{"id":201482,"date":"2017-10-19T11:00:38","date_gmt":"2017-10-19T15:00:38","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/?p=201482"},"modified":"2023-07-19T11:06:00","modified_gmt":"2023-07-19T15:06:00","slug":"10-questions-with-neag-school-experts-in-gaming-and-education","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/2017\/10\/10-questions-with-neag-school-experts-in-gaming-and-education\/","title":{"rendered":"10 Questions With Neag School Experts in Gaming and Education"},"content":{"rendered":"

In\u00a0our recurring\u00a0<\/em>10 Questions series<\/em><\/a>, the Neag School catches up with students, alumni, faculty, and others throughout the year to offer a glimpse into their Neag School experience and their current career, research, or community activities.\u00a0<\/em><\/p>\n

In their recently published edited volume,\u00a0Exploding the Castle: Rethinking How Video Games and Game Mechanics Can Shape the Future of Education<\/em><\/a>\u00a0(Information Age, 2017),\u00a0Neag School faculty\u00a0Michael Young<\/a>\u00a0and\u00a0Stephen Slota<\/a><\/strong>\u00a0\u2014\u00a0both longtime video game devotees \u2014\u00a0explore the value of games, the role of games in the future of K-12 and higher education, and more.<\/p>\n

Here, Young, associate professor of cognition, instruction, and learning technology, and Slota,\u00a0assistant professor-in-residence of educational technology<\/a>\u00a0discuss the book and share their insights on the intersection between games, technology, and learning.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

What about gaming initially captured your interest?<\/strong><\/p>\n

Stephen Slota:<\/strong>\u00a0I\u2019ve been a gamer since I was very young. Much of my experience revolves around video and board games (the Super Nintendo Entertainment System being my first console). The combination of creativity and strategy is likely what spurred my interest \u2014 I loved drawing, and I loved puzzles, so games were a natural fit. I even mailed Nintendo headquarters a few game ideas!<\/p>\n

Michael Young:<\/strong>\u00a0Me, too. Like Steve, I have always been fascinated by jigsaw puzzles, board games, and actual sports, like tennis. But when the games are on the computer and can be played with thousands of others around the world simultaneously \u2026 now that gets fun. \u201cWorld of Warcraft\u201d was such a game for me.<\/p>\n

\u201cA quality game experience is one that enables you to accomplish some goal that is meaningful to you.\u201d<\/em><\/p>\n

\u2014Michael Young, associate professor<\/em><\/p><\/blockquote>\n

What do you believe makes a quality video game or gaming experience?<\/strong><\/p>\n

SS:<\/strong>\u00a0Different games can be appealing to different players for very different reasons, or even to the same player placed under different conditions \u2014whether emotional, psychological, or physical. This makes it difficult to say concretely what makes for a \u2018good\u2019 or \u2018bad\u2019 game or gaming experience.<\/p>\n

Personally, I find myself most engaged with games that have a cohesive narrative, challenging puzzles, interesting character interactions and development, player agency, and internal consistency (i.e., objects, characters, and interactions work as we would expect them to in the given game world). \u201cThe Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild\u201d is my go-to example for A+ design.<\/p>\n

MY:<\/strong>\u00a0Steve is right \u2026 gameplay is \u201csituated,\u201d meaning that it unfolds on the fly, in a different context every time. So it is not possible to make broad generalizations about how gameplay might affect any particular student or groups of learners. For me, games like \u201cTwo Dots\u201d meet a need for a distraction to cleanse my concentration during the day, while \u201cPokemon Go\u201d gets me out walking around, something I also need to do more. A quality game experience is one that enables you to accomplish some goal that is meaningful to you.<\/p>\n

\"Stephen
Neag School faculty members Stephen Slota, left, and Michael Young, both longtime video game devotees, recently co-published\u00a0Exploding the Castle: Rethinking How Video Games and Game Mechanics Can Shape the Future of Education.<\/i>\u00a0(Photo Credit: Shawn Kornegay\/Neag School)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

What are the greatest myths or misconceptions about video games that you would like to see dispelled?<\/strong><\/p>\n

SS:\u00a0<\/strong>There are two myths that really need to be dispelled.<\/p>\n

First, that violent video games cause violent behavior. There are correlations between aggression and violent video gameplay, but there are similar correlations between aggression and reading violent passages in books, including works like the\u00a0Iliad<\/em>\u00a0and the Bible. Like those, video game aggression appears to dissipate minutes after play, often below aggression levels measured pre-play \u2014 meaning \u201cMortal Kombat\u201d and \u201cGrand Theft Auto\u201d are more likely to help a player burn off steam than induce horrific, real-world outcomes.<\/p>\n

Second, that games are a silver bullet for fixing all that\u2019s broken in education. Try as we might, no individual game will ever be able to meet the individual needs of every individual student. Our goal should simply be to ensure or afford players as many opportunities to tackle target learning objectives as possible.<\/p>\n

MY:<\/strong>\u00a0My favorite game myth is that if something is playful, it can\u2019t be serious. Children play cops and robbers and war games like capture the flag. Certainly we can all agree war is deadly serious. Children also play house, and certainly that part of life is quite important to us as well. \u2026 Any teacher or parent who dismisses games and playful learning as not serious about the school curriculum has to reconsider that thought.<\/p>\n

\u201cGames are interactive fiction \u2014 and narrative will never be unimportant to teaching, learning, and human cognition.\u201d<\/em><\/p>\n

\u2014Stephen Slota, assistant professor-in-residence<\/em><\/p><\/blockquote>\n

How do you see gaming as being relevant, beneficial, or important to learning, teaching, and\/or the field of education?<\/strong><\/p>\n

SS and MY:\u00a0<\/strong>Though the specific technologies used to create and implement educational games will continue to evolve, cycle into and out of popularity or out of use altogether, the broader concept will almost certainly persist as instructional strategies (hopefully informed by contemporaneously evolving learning theory). In the short term, [games] will likely become popular as part of massive online open courses (MOOCs), mobile\/personalized \u201cjust in time\u201d learning modules or applications, and competency-based evaluation methods, all of which we touch on in\u00a0Exploding the Castle<\/em>. Games are interactive fiction \u2014 and narrative will never be unimportant to teaching, learning, and human cognition.<\/p>\n

Do different video games offer different benefits or help strengthen certain skills?<\/strong><\/p>\n

SS and MY:<\/strong>\u00a0Each game \u2014 video or otherwise \u2014 offers a range of something we call affordances. In brief, affordances are the opportunities for action we perceive (see, touch, feel, etc.) around us and, under the right circumstances, choose to act upon.<\/p>\n

One possible affordance of a game like \u201cAssassin\u2019s Creed\u201d might be to use it as the basis for a history project (by way of comparing the game\u2019s content to actual historical records). A puzzle game like \u201cTetris\u201d affords players an opportunity to demonstrate and develop spatial recognition and manipulation skills. Games like \u201cWorld of Warcraft\u201d afford a range of social interaction and problem-solving opportunities (both individual and group), allowing players to develop very different skills than they might have developed through a game like \u201cSuper Mario Bros.\u201d<\/p>\n

Dr. Slota, you previously served as a high school teacher. Did you incorporate gaming into your classroom in any way?<\/strong><\/p>\n

SS:<\/strong>\u00a0While I was teaching high school, I incorporated gaming \u2014 or game-like activities, at least \u2014 as often as I could. This was partly because it made lesson planning more engaging for me, but, more importantly, because some of my early gamified instructional experiments did wonders for engaging my students.<\/em><\/p>\n

The effects were pronounced enough that I actually made the decision to return to graduate school after a particularly successful game-based unit that involved my lowest-tracked 10th- and 11th-grade biology students roleplaying as epidemiologists to investigate a fictional disease outbreak. Overall interest and achievement improved so dramatically in such a short period of time that I knew I\u2019d tapped into something special, even if I didn\u2019t yet understand it. Incidentally, a (2008)\u00a0UConn Advance<\/em>\u00a0profile on Mike (Young) and Roger Travis was what started me down the educational psychology, technology, and game design path.<\/p>\n

MY:<\/strong>\u00a0I serve on the Ellington (Conn.) Board of Education. There, I get to see how games and playful learning are an increasing part of K-12 schools, starting from every kindergarten student\u2019s day, and with the increasing use of technology for learning, building up in all classrooms with virtual environments to learn and role playing games that organize entire high school courses. Add to this the use of playful learning in times between classes (as in Makerspaces) and after school (as in robotics clubs and esports) and you have a pretty substantial role for games in schools.<\/p>\n

Should more schoolteachers be finding ways to incorporate gaming it into their curricula?<\/strong><\/p>\n

SS and MY:<\/strong>\u00a0While students at all levels can and do benefit from games and playful learning in their classes, not all teachers should necessarily have to incorporate games into their curricula. Teaching is partly a skill that must make contact with one\u2019s personal goals and interests. To be genuine in the classroom, a teacher cannot be just doing what they are told. Teaching has to come from them. So to the extent that more teachers could be helped to find ways to incorporate games whose play can align with their desired student learning outcomes, then, yes. The more we do research and understand how games and playful learning can work, then we can design professional learning experiences to invite more teachers to try it. But I don\u2019t think we\u2019d ever say that games are the magic bullet that all teachers should be using.<\/p>\n

\"Associate
\u201cI believe the world\u2019s next Shakespeare will be an interactive storyteller \u2014 someone who can tell a good story across multiple media in a strategic way. To that extent: a game builder,\u201d says Michael Young, associate professor of cognition, instruction, and learning technology. (Photo Credit: Lucie Turkel\/Neag School)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

What audiences are you intending to reach with your book,\u00a0Exploding the Castle,<\/em>\u00a0and what do you ideally hope those audiences take away from it?<\/strong><\/p>\n

SS and MY:<\/strong>\u00a0We focused principally on students, teachers, parents, administrators, researchers, game designers, and self-described gamers.<\/p>\n

It\u2019s our hope that the volume will inspire more advanced and theoretically sound designs going forward, particularly among aspiring and practicing educators.<\/p>\n

What would you tell people considering a career related in some way to gaming?<\/strong><\/p>\n

SS:\u00a0<\/strong>My journey to the realm of educational game design and research is pretty nontraditional. I started out as pre-med with a focus on genetic engineering, made my way into K-12 education, and later found a serendipitous opportunity to blend my skills in art, science, education, and game design through the Neag School\u2019s\u00a0Cognition, Instruction, and Learning Technology program<\/a>. That makes giving advice a bit challenging, but the following capture my \u2018big ticket\u2019 thoughts:<\/p>\n