Slashdot - still one of the best places online to dissect ideas with humor and offensiveness - is currently discussing games and education. As typical, the comments range from silly to provocative, centering largely on the huge development costs of games and the challenges of "making games fun". A similar discussion was held earlier this year: "Can a game be made that is fun and educational? Sure but I'm just not sure that making it would be an effective use of time."
Games fit the typical profile of academic envy, namely the condition where we see many people doing something and desire to then use the same tools or processes for teaching and learning. Sometimes it works very well...other times the effort required exceeds the potential outcome. Especially when the work requires developing an entire game from scratch. Developed games - like WoW and Second Life - enable learners to develop specific skills somewhat constrained by game design, but don't require educators to invest significant efforts and resources in actually creating the game. Where I've seen academic games used well are in the focus on single activities - like a Jeopardy game for testing basic knowledge. Complex games - such as IBM's INNOV8 require substantial costs and are rarely successful if undertaken by a single institution (IBM can afford to develop the game, but most university departments or research grant recipients do not have the resources). As noted in the slashdot discussion, MMORPG games take a long time to develop.
Some interesting discussions there - thanks George.
I have a small quibble though about referring to Second Life as a game - in the absence of goals/objectives, rules or competition it is much more like a toy. These might be imposed in certain circumstances to create a game but in many ways it's more of a glorified chatroom.
Posted by: col at December 5, 2007 5:34 PMHi - good point. 2L is not a game, more a virtual world.
thx