Introduction – Ben Sawyer
Introduction – James Paul Gee
Introduction: Ute Ritterfeld, Rabindra Ratan, Hua Wang & Cuihua Shen
Learning: Empirical Findings – Carole Beal
Learning: Methodological Challenges – Valerie Shute, Matthew Ventura & Malcolm Bauer
Learning: Theoretical Assumptions – Art Graesser
Learning: Applications – Michael Zyda
Development: Empirical Findings – John Sherry & Jayson Dibble
Development: Methodological Challenges – Marco Ennemoser
Development: Theoretical Assumptions – Elly Konijn & Marije Nije Bijvank
Development: Applications – Skip Rizzo
Change: Empirical Findings – Yasmin Kafai
Change: Methodological Challenges – Michael Shapiro & Jorge Peña-Herborn
Change: Theoretical Assumptions – Christoph Klimmt
Change: Applications – Stacey Spiegel
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Introduction
Serious Games and the Elephant
Ben Sawyer
Digitalmill, President
Serious Games Initiative, Co-Director
My talk is simply about a wonderful poem by John Godfrey Saxe adapted
from a wonderful tale of six blind men who went to see an elephant:
It was six men of Indostan,
To learning much inclined,
Who went to see the Elephant
(Though all of them were blind),
That each by observation
Might satisfy his mind.
The First approach'd the Elephant,
And happening to fall
Against his broad and sturdy side,
At once began to bawl:
"God bless me! but the Elephant
Is very like a wall!"
The Second, feeling of the tusk,
Cried, -"Ho! what have we here
So very round and smooth and sharp?
To me 'tis mighty clear,
This wonder of an Elephant
Is very like a spear!"
The Third approach'd the animal,
And happening to take
The squirming trunk within his hands,
Thus boldly up and spake:
"I see," -quoth he- "the Elephant
Is very like a snake!"
The Fourth reached out an eager hand,
And felt about the knee:
"What most this wondrous beast is like
Is mighty plain," -quoth he,-
"'Tis clear enough the Elephant
Is very like a tree!"
The Fifth, who chanced to touch the ear,
Said- "E'en the blindest man
Can tell what this resembles most;
Deny the fact who can,
This marvel of an Elephant
Is very like a fan!"
The Sixth no sooner had begun
About the beast to grope,
Then, seizing on the swinging tail
That fell within his scope,
"I see," -quoth he,- "the Elephant
Is very like a rope!"
And so these men of Indostan
Disputed loud and long,
Each in his own opinion
Exceeding stiff and strong,
Though each was partly in the right,
And all were in the wrong!
MORAL,
So, oft in theologic wars
The disputants, I ween,
Rail on in utter ignorance
Of what each other mean;
And prate about an Elephant
Not one of them has seen!
Introduction
Game Design for Deep Learning
James Paul Gee
University of Wisconsin
The argument that video games carry great potential for learning—that, in fact, games design is itself a form of design for learning and problem solving—is now, I believe, widely accepted. At the same time, many people are attempting to take this insight in the direction of making so-called “serious games” that largely replicate the skill-and-drill now so prevalent in some of our schools. Video games hold out the potential for much deeper conceptual, identity-changing and innovative learning. In this paper, I will discuss aspects of game design for learning—whether in commercial or “serious” games—that speaks to this deeper sort of learning, with a special emphasis on how games can marry experiential learning (which by itself can become too concrete) with generalizations and abstraction (which, of course, by itself can become too abstract).
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Introduction:
Serious Games and Seriously Fun Games: Can They Be One and the Same?
Ute Ritterfeld, Rabindra Ratan, Hua Wang and Cuihua Shen
University of Southern California
Serious games constitute an increasing portion of the current gaming market. Apart from their acclaimed educational potential, the entertainment aspect of serious games has not been systematically examined. Are serious games equally enjoyable to their non-serious counterparts? If not, what improvements are needed? This study aims to answer these questions by measuring the enjoyability of available serious games according to the standards usually applied to “fun” games. First, about 200 game reviews in four top professional game magazines are analyzed across ten platforms and ten common genres. Results of the content analysis identify specific entertainment elements that make a game fun to play, based on expert’s opinions. Second, a taxonomy of serious games is developed through a survey of over 150 (self-acclaimed?) serious games. Particular types of games are shown to cluster together on certain factors, such as age of target group, location of play, type of serious content, and educational structure. Finally, a sample of serious games is selected from each of the main clusters in the taxonomy. College students are randomly assigned to play these games and rate their enjoyability according to the characteristics highlighted in the analysis of fun game reviews.
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Learning: Empirical Findings
Serious games for K12 education
Carole R. Beal
University of Southern California
Computer games have great power to engage players. The best entertainment games can attract the player’s attention, hold his or her interest over long periods of time, and promote the development of expertise through extended practice and exploration of the game. It seems plausible that the interactivity, high-quality graphics, and exciting storylines and settings of entertainment games might be used to improve educational outcomes in K12 settings. Yet to be successful, we will need to create a “serious game” design philosophy informed by an understanding of the K12 classroom: First, serious games for education will need to appeal to a wide range of students, even those who are not traditional “gamers” in the entertainment market. Second, serious games will need to continually adapt the game play to the individual player to encourage success, and provide scaffolding and guidance, so that the student’s limited classroom time is used effectively. Third, serious games for educational use must be aligned with curriculum standards and provide empirical evidence that game play leads to improved learning outcomes. Finally, serious games must be instrumented so that classroom teachers can access real-time assessments of students’ behavior and continually-updated estimates of students’ proficiency in the target content area.
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Learning: Methodological Challenges
Melding the power of serious games and embedded assessments
to foster learning: Flow and grow
Valerie J. Shute, Matthew Ventura and Malcolm Bauer
Educational Testing Service
There is an enormous chasm between what kids do for fun and what they are required to do in school. School covers material we deem “important,” but kids are highly motivated by what they do for fun (e.g., interactive games). Imagine these two worlds united. Because student engagement is strongly associated with academic achievement, combining school material with games has tremendous potential to increase learning, especially for lower performing, disengaged students. This presentation will describe a viable solution to the methodological obstacles that surround such an important unification. After defining “serious games” and “stealth assessments,” we will show how these two can be joined by employing evidence-centered design (ECD) to support learning in the context of gaming environments. The ECD approach embeds assessments directly into the gaming environment, permitting the transparent collection and analysis of meaningful, emergent data to be used to enhance the efficiency and effectiveness of the entire gaming/learning experience. We plan to illustrate these ideas using several well-known serious games.
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Learning: Theoretical Assumptions
Theories of Learning and Emotion Underlying Serious Games
Art Graesser
University of Memphis
Serious games need to be fortified by theories of learning and emotion so it is important to explicitly identify the theoretical underpinnings. This paper will identify prominent relevant theoretical foundations of learning, such as cognitive challenge, curiosity, constructivism, case-based reasoning, goals and planning, feedback, zone of proximal learning, flow, automaticity, reflection, multitasking, and multimedia processing. Emotions and more subtle affective states are intertwined with learning with serious games. This paper will also identify affect-learning links that frequently occur as learners experience confusion, frustration, anger, surprise, boredom, flow, delight, and amusement. If time permits, we will describe a learning community with college students who designed serious games that incorporated topics in psychology.
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Learning: Applications
Expose, Distract, Motivate and Measure: Virtual Reality Games
for Mental Health & Rehabilitation
Albert “Skip” Rizzo
University of Southern California
The rapidly growing popularity of digital games has now added new momentum to the vision of creating immersive and interactive Virtual Reality (VR) experiences for a wide range of human health needs beyond just the entertainment value that comes from playing games! In addition to the readily intuitive application area of game-based learning for education and training purposes (Prensky, 2001), the mental health and rehabilitation fields stand to substantially benefit from advances in this area. The integration of game play and technology with VR-based approaches for clinical assessment, treatment and rehabilitation offers powerful options that could revolutionize standard practices in these fields (Rizzo & Kim, 2005). At the present time, VR games can be said to offer specific attributes or ingredients that are well matched to the needs of many mental health and rehabilitation targets. In general terms, these fundamental attributes include: exposure, distraction, motivation, and measurement. These applications have leveraged the assets that have come from advances in both game technology and from the unique experience that is fostered from the psychologically involving act of game play. Such game based health initiatives may provide hope that innovative methods can be created to advance clinical areas that have long been mired in the methods of the past. This presentation will begin with an introduction on how and why game assets can be used to create applications in mental health and rehabilitation and will then review the work done by others and the status of our various projects at USC. Time permitting, ethical issues in this area will also be addressed.
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Development: Empirical Findings
Games and Learning across the Lifespan
John Sherry & Jayson Dibble
Michigan State University
Research has shown that gaming interest, genre preference, and ability varies by age, individual differences, sex, and environment. Additionally, ample research has demonstrated that learning varies across time by cognitive stage, individual differences, sex, and environment. This chapter attempts to synthesize these findings by reviewing both gaming and developmental research and applying those findings to the case of serious game design.
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Development: Methodological Challenges
What Can We Learn from Previous Research on Media Effects
and Educational Intervention?
Marco Ennemoser
Justus-Liebig-Universitat Giessen
The use of computer and video games for non entertainment purposes is an emerging field of research. Serious games seem to offer tremendous possibilities extending into many different domains, such as education, training, health and public policy. The empirical evaluation of the assumed benefits will be one major challenge for upcoming research on serious games. With respect to methodological issues raised by this challenge there is much to be learned from prior shortcomings and recent progress in related fields of research, especially research on educational interventions and media effects. Methodological requirements for evaluation studies in serious games research are discussed.
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Development: Theoretical Assumptions
Doors To Another Me. Identity Construction Through Video Game Play
Elly A. Konijn and Marije Nije Bijvank
VU University Amsterdam
Adolescents face a particularly critical task in their development to adult life - to develop an integrated identity. Research shows that role models play an important role in this process, both in real life and in the media. Thus far, only few studies examined video or computer game characters as role models, whereas playing video games is a popular pastime, especially among male adolescents. Therefore, we will discuss how game play influences developmental processes in adolescents. We will focus on the underlying psychological mechanisms of the impact of playing entertainment games and how these may apply to serious games. Video and computer games not only provide a variety of role models, but the interactivity in contemporary games further supports the opportunities to experiment vicariously with 'possible selves.' Mechanisms that underlie this process of identity construction through playing games are wishful identification, mastering challenges, immersion and presence, and perceiving realism. These mechanisms should be exploited in serious games to enlarge their potential for identity construction among adolescents.
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Development: Applications
Welcoming Games as THE Educational Medium
Michael Zyda
University of Southern California
The 2002 report entitled "2020 Visions" issued by the US Departments of Education & Commerce and authored by an august body of scientists and technologists indicated a future where the requirement for teachers was drastically reduced, with teachers being replaced by videogames & attached Cogs on the sides of the heads of students. We are close to being able to provide individually-directed, human state informed, measurable learning from games, matching this report's vision. In this talk, we discuss how we get there technologically, financially and what we are doing about this in the USC GamePipe Laboratory.
Change: Empirical Findings – Yasmin Kafai
Serious Games for Girls: Pathways into Gender Equity
Yasmin Kafai
University of California at Los Angeles
Only title for now. Abstract is coming soon.
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Change: Methodological Challenges
Generalizability and Validity in Computer Game Research
Michael A. Shapiro and Jorge Peña-Herborn
Cornell University
Computer games present a number of challenges that were difficult to imagine when many of our extant approaches to generalizability and validity were conceived. These challenges include the difficulties of investigating extremely dynamic stimuli. While the basic nature and structure of a television documentary has remained relatively stable for decades, the nature and structure of computer games changes each couple of years. Even as a player plays a particular game, the events and other features change with each playing. Players change as well, gaining experience with specific games and games in general. In our paper we will explore how game research has been conducted, explore current strategies for generalizability and validity and suggest some future directions.
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Change: Theoretical Assumptions
Serious games and social change: A working model of why they (should) work
Christoph Klimmt
Hannover University of Music and Drama
Change of undesired social behaviour within a target population is the main goal of most efforts in entertainment-education (E-E; cf. Singhal & Rogers, 2002). I outline a working model of how playing serious games designed for the facilitation of change may overcome the stable and strongly-rooted cognitive origins of undesired behaviour. The model identifies multimodality, interactivity, social game play online, narrative, and the game-frame of experience as important properties of contemporary computer games that can also be adopted for serious games. Based on these properties, 15 different mechanisms that could potentially contribute to a serious game's effect on social change are introduced. These mechanisms refer to players' motivation to select / be confronted with a change-related message, comprehension and knowledge acquisition, and persuasion/attitude change. Whether any of these mechanisms can be effective in a given game depends on various (operational) conditions, especially the question how the change-related message is integrated into the interactive gameplay experience.
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Change: Applications
Playing in the Parallel World
Stacey Spiegel
Parallel World Labs Inc., CEO
McMaster University, Hamilton, ON/Canada
Surprisingly, the earliest adopters of Serious Games (formerly referred to as Edutainment) were the top museums from around the world. By investing their content expertise and risking their enormous audience base, visionary museum directors utilized some of the world’s most advanced new media technologies in pursuing new models of experiential learning. Complex scientific issues require new tools for social communication; at the forefront of these innovative projects are unique collaborative teams. Combining both real and virtual world technologies, topics range from inner space exploration to deep space theory, from healing nanobots to challenging energy solutions – each scenario played out through millions of active users. In presenting a series of projects from Interactive Immersion Cinema to Virtual Canada, I intend to highlight the learning and the challenges for Serious Games in building a more involving and emotionally engaging media future.
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