that if we want to improve education, whether in schools, institutions or in corporate classrooms, it is incumbent upon us (and eventually upon the people from those generations) to invent radically new ways of learning that mesh with their new world, style and capabilities.

Digital Game-Based Learning is an important one of these ways. It is certainly not the only one, but it represents one of the first effective and doable means to alter the learning process in a way that appeals to, and excites, people from the “games generations.”

Clifford Stoll, in his book High Tech Heretic says, “I may be old fashioned, but learning is hard work.” 15 Digital Game-Based Learning doesn’t dispute this. What is changing

增强现实 虚拟现实 人机交互

in the term “hard work” is not the “hard” part — no one seriously disputes that effort and energy is involved in learning. The change is in the word “work.” Learning, as great teachers have known throughout the ages does not feel like work when you’re having fun. The MIT Media Lab folks have a term for this, “hard fun,” taken from the comment of a 3rd grader, searching for a way to describe the learning he had just done. 16 Digital Game-Based Learning can certainly be hard fun. But at its very best, even the hard part goes away, and it becomes all fun, a really good time from which, at the end, you have gotten better at something, through a process that Doug Crockford of LucasArts has referred to as “stealth learning.” 17

The Opportunities in the Digital Game-Based Learning

Revolution

Digital Game-Based Learning is an alternative that is being used — with amazing and increasing success — in pockets and "skunk works" around our corporations, schools and institutions such as the military. From business simulators to pre-school "edutainment" titles, a new learning paradigm — learning via play — is gradually emerging:

Pre-schoolers learn the alphabet and reading through computer games 18

Elementary students learn the K-6 curriculum on Playstations; scores rise 30-40% 19

Computer chess becomes a big part of K-12 curriculums 20

Typing games are among the top-selling software products 21

High schools students play a multiplayer onli …… 此处隐藏：5942字，全部文档内容请下载后查看。喜欢就下载吧 ……