Gamification

Designing quick and effective games for learning

Workshop on game based learning in HE
Wednesday 26 April 14:15-16:15
Led by Alex Moseley, National Teaching Fellow, University of Leicester
This workshop is open to LSE academics, students and external participants: Book a place

learning-together-by-london-public-library-on-flickr
Simulations and complex digital games need time, money and design/technical expertise to develop. Many educators have great ideas for games yet lack the resources to put them into practice (either technically or in game design terms).

Alex Moseley and Nicola Whitton have therefore created a fast, fun, ten-step workshop for educators, built around the same design process that games designers use, to allow small teams to quickly develop games for learning: either as fully-fledged traditional games, or as prototypes for simple digital games.

Workshop participants will leave with a skill set for identifying, applying and designing games for learning; and with ideas to apply to their own subject areas.

Book a place 

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Ahead of the workshop we interviewed Alex to find out more information about his experience with games

1.How/why did you first become interested/involved in games based learning?

It all started when a card dropped out of my Sunday newspaper. On it was a slightly cryptic, but interesting puzzle – that led me into the centre of an alternate reality game (ARG) called Perplex City. A few months later, I found myself fully immersed (spending hours researching naval signalling flags, and other odd behaviour) and also noticed that many others were as immersed in the game as me, many even more so. Comparing this to the interest shown by my students in my History 101 class, I decided it was worth finding out what engaged the Perplex City players so completely in learning-related tasks. I interviewed the 50 most engaged players, and from that developed a set of key features that I thought could work in education to increase engagement with learning.

2. What type of games have you used in your own teaching?

My first games-based teaching flowed directly from this. I applied the key features from ARGs to my History module, developing an online problem solving game that kept students fed with a constant supply of new challenges, was wrapped in a ‘mystery’ narrative, and saw students battling with each other on a public leader board to win one of a number of prizes. Eight years on, the game still runs each year, and sees students work far more than they need to, pass with an average 2:1 mark, and develop key skills and make key friendship groups to last them for their whole programme.

I have since developed versions of the game for Archaeology and English, and also regularly run workshops with Museum Studies Masters students who develop games for museum education contexts. My latest work is in medical education: working with the Wellcome Collection and healthcare departments internationally to develop simple card games to help medical students to apply knowledge and develop narrative skills in a fun, creative way.

In staff training contexts, I have developed a board game to help programme teams test curriculum designs, and for many years now have been developing play- and game-based approaches to engage conference attendees with the themes or aims of events (running increasingly more encompassing activities for up to 600 participants at ALT-C, Museums and the Web, FOTE, etc.).

3. Gamification and game based learning seems to becoming more popular in higher education, why do you think this is?  What do games do that is different to traditional teaching formats?

Games appear to offer a solution to two of the most recurring themes in higher education: student engagement and teaching innovation. Sadly, this often leads to an assumption that any game-like activity will be both engaging and innovative – whereas of course games are just like an academic course: if they’ve been designed well for that context, there’s a chance that students will engage with them. In recent years, it’s been great to see an increase in simple, traditional or low-fi web games for learning; or playful activities that promote creativity and exploration. It’s much easier for a lecturer to see someone use Playdoh in their teaching and think “I could do that!”; or play a card game and then have a go at creating their own.

4. What advice would you give to teachers thinking about introducing games into their teaching?

Think small, cheap, and fun. The most difficult part is deciding what you’d like your game or playful activity to cover: is it a key concept, or a set of ‘knowledge’? Then draw on your own experience of games/sports etc. to see if there are elements that work particularly well with this chosen theme: simple examples might be to use a dice roll to represent randomness in genetics; or top trumps to compare characteristics of chemical compounds, or representing creative writing through a piece of folded paper (write one line, and the starting word on the next, then fold and pass on to the next student)…

Then try it. It probably won’t work too well the first time, but you’ll get ideas of how to improve it (often from the students themselves). Add depth or complexity as needed over time, but keep that core simplicity at its heart.

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Those interested in gaming may also be interested to know about two other events

17-18 November  Playful learning Special Interest Group meeting – This group is Chaired by Alex and hosts meetings around the country with the upcoming event being hosted in London.  It’s free to attend, whether a member of the group or not, simply apply on the event page.

30 November Copyright Community of Practice – The monthly meeting for November will be a chance to play several copyright games.  The Copyright Community of Practice group is an informal forum for LSE staff interested in discussing copyright matters for more information go to the Staff training and development system.

November 3rd, 2016|Announcements, Events & Workshops (LTI), games, LTI Grants, Projects, Teaching & Learning, Uncategorized|Comments Off on Designing quick and effective games for learning|

Announcing the IGNITE! Grant Winners!

Successful projects funded through the IGNITE scheme are now underway. We had over 20 project applications put to the committee and after much deliberation projects were chosen for their innovation, scalability and alignment to the School’s Education Strategy. Here are the winners:

Enhancing Your Moodle 

  • Jennifer Jackson-Preece, European Institute
    • (Re)designing  Moodle courses EU450, EU457 and Eu458 to maximise their pedagogical aims and deliver with a more distinct look and feel with clear links to Mahara for professional skills development.

Online Blended Learning

  • Lourdes Hernandez-Martin, Language Centre
    • A multilingual platform of audio and audio-visual materials to develop students’ interactive aural skills and increase their language exposure.
  • Nancy Holman, Geography and Environment
    • Developing professional skills the use of Participatory Action Research to deliver a practice-based learning project which provides engagement, consultation and Research in Urban Geography and Planning, especially when partnering with organisations such as a local authority.
Innovation, by Boegh on Flickr

Innovation, by Boegh on Flickr (CC)

 Feedback and Assessment with Technology 

  • Edgar Whitley, Management
    • Developing a scalable feedback system that integrates with Moodle and works effectively for the three constituencies affected by feedback: students, faculty and professional service staff.

Gamification 

  • Jose Javier Olivas and Jessica Templeton, LSE100
    • Experiencing the Dynamics and Limitations of Market and Regulation through Gaming by incorporating game design mechanics and techniques aimed at encouraging knowledge, skills development, collaboration and discussions in reference to the academic literature.
  • Andrea Pia, Anthropology
    • The Long Day of Young Peng is a point and click serious game exploring key themes in the study of contemporary China through the eyes of a young Chinese Migrant.

Weekly Roundup in Education Technology: Action Games and Learning, Openwashing and more

Open data or openwashing? – Audrey Watters

Open data is undoubtedly a hot topic, raising issues that go beyond just technology and stretch to education, privacy, human rights, transparency and many other topics. Our event with Marieke Guy today (livestream available; see also our Q&A on open data) will be touching upon some of the relevant issues when discussing open data in education.

In a timely intervention, Audrey Watters criticises the ambiguity attached to the word “open” and highlights the frequent abuse of this ambiguity for business purposes (“openwashing”):

We use “open” as though it is free of ideology, ignoring how much “openness,” particularly as it’s used by technologists, is closely intertwined with “meritocracy” — this notion, a false one, that “open” wipes away inequalities, institutions, biases, history, that “open” “levels the playing field.”

If we believe in equality, if we believe in participatory democracy and participatory culture, if we believe in people and progressive social change, if we believe in sustainability in all its environmental and economic and psychological manifestations, then we need to do better than slap that adjective “open” onto our projects and act as though that’s sufficient or — and this is hard, I know — even sound.

Is it time to start the debate about what we mean by “open” with the larger picture in mind?

Mapping Change: Case Studies on Technology Enhanced Learning – UCISA

This report (the full version of which is available here) presents case studies of institutional approaches towards technology enhanced learning across the United Kingdom. One of the themes emerging is the increasing importance of assessment with technology; an area that we will be covering in more detail on this blog in the weeks to come. Rather than just streamlining procedures and reducing administrative efforts, technology can support new pedagogic approaches and assist in improving the quality of assessment significantly. For a first glimpse into the efforts undertaken by LSE in this field have a look at our summary on LTI’s latest Show&Tell on assessment with technology.

Innovating Pedagogy 2014 – Open University

This year’s report by the Open University highlights ten trends in education for many of which technology is either an integral aspect or can enhance the learning experience. Whether learning through storytelling, massive open social learning (post the MOOC-hype), flipped classroom or any of the other trends address, the report makes for interesting reading and offers plenty of topics for further discussion and analysis.

Information and digital literacy: It’s not all about technology – CILIP Information Literacy Group

Responding to the interim report on “Digital Skills for Tomorrow’s World” by the UK Digital Skills Taskforce, LTI’s Jane Secker and Stephane Goldstein from InformAll pose a perhaps somewhat unexpected criticism. While generally praising the report and its intention, they criticise it for focusing too heavily on technological skills:

We feel that this suggests too narrow an approach to the relationship that individuals, in a knowledge-based society and economy, need to develop with information. 

Instead, they argue for a broader definition of digital and information literacies, which encompasses the skills needed to survive in the digital world:

Equipping people with the knowledge, understanding, skills and confidence that they need to search for, discover, access, retrieve, sift, interpret, analyse, manage, create, communicate and preserve ever-increasing volumes of information, whether digital, printed or oral

Headshot: Action video games and learning – Gizmag

Few of us would think of action video games as improving our learning. Perhaps even too few of us? This recent study suggests a link between action games and the development of learning capabilities. It will be interesting to observe when (and if) education seizes the potential offered by games for both learning and learning capabilities on a larger scale.

* Education technology is rapidly moving, sometimes divisive and always interesting, especially to us working in Higher Education. Every week, we share and comment upon a selection of interesting articles, posts and websites relating to education and technology we stumbled upon during the week. Do comment, recommend and share!

November 26th, 2014|innovation, Roundup, TEL Trends|Comments Off on Weekly Roundup in Education Technology: Action Games and Learning, Openwashing and more|

Trends in Education Technology II

Education technology is a rapidly moving, sometimes divisive and always interesting, especially to us working in Higher Education.

Here’s a round-up of some of the articles I found interesting, and thought you might too.

Do comment, recommend and share.

MOOCs

Can the Current Model of Higher Education Survive MOOCs and Online Learning? – Henry C. Lucas, Educause Review

Henry Lucas, Professor of Information Systems at the Robert H. Smith School of Business, University of Maryland, College Park, analyses the impact MOOCs and other disruptive technologies will have on the Higher Education industry. He concludes that MOOCs offer a great opportunity to engage a new generation of students, and universities need to adapt their business models to incorporate emerging trends to avoid becoming redundant like the companies Lucas uses as case studies.

Let them eat MOOCsGianpiero Petriglieri, Harvard Business Review

Countering Henry Lucas’ article is an interesting argument by Gianpiero Petriglieri, Associate Professor of Organisational Behaviour at INSEAD. Prof. Petriglieri questions whether MOOCs can actually deliver the democratization of higher education, and open up elite institutions to all. Instead, he argues that MOOCs may actually lead to “colonialism” by elite universities and deepen the divide between themselves and smaller institutions.

Report by Faculty Groups Questions Savings from MOOCs – Lawrence Biemiller, The Chronicle of Higher Education

Summary of the latest report by Campaign for the Future of Higher Education. The executive summary to their report can be accessed here. The paper, backed by faculty unions in the US, argues that students are not getting value for money by having to pay for credentials from online courses which are “virtually valueless in the marketplace”. It cites the example of Georgia Tech’s fully online Masters course in Computer Science provided by Udacity as being exploitative of the university’s reputation and course content for their own commercial gain.

Gamification

Infographic – Knewton

A useful little infographic charting the history of gamification in education.

Gamification Infographic

Created by Knewton and Column Five Media

Mobile Learning

Five Fabulous ways to use Google Apps in the Classroom – Mary Claudia, Edudemic

A useful summary of how Google Apps can be used to organise lessons and allow collaboration between teachers and students.

October 18th, 2013|TEL Trends|Comments Off on Trends in Education Technology II|