Classroom Training: Any Changes?
I’m back! Holidays and hectic schedule I’m afraid…fill in the rest of the poor excuse I was going to outline here.
Anyway, I just came across the above survey on gaming and education, filled it in and thought “I might as well cut and paste my entry here”. So here it is. BTW, I don’t know how long the survey will be there, but I think if you’re reading this after end of April 2003, it won’t be there.
Q: “What do you think would be the most valuable aspect of using “gaming” as part of a learning program?”
My response:
1) Providing a platform where the learner feels comfortable making ‘mistakes’
2) Creating an attraction method for enticing learners
3) Creating an immersive environment for learners, reducing opportunity for distraction
4) Reducing some of the cultural norms that learning has to be ‘work’
Q: “General Comments:”
My response:
“…Computer games are the most successful application of a computing environment I can think of, in terms of the time and effort people take to learn interfaces, rules, skills and so on.
Maybe it’s a mistake to create education games, but instead to look at the core elements of successful gaming (risk, reward, increased challenge, mistake opportunities) and try and build them into educational development.
I think the worst thing anyone could do is something I saw a while ago – a pacman type game where everytime you ate a special object, the game paused and popped up a piece of educational content!”