Response to Learning Issues in Serious Games

I recently came across the blog Perspectives on Education by Dr Victor Lim Fei. The latest entry is entitled Learning Issues In Serious Games and contained an interesting perspective on the use serious games in education. There are a number of issue, challenges, and benefits of using serious games, many of which are reminiscent of Web 2.0 and the idea of participatory culture and being the producer of the content. Leaning on Piaget's social constructivism theories "when the student is involved in the construction of the game, the experiences of the student is either reinforced through assimilation or is realigned through accommodation. Learning thus takes place multimodally, by means of experience." The instructor is now a facilitator of learning, creating a learner focused environment. There are however, some issues inherent in the very concept of a game.Games typically mean there is a winner and a loser, they are competitive, and can rely on character stereotypes to drive the storyline.

It is also important to note that the technology itself can get in the way of the learning. "While it is undoubted that students have greater liberty when it comes to expressing their creative ideas for narratives through games, the study by Robertson & Good (2005) also indicated that many of the students were bogged down by technical details like the focus on plasticine model-making and the use of the toolset." There is also no accepted pedagogical method for exploring how successful game play is in supporting knowledge transfer. Just because students play the game does not mean they have reached the learning objective.It will take a modification not just in traditional methods of teaching and assessment, but in the development of games themselves to achieve outcomes that are more learner focused. "While strategies and resources must be used to engage and facilitate the learning process, care must be made to ensure that these tools develop, rather than distract from, the intended learning objectives." Like any technology, the use and integration of serious games holds great potential. but if we as educators don't ask and answer the questions of why use it and when to use it they will be nothing more than a passing fad whose potential was lost along the way.


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Robertson, J. & Good, J. (2005). Story creation in virtual game worlds. Communications of the ACM, 48(1). 61-65.

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