Inclusive Technology Use in Early Childhood Education

Digital Game Based Learning: What, How, and Why

What: Defining Games

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This image is a screen shot from the game Civilization, a complex game (Branston, 2007).
One of the first questions facing 21st century ECE teachers is whether or not young children should be engaging in digital mediums at school. One need not look far into blogs, tweets and video downloads to find many objections to this integration with claims that young children require experiential learning with the physical environment. Certainly, few would deny that hands-on experiences are an essential and rich component to ECE. To what extent does an influx of digital technology threaten conventional teaching methods? Can digital game based learning (DGBL) ever be considered experiential? All people, more specifically children, learn by doing. However, at some point teachers and school boards must grapple with the questions about when and where to use digital technology  in ECE. Questions about if are slowly losing momentum as this medium becomes increasingly cheap and widespread. Ultimately, teachers are left to determine its meaningful uses (one of the objectives of this project) and decide how they will integrate this empowering medium into their teaching to enhance student understanding.

So how are games defined? For the purposes of focusing on educational use, games are defined here as structured activities, undertaken for enjoyment, containing goals, rules, challenge, unforeseeable and quantifiable outcomes, and interactions. This definition isolates games from other forms of entertainment such as movies, books, and toys. Among games, there is another distinction to be made: minigames versus complex games. Brooks-Young (2008) uses the definition by Prensky and describes a minigame as a game that can be played in an hour or less, focuses on one narrow topic, and may have multiple play levels but just increases difficulty of the same basic concept (p. 90). Typically, these are the educational games widely used by parents at home and educators in the classroom to engage children in DGBL. In contrast, and what will be focused on in this review, are complex games. These games are defined as requiring at least 20 hours to complete, offering multiple levels of play, each providing multifaceted challenges, goals, or missions that need to be completed before moving on, and can be played in teams (Brooks-Young, 2008, p. 91). There are literally hundreds of programs for children that aim to teach mathematics, reading, writing, and spelling. Some examples of these are SuccessMaker, Khan Academy, and smart phone applications such as Martha Speaks and Super Why. Chiong & Shuler (2010) found that young children were engaged by minigame applications, for an average of about 11-20 minutes for 50% of children in the study (p. 21). While such programs may have a place in helping students with the little extra practice they might need, these types of programs will not be considered here because they lack the level of engagement found in complex games and are already widely used. From this point onward, complex digital games (CDG) will be referenced exclusively.

Minigame
·         Complete in one hour or less
·         Focuses on one narrow topic (eg. letters)
·         Played independently

Complex Game
·         Requires at least 20 hours to complete
·         Multifaceted challenges, goals, missions that must be completed to advance
·         Multiple levels of play
·         Can be played in teams, including global players in online versions

This video relates a perspective in defense of the incorporation of DGBL into curriculum by demonstrating its powerful way of appealing to the masses and supporting personalized learning.

How: Who really has time for this?

While some teachers are able to get past the technical obstacles about how to use different programs and devices, they are often still left with questions of feasibility in the classroom. After all, teachers have enough trouble making sure they cover their entire progam over the year that adding DGBL would be more of a nuisance than an exuberant learning and teaching experience. This is particularly true for new teachers, who can become easily overwhelmed with the demands of the profession. Over time, the issues to do with availability and cost have diluted to issues of which types of devices are the best to have. For many, jumping into gaming with their relatively new found technologies is low on the list, preceded by digital tools such as ComicLife, iMovie, and Google apps. Perhaps this is rightly so, however we are left to question how gaming might fit into all of this. Following is are two examples of teachers in Alberta that are taking the leap of faith into DGBL.

Rock Band 2 by Joe Bower (2010)

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In Red Deer, Alberta, a grade six teacher recently engaged his students in Rock Band 2 (Bower, 2010). Joe Bower was interested in exploiting the engagement factor of his students with regard to gaming. Since he knew that engagement alone was not sufficient for introducing gaming into his classroom, he made sure to engage his students in reflective, critical thinking about gaming. Firstly, by allowing students to collaborate and develop a set of rules they could all agree on, Bower empowered his class. Being a mindful observer, Bower maintained a presence that upheld the integrity of the group while they engaged in the activity. During the session, some students experienced anxiety related to the idea of singing in front of their peers and left the room. Supportive adults were available for these students and they were able to return to the room to watch. After the session, students broke for lunch and Bower encouraged them to reflect on why playing Rock Band was a good use of class time. To demonstrate this reflection, Bower wrote a blogpost for the class with his own thoughts and made sure to incorporate some other learning targets. After lunch the class became engaged in a discussion on the importance of perseverance and students blogged about it on the class Ning, uploading related video content. Later on, Bower was able to see some residual effects of the students’ experience with Rock Band as they related their guitar playing actions to typing skills.

A school board contemplates the value of DGBL

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Rocky View Schools (RVS) is a rapidly growing school board surrounding Calgary, Alberta. The board regularly posts blogs and tweets, referencing resources related to education as a means of exploring the power of social media. As a reflection of how this board views technology in education, one of their initiatives is a 1:1 laptop-to-child program. Recently, Nancy Lake, a teacher, blogged for Rocky View about her own children's experiences with gaming:

            "The iPod touch replaced their previous hand-helds as it was a multi-functioning device that not only played games, but housed their music, photos, calendars, and could browse the internet... What could that possibly teach them?  How about collaboration, problem-solving, communication, global awareness, leadership, and critical thinking skills?...To be honest, my life-long apprehensions about gaming are giving way to an excitement about possibilities.  The technology seems to have reached a sophistication that is ripe for teaching these higher level thinking skills.  I know that I will be keeping a close eye on the Quest to Learn school..."

Lake has discovered the value of complex, problem-solving gaming for 21st century learners and is ready to use this approach in her classroom. 
 
For more research and stories about how teachers are approaching DGBL please visit Pink Flamingo's Resource List on digital games for learning.

Why: Untapped Creativity

"It's not about our comfort level, it's about their future."
-Jeannie Everett, Principal for the Calgary Board of Education

Online Games

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Complex educational-game designer Jane McGonigal (2010) describes the attractive characteristics of digital gaming: nobody ever gives you a task you cannot achieve, people (fellow gamers) believe in your ability to complete specific tasks, there are numerous collaborators, and constant feedback. This aspect of constant feedback has been shown to have the biggest impact in improving student achievement in the classroom (Hattie & Timperley, 2007). McGonigal (2010) further describes players of these types of games as having a sense of urgent optimism, creating a close knit social fabric, being blissfully productive and drawn to the epic meaning the games embody. These four qualities lead to what McGonigal (2010) calls “super-empowered hopeful individuals”. McGonigal (2010) sees the potential of games to have a powerful, transformative impact on education that enables children to believe they are capable in the real world, not just the virtual one. Instead of using games to escape the real world, children need games that empower them to find creative solutions to real world problems. McGonigal is had developed complex online games specifically related to 21st century education that, in her opinion, have the potential to change the world. Her ideas will be further referenced in the Practical Resources section and her TED talk is available below.

Additionally, Ali Carr-Chellman has devoted research efforts into the value of gaming in education for boys. Carr-Chellman (2010) argues that gaming is a means to reengage boys in learning and that digital games currently being used in schools lack authenticity. In other words, the minigames being used in schools are insufficient for engaging boys. This initiative is supported in the findings of Jenson & de Castell (2010), which outline statistics that demonstrate boys' significantly heavier uses of gaming consoles and hand-held devices (p. 57). Furthermore, Feng, Spence, & Pratt (2010) saw gender differences in spacial cognition reduced by engagement in action video game play. (For information on gender and gaming see Gender and Tech)

Way back in 1999, an online poll found that 25% of respondents said their children had begun using a computer before the age of two (Prensky, 2001, p. 186). Today, children are engaging in digital gaming from younger ages than ever before. Not only does this pastime reveal a disconnect between what students experience at home and school, but it represents a lack of response to the interests of students. Furthermore, the Horizon Report (2010) recently listed game-based learning as an emerging technology to be widely adopted in two to three years time. Many schools and boards focus on personalizing learning to engage students, however the mediums they use often lack such personalization. If learning is to be truly personalized, it needs to involve a multifaceted approach that includes various media, materials, and subject matter. Regardless of how uncomfortable gaming can make non-gamers feel, there is untapped potential for learning and creativity hidden there. To take the plunge, teachers need to play the games their students are playing, or games they’re considering to use, in order to develop an understanding about their benefits (Schaffer, 2008, p. 39). Engagement is a very big piece to the teaching puzzle and gaming fills that gap for many students.