LEARN TO BE WISE            THINK AntWise!      

MORE
Topics
Topics
|

It is about time to redefine our current pedagogical paradigm in order to keep our students interested in learning.

• “Teenagers learn more from video games than they do from books, a survey suggests.” http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/education/730440.stm
• BBC: Professor Angela McFarlane: Video games 'stimulate learning' 18 March, 2002, 13:46 GMT http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/education/1879019.stm
• Video games in education by Kurt Squire http://simschoolresources.edreform.net/download/278/ijis.doc
• Professor Csikszentmihalyi, 1975 The FLOW: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Flow_(psychology)

Yet after a 20-30 minute presence in the academic classroom - many students just simply switch off, drop off the chair and at worst they become a dicipline nightmare.

Our beloved psychologists are quick to recommend shorter classes or lesson content and, of course, they cherish the thought of having greater opportunity for intruding into people's lives. Do not misunderstand me, please. I highly respect anyone's right to a free opinion. "Liberté, égalité and most importantly fraternité!!!" So let'stay friends!!!

Notwithstanding, wouldn't it be perhaps more honest to admit that learning can be interesting and engaging fun and yes, it should be fascinating but ever more challenging and enriching. Our ever evolving technology around us, is here to promote new visions whether you like it or not; maybe a total educational paradigm shift.... I firmly believe in the magical power of the game and the role it can play in the formal educational conjecture.

My own children do play electronic games of a comlexity that requires very powerful brain computing capacity to cope with. Can you or would you like to try it? Oh, I am sorry, am I talking here to a convert? God bless you; I would like to hear from you. Please share your angle with us. Email me. The Complexity factor is not just in the hardware or the software instructions but the actual game processes and finally complexity in the content construct, development, conceptualization and deployment.

My question is; why is it so hard for the educational authorities or decision makers and most importantly the Minister for Education to recognize the historically well known fact, that games in the classroom can effectively contribute to learning by pro-actively engaging the learner into the acquisition of often repetitious and boring yet important curricular content.

Allow me to share my personal experience with you. I have put together all sorts of educational quizes, puzzles and games with the view to enrich the learning experience of my clients only to discover that some schools cannot access them as the RED TAPE regime prevents them from access; intranet protocols, firewalls etc. Interestingly enough the same RED TAPE authorities at the very same time urge teachers to make use of ICT's in the classroom. To any logical mind somehow all this does not make sense. Perhaps they are not really serious? What a farce!

Just think, how much more rich a learner's experience can be via an interactive game adventure path (story) than let's say by just reading about it in paper based text books or digitized web texts! Little wonder that clever publishers nowadays decide to opt for the much more favoured multimedia version of texts.

But even those films and videos or multimedia demos (learning objects) clearly lack the interactivity aspects of games; the neuro-motor engagement. You just sit there and watch a film/video. You turn it on or off. Games are not just intellectual internalization of the ambient world.In games the learner most often need to apply higher order thinking to deal with problems. Effectiveness in games is not just an issue whether one is intelligent enough to cope but winning or loosing has real, tangible repercussions in terms of a game stage crashing on the player, resulting in loss or being forced to recommence from A, if ever he/she wishes to win and reach a higher lever stage or ultimately complete the game story (adventure). You make decisions and act on them.

After a life of educational experience behind me, the "vieux jeu" me, srceams within and how often I wish -"If only I could be of my children's age again with my present wisdom..." .

Games are no new inventions. Games of all sorts already existed in ancient Sumer and the Egypt of the pharaos or Ethruria in today's northern Italy and of course in every other culture, small or big, ancient or recent. Yes, the games were always there but why? WHY????? I do not wish to insult your intelligence; you know it as I do - the answer is common sense. Yet Education departments staffed with obsolete minds and the fear of change, with bigotte religious zeale create endless barriers: in my time of learning they used the cane to purge games from the classroom, today they use the less physical firewalls and filters.

And the RED-TAPED educationalists around the world refuse to admit to the damage they cause by disallowing learning games in the classrom? So what is their argument?
Yes, we know: Hollywood, the Casinos the gambling industry that spread immorality, has no place in the classroom. I agree wholeheartedly and I can only congratulate them. But...but.. but at the same time, isn't it the same Governments that cash in the laundered billions of the Casinos, the racing Industry and other gambling houses?
Is it because the essence of games as applied by our ancestors has been betrayed by the few who turned games into a profit driven money making industry? Yes, you are right! The olympiades of the ancient Greece have become a big business in our times. Yes, you are right! The calculus games of Sumer became the highly profitable electronic games of today, played on the immorallly and pervertly addictive game machines in casinos around the world. Yes, you are right!
But students are still not allowed to play INNOCENT LEARNING GAMES in the classroom!!! I know, I know!! But they can play games anywhere else: buy lotto online and game cafes or go out and spend their few dollars in game rooms, in town of course: not in the classroom!!!. ...

The duplicity and hypocrisy of the RED TAPED administrators is just mind boggling.

Of course, we have to understand that games are not a learning panacea; they are only one side of the coin. The other side is the real world; the reality of life when a learner has to face formal societal requirements like exams, tests, job interviews etc. and ultimately, the daily needs of the ambient real world. Games are a brilliant mind trigger that enhance alertness and cognition. They are like the octane booster for the combustion engine; higher performance, precision and success experience against the "hills of life".

The bottom line is that both sides of the coin need to be entertained in the classroom. We should understand that

they only together constitute the whole;

So why couldn't we, parents and teachers, reintroduce learning games into the classrom in an integrated manner where the collaterality of games could lead to maximized learning outcomes?

THINGS ARE HAPPENING.. ?

There are already many attempts to integrate learner administration (LMS) and content development and deployment (LCMS) in the form of online Learning Management Systems and Learning Content Management Systems but games remain tabou, a no-no-no-zone or at best just one of the many educational experiments without their proper and due place in the curriculum..

What is LMS or LCMS?

Let's make a distinction between LMS and LCMS.

An online Learning Management System does just that; that is, it manages the admin, course and student profiling whereas an LCMS (Learning Content Management System)adds to that, the business of designing, creating, developing and deploying CONTENT, to fit the needs of the learner and makes the content student-centered, so as to better engage and motivate not only the learner but also the teacher.

In our opinion, the LCMS is more likely to better lend itself to game deployment within the lesson content as it inherently has in sight content integration but not always or necessarily for the in situ authoring of content. Often content is developed on 3rd party applications and then used in online content deployment. This approach can be cumbersome and onerous, requiring special web developer skills and often also financially forbidding for smaller organizations. So, many educators do not even get closer to the idea of exploring novel pedagogical opportunities.

OUR AIM at ANtWise© in the RITES LCMS :

We are in the process of developing our own LCMS called RITES, which will make possible not just the deployment of content in conjunction with the admin needs but also the actual internal ( in situ ) authoring and deployment of contents which will exploit the attractiveness of games for educational purposes.

We are of the belief that virtually any form of information-manifestation, is a potential learning channel which can and should be pedagogically targeted whether in the classroom or on-line; whether synchronous or asynchronous.

If our contention holds true, then a good LCMS should offer a smorgasboard of rich multimedia content with the option of in situ developing/authoring capacity and it should address at least the following, currently already available, media types when compiling the learning channels/paths/units:synchronous or asynchronous text, graphics, audio, video, animation, simulation, TTS, tests, surveys and edugames, in addition to the mandatory management databases for the admin and course and student profiling in the traditional LMS.

Our aim with the RITES© Project is to build it into a game/edutain enriched learninng/teaching ICT environment which enables the user to:

What is your personal, study/teaching approach like at the present? How much multimedia interactivity do you enjoy or offer in your course? If your answer is hesitation or in the negative, would you be prepared to review your position?

A good question, isn't it !?

• TRY OUT RITES©, YES, ALL FREE. Contact Admin for a FREE Temporary Registration as a TEACHER.
• LOG IN FOR A DEMO as student with the following details: ID: fantail PASS: fireant and view a sample edugame enriched lesson. The project is being continually reviewed and apologize for any inconvenience.