‘Off the Shelf’ Computer Games: Some Initial Research Considerations
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‘Off the Shelf’ Computer Games: Some Initial Research Considerations
‘Unbox 21’: British Council Project
Dr. Tim Rudd, Education Research Centre, University of Brighton
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- Multitude of types, foci, subject - Varied platforms
- Increasing elements of ‘user’ control, design, and collaborative and networked play
- Game like qualities in many interactive resources and tools
- Multi billion pound industry(s)
- Current trends and socio-political climate (e.g. Nesta report; emerging UK policy direction)
What is a computer game?
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Changing what it means to be educated today?
Changes in practice and pedagogy?
Increased importance of critical digital literacies
Increased emphasis on develop 21st Century skills
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COtS games in education
1 Year – 1st of kind/scale
Varied use, application & impacts
Great potential – new possibilities for pedagogy and practice
Teacher and pedagogical understanding key
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Why are games potentially powerful learning tools?
• Media rich, original, engaging content
• Dynamic and high speed
• Provides instant feedback
• Flexible and customisable – end user choice
• Collaboration and cooperation
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Why are games potentially powerful learning tools?
• High engagement – low stakes
• Ipsitive (assessment) play and challenge
• Multi-layered and multi level - varied complexity suited to ‘skills’ of user (internal individual differentiation & response)
• Discovery and exploration – self regulated
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Reported benefits
• Motivation, engagement, stimulation
• Involvement, collaboration, communication
• Co-constructed learning, shared knowledge and skills exchange
• Visual, spatial & cognitive processing
• Functional and technical skills and understanding
• Critical digital literacies, higher order thinking skills
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Reported benefits
• Creativity, problem solving and decision making
• Strategy and planning, decoding game and narrative
• Conceptual understanding, deduction and hypotheses testing
• Subject and skill specific improvements, test scores
• New pedagogies and practice, communities of interest and practice
• Technological dispositions and wider resonance
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BUT...
Techno-romantic and determinist?
Many begin & end with motivation, engagement, technical mastery
Often unreported, poorly reported or promotional
Many one offs – no sustainability or transfer or not replicable
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Direct causality of impact incredibly difficult
Multiple influential variables, Hawthorne effect, contextual milieu
Positivist, pseudo scientific approaches inappropriate
How might this influence our research approach?
Knights of Honor
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Intervention project
Action research, CPD
Iterative research and analysis
P1.‘Baseline’ a) context b) prior use, knowledge, perceptions (survey)
Initial stimulus materials /events – (logs/capture)
Visits and workshops – opening minds to new possibilities
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•Framed as action research/CPD – requirements explicit – guidance but not
prescriptive/onerous
•Develop ‘research’ questions/frame
•Research logs/diaries, broad framework – key foci, theoretical constructs
•Develop individual (cluster?) projects
•Observation, interviews, focus groups
•P3 - Post project reflections / interviews/ post ‘baseline’ perceptions
(baseline) – next steps
Phases 2 & 3
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Type of game – affordances, functionality, narrative
How applied – subject, skills, objectives, time, location etc.
Changes in learning and teaching practice and structure & organisation of learning, and relationship
Impacts – to subject, skills, achievement
Incidental/unexpected changes
Changes in perceptions and attitudes
Changes in pedagogical practice, perceptions of identity
Techno-dispositions and trajectory
Some key areas for investigation
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Some theoretical considerations...
Funds of knowledge
Person plus
‘Distributed cognition’ or ‘cognitive surplus’
4C’s
Mediational means and refraction through practice
Contextualisation, decontexualisation and recontextualisation
Cultural, social and economic capitals
Sustainability – of tools, resources, learning, of knowledge into system, communities of practice and interest
Rollercoaster tycoon
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Core reading for all teachers
Offer key guidance and raises important questions educators should address from the outset
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Taken for granted assumptions: Workshops?
What is a game? – what is the functionality, components
What makes good learning?
What is (e.g.) citizenship
What are 21st Century skills?
Why/how can games be better for learning aims than other resources?
Thinking = better learning discussions
Workshop techniques for innovative thinking - possibilities
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The information landscape & data flood
Socio-technological trends – 4 C’s and ‘network logic’
Institutional boundaries
Importance of geography
Working with machines
‘Digital natives’ grow up
‘Hyper’ personalisation
Trusted following
*Adapted from Futurelab’s Beyond Current Horizons Programme
Current and emerging technology trends