Gaming and the Firewall: Exploring Learning Through Play via Game Design With Children.

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Bibliographic Details
Title:	Gaming and the Firewall: Exploring Learning Through Play via Game Design With Children.
Authors:	Bates, Matthew¹ matthew.bates@ntu.ac.uk, Brown, David¹ david.brown@ntu.ac.uk, Cranton, Wayne¹ wayne.cranton@ntu.ac.uk, Lewis, James¹ james.lewis@ntu.ac.uk
Source:	Proceedings of the European Conference on Games Based Learning. 2009, p8-16. 9p. 3 Color Photographs, 2 Diagrams, 5 Charts, 1 Graph.
Subject Terms:	Video games, Educational games, *Computer software development, Multiplayer games, Video games & children
Abstract:	Respect from your peers is priceless in today's video-game culture. Gamers learn through play and share knowledge with others to form important social scaffolds. However, the potential of gaming as an emerging educational medium is often overlooked by schools and libraries which block access via firewall software and classify gaming as a threat! Could the ability for children to explore gaming in the classroom provide an important motivation for participation in group discussion and design? Knowledge transfer via collaborative activities can be readily observed in commercial Massively Multiplayer Online Games (MMOs) such as World of Warcraft. Some suggest it is a quest for greater social status within the gaming community that encourages players to gather and trade knowledge through exploration with others. Simple 'web-games' such as the MMO Poptropica are cultivating similar online communities through peripheral methods such as media rich blogs. Created by gamers as young as 12, these blogs often rival content created by official games developers. Current research within the Interactive Systems Research Group at Nottingham Trent University is investigating the pedagogies of these young gamers by collaborating with the Derbyshire Libraries group (consisting of over 40 individual libraries) and a design team of children aged 11-16. The group is observing how these young gamers convert their gaming knowledge into instructional theory when presented with key learning goals and a selection of physical and digital design tools. The design team has participated in a series of after school workshops at a local secondary school to design a new library based video-game. Workshop activities have included creating simple rule sets by modifying popular board games and building design prototypes using accessible games creation software. The team has used both Game Maker and Sims Carnival to create and modify a variety of simple game designs. A project blog for the investigation has been monitored to uncover if the social scaffolds created via large scale MMOs can also be experienced in educational activities of a much smaller scale. This paper discusses the conceptual design of this research including how video-games provide an important motivation for knowledge transfer via social activities. The initial results of the investigation are discussed including issues encountered with firewall software in secondary schools and libraries. The suitability of video footage, worksheets and electronic blogs as methods of data capture are assessed for use with children and important future work is highlighted. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]
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Database:	Education Research Complete

Description
Abstract:	Respect from your peers is priceless in today's video-game culture. Gamers learn through play and share knowledge with others to form important social scaffolds. However, the potential of gaming as an emerging educational medium is often overlooked by schools and libraries which block access via firewall software and classify gaming as a threat! Could the ability for children to explore gaming in the classroom provide an important motivation for participation in group discussion and design? Knowledge transfer via collaborative activities can be readily observed in commercial Massively Multiplayer Online Games (MMOs) such as World of Warcraft. Some suggest it is a quest for greater social status within the gaming community that encourages players to gather and trade knowledge through exploration with others. Simple 'web-games' such as the MMO Poptropica are cultivating similar online communities through peripheral methods such as media rich blogs. Created by gamers as young as 12, these blogs often rival content created by official games developers. Current research within the Interactive Systems Research Group at Nottingham Trent University is investigating the pedagogies of these young gamers by collaborating with the Derbyshire Libraries group (consisting of over 40 individual libraries) and a design team of children aged 11-16. The group is observing how these young gamers convert their gaming knowledge into instructional theory when presented with key learning goals and a selection of physical and digital design tools. The design team has participated in a series of after school workshops at a local secondary school to design a new library based video-game. Workshop activities have included creating simple rule sets by modifying popular board games and building design prototypes using accessible games creation software. The team has used both Game Maker and Sims Carnival to create and modify a variety of simple game designs. A project blog for the investigation has been monitored to uncover if the social scaffolds created via large scale MMOs can also be experienced in educational activities of a much smaller scale. This paper discusses the conceptual design of this research including how video-games provide an important motivation for knowledge transfer via social activities. The initial results of the investigation are discussed including issues encountered with firewall software in secondary schools and libraries. The suitability of video footage, worksheets and electronic blogs as methods of data capture are assessed for use with children and important future work is highlighted. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]
ISSN:	20490992