Digital Games: Learning through Play

The Horizon Report, the go-to guide for emerging educational technology published by the New Media Consortium (www.nmc.org/horizon), projected in 2005 that educational gaming would become a significant learning tool within two or three years. The 2008 report identifies game play as one of the seven metatrends that continue to affect pedagogy, evolving to include virtual worlds, augmented reality, and massive multiplayer modes. Yet there are still those who consider electronic games mindless entertainment that fails to confer academic benefits.
Eric Klopfer, winner of the 2008 AIBS Education Award, directs the Scheller Teacher Education Program (STEP) at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (http://education.mit.edu/drupal) and explores the educational potential of games at Education Arcade (http://educationarcade.org). Klopfer's research on the development and use of computer and simulation games provides a convincing argument for engaging students in learning science and complex systems through play.
STEP's project MyWorld has added "wireless ubiquitous play" to gaming, so that students can play in the "inter­stitial" spaces in and out of school. The first MyWorld game, Palmagotchi, takes players to the Galápagos Islands to simulate the evolution of Darwin's finches. All the birds and flowers that players must sustain have genetically determined traits, and the game requires players to make decisions to ensure that the organisms stay alive and well. Augmented reality ...

Source: Eye on Education - January 23, 2013 Category: Biology Authors: Oksana Hlodan Source Type: news