As we approach the end of this learning experience, I thought I'd post my earliest thoughts on gaming as a look back to the beginning:

Feb 2009 

"Here begins a new level in my gaming experience.

I have always had an affinity for solving puzzles, and I was drwan early on to cryptograms, wordgames and even the “choose your own adventure” series of books, where you read a bit of the story, decided on the best path and flipped to the relevant page. Such stories were often fantasy literature, and perhaps a precursor to the modern Roleplay digital games.

In this realm of digital gaming, my experience is much more limited, having begun and ended (for years) in the golden era of Atari and the precursors to arcade and handheld machines with such classics as Pacman, Krull and Dungeons & Dragons.

Much later, I had brief encounters with the Supernintendo (8 bit) and only recently rediscovered digital gaming through the Xbox. The Wii with its virtual reality concept is still foreign to me.

My interest in digital gaming was actually rekindled while working as a schoolteacher, seeing the impact gaming had on my students, and the way in which even the dullest content could be modified to be more appealing.

Even more interesting was the fact that the enjoyment they derived from our digital sessions seemed to spark their understanding and creative thinking with reference to topics that were not included in the games.

In my own thoroughly un-scientific self-observation, I've found that interspersing reading and written studies with half hour of gaming seems to rekindle my ability to internalise notes (though an hour or more has the opposite effect, dulling my senses).

I see a great deal of potential in channeling positive and imaginative content using this exciting medium. "

Read an article on the Metro this morning about a British martial-arts athlete training with the videogame Streetfighter.

Tyrone Robinson is one of the hopefuls for the 2012 games, and uses the game to hone his tactical and coordination skills. 

The vrtues of such games for training are extolled by Des Blackburn, Performance Analyst for  Great Britain Taekwondo:

"To complement their physical training our athletes are also encouraged, in their spare time, to play this type of game, as it is known that doing so can increase their attention span, depth perception and hand-eye coordination"

http://www.gamezine.co.uk/news/game-types/fighting-games/british-olympian-uses-street-fighter-iv-hone-skills-$1272408.htm

i found the idea quite interesting, and wonder how much simulation will be used in the future to train athletes in martial arts.

Points to ponder

• “ There are many good principles of learning built into good computer and video games” (Gee 2004)      
• “ Content has never been king, it is not king now, and is unlikely to ever be king. The Internet has done quite well without content, and can continue to flourish without it.” (Odlyzko 2001)       
• “The typical piece of information will never be looked at by a human being” (Lesk 1997)

In my own experience I have found that focusing too heavily on content narrows the range of users (since learners have varying interests) while focusing too heavily on interactivity at the expense of content may leave learners feeling ‘cheated’ (as they have to fill gaps in information on their own). Even the most interactive 3D movies with superb graphics that pull you into the movie, will only engage you so much if the storyline is poor (Anyone who's seen My Bloody Valentine can attest to this).

A common complaint about early car racing games was that you felt that you were really driving, but there simply wasn’t that much to do.  It seems amazing that so much is being paid for access, without paying as much attention to the thing being accessed as to the ability to access it (or not) via their own means.Odlyzko argues that connectivity is more important that content in modern communication industry.

Does this assertion that “most of the money is in point-to-point communication” represent opportunity or an obstacle for the future of digital learning systems? It begs the question: Should we focus on what is learnt, or on how and where it is learnt? Are gamers looking for a good plot, a rich world to inhabit or are they looking for interactivity – the freedom to connect and choose their own modes of access? Finally, should so-called “educational” media be designed for the person (pulling users to their content), or for the systems (targeting the most popular networks of connectivity)?   

Meeting the need vs. meeting the user? In a sense these are not issues unique to digital learning. All forms of learning encounter the need balance content with interactivity. But I hesitate to use purely commercial criteria as a measure of the effectiveness of media, particularly in the context of learning. Surely the content of a good game include skills and problem-solving abilities, more than mere information. The challenge is to see how educational “information” be integrated in a meaningful and engaging way in digital games.

References

Gee, J.P. (2004) Learning by design: Games as learning machines. Interactive Educational Multimedia, 8 (April 2004) 15-23.

Lesk, M. (1997) How much information is there in the world? Unpublished paper, available at  http://www.lesk.com/mlesk/diglib.html!.

Odlyzko, A. 2001. Content is not king. AT&T Labs Research. http://www.research.att.com/amo