Play with Learning

What Games are Good For?

In spite of my criticisms of many educational games, I believe passionately in the potential of games to inspire learning. I don’t think that games are a panacea but they do have many characteristics that can make a profoundly positive impact on our lives.  The real educational value for gaming lies in four key areas:

• Cosmetics – making the unpleasant or mundane more palatable
• Confidence – offering the chance to practise and fail softly
• Catalyst – as a spring board to further investigation
• Collaboration – as a means of pooling our intellectual and social capital

Cosmetics

bbc questionaut

For many years we have adopted game mechanics to make ordinary activities more engaging. Recently that process has gained a higher profile and more glamour through the term “gamification.”

The most common form of educational game is the quiz.  A quiz is simply, a glorified, gamified, test. I’m not being disparaging, on the contrary: there is no doubt that ‘treating’ assessment in this way makes it more engaging without diminishing any of its quantification value.  Quizzes make the process of testing knowledge more enjoyable but you still need to identify the right answer to progress.

Although mainly used to check knowledge, this same approach can help raise awareness and change behaviour.  It’s a technique deployed for loyalty reward points such as Air Miles, travelling (Foursquare and Gowalla)  and environmentally-friendly driving behaviour (Toyota Prius, Nissan Leaf, etc.)

Confidence

flight sim

There are many circumstances where we want to practice before being exposed to a real situation.  Those circumstances might be technical, financial or social but where getting it wrong in reality might cause real problems. Games provide the perfect environment to practice, to experiment, to fail softly.

It goes without saying that we’d prefer our airline pilots to train using simulators before taking the controls of a real jumbo jet.  Games can also provide a proving ground for social interactions, leadership skills, teamwork.  Although the fidelity of the game is unlikely to present an entirely true mapping with reality, the experience of playing within a recognisable environment helps develop important, transferable, understanding.  I suspect the translation to reality will always need some additional contextualisation and the scaffolding but it does at least prepare the ground, and even if the game and reality are radically different it can help the player feel more confident.

Catalyst

myst

Where games have proved to be enormously valuable is when the experience has been scaffolded or supported by an enthusiastic teacher who can use the game play as a stimulus for other activity. Good teachers (formal or informal) can draw out of the game transferable lessons such as urban planning from SimCity, rotational geometry from Tetris, creative writing from Myst or social etiquette from the Sims.

In these circumstances, the accuracy of the game is less important than its ability to engage:

Jonny Ball famously said “Don’t let the facts get in the way of a good joke.”

Games are excellent in their ability to bring a subject to life, encourage exploration and provoke further thought.  Even if a game is not strictly true in its representation of objects or events those inaccuracies can form a powerful stimulus for further investigation and discussion. From my own experience, I know that the flaws in games can prove powerful provocations for debate and that that can generate profound learning.

Collaboration

CASP9 Refinement Puzzle 2

The combined problem-solving activity of the gaming world is racking up some astonishing figures – people have played World of Warcraft for an incredible 6 million years of combined effort since its launch in 2004.  The biggest growth area in gaming is multiplayer games with millions of players around the globe regularly engaged.  And the activity is predominantly team-based – these are virtual communities at ‘work’.  That shared experience, that voluntary collaboration – “cognitive surplus”, as Clay Shirky might call it, “blissful productivity” Jane McGonigal might say, can be channelled into very valuable focus such as the example of gamers identifying the structure of a new retroviral enzyme.

There is something deeply satisfying about solving a problem, beating a challenge or experiencing something new when it is done with others.  The social nature of online gaming has great potential to bring people together for a common purpose.

Imagine if we made more use of that combined effort: what other real world problems and challenges might gamers solve?

I have no doubt whatsoever that games can make a unique contribution to education and society.  I think that in the past we have, perhaps, been overconfident in our expectations: wrongly assuming that games on their own could solve many, if not all, of the barriers to learning.  However, if we take the true characteristics of games and embed them in a well thought through set of experiences then we have something that  will be genuinely different and make a genuine difference.

Why technology is failing in schools

Edudemic posted this collection of presentations recently describing not only why technology is failing to deliver real benefits in schools but more importantly, some ideas about how to fix it.

Why it’s failing

The Future of Technology and Education

Changing Education with Web 2.0 tools

What are your experiences of using technology in school? Is it still the preserve of the enthusiastic teacher or IT support? What do you think?

Education builds your brain

busy brain

I struggled writing the title for this blog because it’s so obvious isn’t it?  Of course education makes us cleverer, for many that’s the whole point.  I suspect that many people, like me, have assumed that it’s about ‘filling’ our heads with knowledge but learning offers much more than that – it’s not just about making the most of the cognitive ability we have, the process of developing skills (mental, affective and physical) actually improves the brain itself.

According to the Brainwaves 2 report from the Royal Society this month (summarised earlier), education is “the most broadly and consistently successful cognitive enhancer of all.”  It recognises that in popular understanding, cognitive enhancement is more usually associated with drugs, vitamins or sophisticated technologies so it’s nice to be reassured that that fundamental part of our lives, learning, is the most effective neurological exercise we can enjoy.

It’s reinforced by a study published in Bio-med Central by researchers looking at the Framingham Offspring Study. Analysis of nearly 4000 participants indicates that better education leads to lower blood pressure, lower body mass index (BMI), less smoking and less drinking (although educated women drink more than their less educated sisters, apparently).

It’s an important message to send to those who think the purpose of school is merely to find a job and that learning ends at the school gate.

New Year’s Revolution

calendar

I’m excited about this year. I’m not one for making New Year’s resolutions but this year is something of a revolution because I have something better. A new business. A new opportunity.

After years of working as an academic, for the BBC and a couple of great independent media companies, I have started my own business, Play with Learning; this blog is its online face.

I’ve decided to take the experience and expertise I’ve gained from working in educational media over the last 16 years and translate it into a service I can offer to a wider audience.  Play with Learning is my vehicle for working with partners to create meaningful experiences.  I want to exploit the combination of academic rigour, editorial integrity, innovative creativity and robust project management to provide real value both for content providers and end-users.

So what am I actually going to do? Three things, all focussed on optimising the user experience:

• Concept design and testing – helping to establish the most effective solution to needs and requirement for proposals and pre-production and then testing them with users during development
• Creative direction – helping teams to maintain the highest level of quality during production by acting as a ‘critical friend’
• Evaluation – helping to assess impact and return-on-investment on delivered products and services

I’m excited about it.  Maybe we could work together?  Why not drop me a line?  I’d love to see what opportunities there are for us.

A degree of value?

student demo

Today the UK parliament votes to triple fees to study for a higher education degree. Given the composition of the House of Commons, the outcome of the vote is largely predictable. The effect on future generations is less clear.

When student tuition fees were introduced in 2006, Universities UK (UUK), the representative organisation for the UK’s universities, commissioned PwC to assess the economic value of higher education. They calculated that over a lifetime graduates would earn £160,000 more than holders of A-levels without degrees. This extra income was assumed by many to mitigate the £9000 debt (not including living expenses) that young adults have when they leave university.

Of course, that’s not the whole picture. If we assume students can live off £80-100/week during term time (to pay rent, bills, food, clothes, etc) and enjoy the cost-free luxury of parents at other times, it adds another £9000 over the course of a typical three year degree. Even before this proposed increase in fees, that would leave the average 21 year old graduate with an £18,000 millstone of debt around their neck. {i’, being wildly optimistic with these figures, too. In 2004, before fees were introduced at all, the NatWest bank estimated the average cost of a degree was £26,000]

Graduates will pay that off over time. There’s no question of it but it means years of payments and the virtual impossibility of saving for any other cause, the deposit for a house, for example.

Before the government of the 80s taught us that living beyond our means was a good thing, ordinary folk avoided debt like the plague. Many working class families simply could conceive of borrowing that amount of money for something apparently intangible. It’s an entirely different proposition if one has the Bank of Mum and Dad to pay off any outstanding loans.

Now the coalition government wants to triple those fees. £9000/ year for the best universities. £27,000 for the typical degree, not including living expenses. Put another way, that’s £100/ month for 22.5 years with the students living on free air. If you’re a parent and don’t want your child saddled with crippling debt, you’ll need to start saving before your child is born. If you want a degree yourself, you’ll be university-debt free by the time you are 44. 44.

How many poor kids or parents do you know able to make that sacrifice? Would you in these economically uncertain times?

There’s a misconception that only the student benefits from a degree, it’s the reason many resent paying their taxes to support the university system. But, it is a flawed argument. We all benefit from having the most educated society possible. Don’t get me wrong, I am not suggesting that everyone should have or needs a degree (although I passionately believe everyone should have the right to the best possible education to whatever level they choose). Every single one of our lives is improved by talented, educated people in all walks of life whether they are doctors, engineers, teachers, dare I say, even artists and musicians.

I oppose the rise in tuition fees because I believe they will stop poor but gifted young people from being stretched at university, exacerbating the already shameful inequalities on our education system. And I oppose the rise in fees because I believe our society will be impoverished economically, culturally and intellectually by fewer graduates.

The cost of education is high but the cost of ignorance is much much higher.

The Week’s Review

Some of the articles that have caught my eye this week:

Male modesty is a turn off for women (and men), at least in job interviews. From Rutgers University http://news.rutgers.edu/medrel/special-content/summer_2010/rutgers-study-finds-20100726

Send a picture of your face on the final shuttle missions. https://faceinspace.nasa.gov/index.aspx

Cambridge study suggests that education reduces the risk of dementia http://brain.oxfordjournals.org/cgi/reprint/133/8/2210 (pdf).

Here’s Where the E-Learning Community Provides Practical Value http://www.articulate.com/rapid-elearning/heres-where-the-e-learning-community-provides-practical-value

How the social web is transforming research data collection. From New Scientist http://www.newscientist.com/article/mg20727701.100-social-web-the-great-tipping-point-test.html

A beautifully written speech about the gift of intelligence, and the choice of kindness. http://committedparent.wordpress.com/2010/07/18/teaching-kids-to-be-clever-or-kind/

Delighted to hear that BBC Trust concludes Public Value Test not required for mobile apps http://www.bbc.co.uk/bbctrust/news/press_releases/july/mobile_apps.shtml

BBC News iPhone and iPad app launches in the UK. And it’s good. Story: http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/technology-10738882 itunes link: http://itunes.apple.com/gb/app/bbc-news/id377382255?mt=8

A collection of videos from user experience experts courtesy of Smashing Magazine http://www.smashingmagazine.com/2010/01/05/25-user-experience-videos-that-are-worth-your-time/

10 Tools for Getting Web Design Feedback. From Mashable http://mashable.com/2010/07/22/web-design-feedback-tools/

How to use game mechanics top power your business. From Mashable. http://mashable.com/2010/07/13/game-mechanics-business/

The ups and downs of social networks. From the BBC. http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/technology-10719042

More evidence, if it was needed, that education leadership has a major impact on student achievement. http://www.wallacefoundation.org/KnowledgeCenter/KnowledgeTopics/CurrentAreasofFocus/EducationLeadership/Pages/learning-from-leadership-investigating-the-links-to-improved-student-learning.aspx

Self questioning (Will I?) more motivational than self declaration (I will), apparently. From The Frontal Cortex http://scienceblogs.com/cortex/2010/07/will_i.php

Interesting thoughts about why training isn’t working from TrainingZone http://www.trainingzone.co.uk/blogs/steve001/inspiredblog/training-isnt-working

Social Media in Education (Part 3) – Learning

This is my last blog of the thoughts I shared at the recent Social Media in Education podcamp.  In my previous two posts, I’ve suggested that educational initiatives using Facebook et al have often failed to appreciate user behaviour or offer any genuine social value to their audience.  I end with the thought that for education providers, reach is not enough – we have to improve the learning of our users through our online schemes.

Increasing numbers of institutions are using games as an educational vehicle.  We know that games are highly attractive to many users, particularly those traditionally hard to reach groups, and we know that gameplay demonstrates all manner of learning processes.  However, it is a mistake to equate high numbers of hits with high levels of learning.

It is clear that quiz-like games are effective at assessing knowledge and good teachers can help players extract lessons and skills from games but as Professor David Buckingham reported for the Byron Report there is no empirical evidence that games per se generate transferable learning, that is learning that is valuable outside the game itself.  What that means in practice is that the ability to solve a fiendishly complex puzzle in Professor Layton doesn’t mean you’re any better equipped to solve the problem of finding your lost keys at home. Unless, unless, someone talks you through the process of what you’ve just done and forces you to reflect and describe what’s happened.

So the headline figures quoted by some organisations about ‘millions of hits’ while enviable in terms of reach, are not the whole story for educational ROI. The drive for user numbers is understandable – page impressions are easy to measure, not so with impact, change and learning.  But that’s what ultimately matters for us: we’re going to have to prove that our investment is more than marketing spend.

In our age of austerity, Education will come under intense scrutiny to prove its value for money both from funders and customer-students.  Our current government has an official antipathy to project-based, holistic approaches. It favours rote learning and a return to ‘traditional’ subjects as the means of improving educational standards.  It is already a hostile environment for initiatives that appear to be style over substance.  Add to that recent academic reports that suggest computers can be detrimental to the education of poor and disenfranchised learners, amplify those fears through the respectable mainstream press and we face a situation that could put educational uses of technology back a generation.

As someone who believes computers and the web offer unique opportunities for learning it seems that we need to raise our game if we want to exploit social media for education.

Social Media in Education (Part 2) – Value

In my previous post, I suggested that for learning providers, simply having a presence on social media networks is not enough to engage students: not only are teens fabulously fickle, they are wary, resentful even, of authorities encroaching into their personal space:

“Facebook is more a ‘personal’ thing and i don’t really want to get school involved in it,” said one 14 year old girl.

“i believe that the schools influence should remain on the premises and should not stray into your social life,” echoed a 16 year old boy.

Unlike the natural attraction teens demonstrate towards their peers, it seems fairly rare for a teen to show any intrinsic interest in their school or college (75% say they don’t or wouldn’t use a school Facebook page).  In the main, they’re just not interested.  If they’re there, they want something from it.

An establishment in Buckinghamshire provided a range of bespoke collaborative tools hosted on their virtual learning environment (VLE).  But the tutors were disappointed to discover that no students used the tools beyond the induction session and the compulsory assessment exercises.  Meanwhile there was an entirely independent and thriving Facebook community where students shared experiences and supported each other with assignments.  It wasn’t that the institution’s tools weren’t good, on the contrary, they were far more tailored to the needs of the students than those available publicly; rather the issue was one of trust and management.  Participation in the formal learning environment transferred ownership and authority to the college, students were effectively entering school property. And the contributions in that space felt more scrutinised than the open-to-anyone Facebook group.  The knowledge that tutors were ‘lurking,’ albeit benignly, in the VLE gave the impression that every post was being assessed and this prevented any free-flowing conversation.  The Facebook group, on the other hand, was theirs, and somehow psychologically isolated from prying eyes.

The case study also illustrates the challenge of managing online spaces.  Bear Stearns (the global investment bank now part of JPMorgan Chase) defined 4 categories in the social networking space and Matt Locke of Channel 4 revised those categories into his six spaces of social media.  If any activity can be compartmentalised into dedicated domains (e.g. science in the laboratory,

work email on the office computer) then switching tasks is as straightforward as swapping rooms but when the lines start to blur (such as homework), people seek the path of least resistance – how do I do this most easily?  In these cases, the management of the online spaces often boils down to “Can I do what I need to here?”  Unless the second online space has something new to offer, or perhaps more importantly makes life easier, users will generally make do with what they have: simply duplicating facilities is not enough to encourage people to transfer allegiance or manage both simultaneously.

Engaging learners isn’t just about making the resource fit the user’s space though. A recent research project in Scotland described a year-long study where students were given a host of social media tools to co-develop learning materials for their course.  The team reported a number of positive findings including the value of contributing and the sense of feeling part of something.  But they also described how users regarded participation as extra pressure and how it didn’t improve reflective practice.  Most tellingly, no-one, not one single student, continued to use the tools after the study (and its associated payments and incentives) finished.

I think what these examples demonstrate is that you can’t force students to engage with social media and secondly if there is a genuine need or desire, learners will seek out the most convenient format, regardless of where that sits, but ideally in  spaces they already operate.

Crucially though, neither initiative offered any real value to the learners.  In their own words:

“I don’t think there’s anything on it that i need to know”

“I just dont bother to and im busy.”

We seem to forget that young people are not compelled to accept Authority coming into their personal spaces.  At this age (14-19), perhaps more than any other, learners will never be ‘friends’ with their school or college.  At best, the institution will be a ‘Dad at the Disco’ type acquaintance.  The only reason learner’s will come, let alone participate, is if they believe they will profit from the effort – either through immediate gratification or by taking something away that improves their life.

Social Media in Education (Part 1)

I was fortunate to participate in the recent Social Media in Education podcamp at Doncaster College. In the midst of many people highlighting the benefits of social media, I speculated about the reasons so many initiatives from educational establishments fail to engage. Not to ridicule or condemn but to improve. This is about learning, after all.

My slightly provocative take on the issue isn’t because I think Facebook, Twitter, et al are frivolous and whimsical distractions. I don’t consider myself a Luddite. My whole career has focussed on education: I believe wholeheartedly that technology can enhance the learning process and we know that learning is dependent on dialogue so social media should represent the perfect learning technology. In that case, why do so many social media projects from learning providers not deliver?

I think there are three key reasons for our failure:
• We don’t appreciate online user behaviour
• Our projects don’t offer real value to learners
• Our social media schemes don’t actually support learning

Let me illustrate what I mean over this and the next couple of blog posts.

Many schools and colleges have Facebook pages. Some, like this particular centre in the Midlands, have an apparently respectable number of ‘fans’: more than 1800 from a total student body of 9500.

That seems quite impressive until one starts to examine Facebook usage by the 14-19 year old age group. Rather than rely on the official statistics, I conducted my own piece of research with some of the young people I have the privilege of supporting at a couple of youth groups in the UK.

I spoke to fifty teenagers, not a particularly large sample but broadly representative of the national socio-economic mix so I feel reasonably confident that we can draw some conclusions from their responses.

The first thing to recognise is that this age group has considerably more ‘friends’ than Facebook users generally. In my sample, the mean number of ‘friends’ was 402, and to acknowledge the distortion caused by the odd couple who had 1000 or more connections, the median value was 361. This is significantly more than current average of 130 (http://www.facebook.com/press/info.php?statistics) and Dunbar’s Number of the most people with whom we can maintain a stable relationship (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dunbar%27s_number).

What’s more, in this small group at least, the number of friends was increasing by 2% a week.

A few interesting aspects came out of the research: 46% of teenagers have ‘friends’ online they’ve never met, and while they are happy to be linked to parents and even real world enemies (frenemies?), they generally shun Authority. Just 2 of the 50 were online friends with teachers or tutors and only 24% would even consider ‘liking’ their college. Bluntly, teens would rather be friends with their enemies than their schools.

At the same time as acquiring large number of ‘friends,’ teenagers ‘like’ more than 320 pages each and it is indicative of the superficial nature of these endorsements that the figure is increasing by 10% a week. This is especially true of younger Facebookers. ‘Liking’ something on Facebook is a largely meaningless whim.

But, for me the most damning comment on our attempts to penetrate students social media lives isn’t the fickle nature of association, it is the lack of interaction. The Facebook wall of my randomly-chosen college consists almost entirely of officially posted statements. It is a broadcast. Not dialogue. Not conversation. Not a relationship. Not social in any way. That’s what condemns it. And it’s epitomised by the need of the College to ‘like’ its own comments. Because no-one else will.