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Developing digital games for educational goals

15 January, 2016 - 09:48

The Game-Based Learning (GBL) is the use of digital games with serious goals (i.e.educational objectives) as tools that support learning processes in a significant way. It is also known as educational gaming. Studies in the field of GBL show a clear relation between playing digital games and learning. There are a number of arguments in favour of digital games as learning tools. It is more often argued that they can enhance students’ motivation for learning because of their engaging nature. Indeed, digital games can provide challenging experiences that promote the intrinsic satisfaction of the players, keeping them engaged and motivated.

Moreover, players have fun while playing a game because they have to learn it. Indeed, in games, the challenge usually increases as long as the game goes on. Therefore players need to improve their skills and learn new strategies until the game is completed.

Another feature of digital games, that is remarkably aligned to good learning, is that games provide short feedback cycles. This allows players to explore the game environment freely, trying out their hypotheses, learning by trial-and-error and getting immediate information that they can use to redefine wrong assumptions in a risk-free environment. This characteristic is well aligned with educational requirements, given that most educational approaches require the educator to provide students with feedback about their achievements. Therefore, as digital games set the player in a world that is free to explore without requiring the intervention of an instructor, video games are an ideal medium to promote authentic learning and “learning by doing” processes, turning the student into the leader of his / her own learning experience. In this sense digital games can provide meaningful learning experiences by simulating highly interactive scenarios that professionals encounter in real-world settings, where they face open-ended, real-world problems.

In consequence, digital games represent a good medium to promote active learning and improve students’ problem-solving skills and not only simple fact memorization. It has been demonstrated that for certain target groups (e.g. school students), they can increase personal fulfillment and lead to higher performance.

For the reasons mentioned above, an increasing number of teachers and trainers recognize the value of digital games in education. Most of the successful Game-Based Learning (GBL) experiences have used mainstream games (e.g. The Sims), usually referred to a“Commercial-Off-The-Shelf” (COTS) games, because they are ready to be used.

Thus, what is the point of creating my own educational games, if there are things out there ready to be used? Creating a game is a time-consuming task, so in an already time-constrained curriculum where educators are usually struggling to achieve the goals defined by educational regulators and institutions the question is “It is worth taking the time?”.

There are clear benefits that come from using custom games developed directly by educators instead of using COTS. Indeed, some barriers to the implementation of GBL in formal learning settings have been identified. For example, the lack of integration of most games with the current curriculum and the lack of appropriate assessment frameworks inhibits GBL. Indeed, COTS games are developed to be entertaining, not educative. Games like The Age of EmpiresTM provide contents that are rich and valuable from an educational perspective, but also include errors, misconceptions and inaccuracies to make the games more attractive. This is usually a concern that parents show when they are told that their kids will be using games in the classroom. In addition, COTS games are not always easy to align with current curricula, or do not meet educational standards. Indeed, COTS games can demand last generation computers which are not always present in educational institutions. Or if they exist, educators may not have the adequate privileges or support to install them.

In order to overcome the above mentioned challenges, ProActive and T3 propose a framework in which teachers / trainers would design and implement their own learning games. Or at least, actively contribute to this process.

Indeed, educational games available in the market generally do not meet educators’ expectations. Actually the quality of many commercial educational games is low. This could be related to the fact that big gaming companies tend to ignore the educational market because of the difficulties posed by a wide and varied curriculum, a lack of interest on behalf of educational policy makers, the inability of schools to find the sort of money that commercial games tend to require and also the security issues associated with large institutions with small IT budgets.

Thus, educators can profit from developing games for themselves that have direct relevance to their teaching objectives / students’ profile, and that meet the requirements of their own institutions or educational standards. Nevertheless, the creation of high-quality games is a hard challenge, with multiple approaches and possibilities. Which is the best option for teachers and educators, who may not have an extensive technical background, or a big budget at their disposal to hire a professional development team?