Gaming + Education = omgwtfbbq
Apr. 27th, 2010 07:07 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
crankyoldmanSo, I've been sifting through the data we got from testing. To give you a sense of scale and why I say sift, we tested on about 500 kids. I've basically gotten through the demographic and pretest data of one teacher's students; about a fifth of the stuff to go through.
I probably shouldn't, for professional reasons, discuss some of the specifics, but I would like to talk about a couple things that I learned out of this.
I'm also trying not to hyperventilate, as the June 1st deadline for first phase rollout is well, COMING SOON. FML.
An educational game can't replace a teacher, it's only a tool.
Now, we never designed it to replace teachers, just give them something to use to reach many different kinds of learners. So if a teacher doesn't provide something to go with it, some SUPPORT, it fails. And we did have this fail almost happen with a teacher.
I never thought that it would replace teachers. And really, I hope that this sort of instructional software doesn't replace teachers! Some things are best learned with a real live actual person. But this just means my work on the teacher materials that go with the game has gotten bigger.
Educational games aim to reach the most people. So they won't look like shooters or most commercial games.
This is something that 12 year old boys that play a lot of first person shooters don't get. XD Then again, I don't get first person shooters. But just because it doesn't have your bells and whistles doesn't mean it doesn't have ones that someone else likes (which I've seen some results showing that some of those things worked for non-gamer kids).
Graphics that I think are awesome are probably not nearly as awesome to preteens, because they were more immersed from an earlier age than I was.
It's true. But art is really expensive, and really, what we have looks pretty enough, most importantly we have something that WORKS and does what it's supposed to! So I think we did alright there.
And I started playing with computers when I was 3, so. XD On a Commodore 64.
Some kids actually will read the manual. Others will not.
The ones that did read the manual are my favorites. XD Because I made the student version of the manual, so. I'm biased.
Some kids felt like they learned nothing useful, but their post-tests show otherwise.
MWHAHAAHA STEALTH LEARNING.
Telling a girl that she will have difficultly with a game because "you know she doesn't play games" is really lame and counterproductive.
And if she hasn't, so what? Part of the reason she may not have is she keeps hearing that she'll suck at it. Maybe she's really not interested. But it's not the teacher's job to make up her mind about that. And yes, one teacher (a female teacher) said this to a group of girls in their class. We like to throw around the word "self-efficacy" a lot in educational theory speak. This is a fancy way of saying, "you feel like you can do something". If you don't feel like you can do something, you are less likely to do it, and a common way that people don't feel like they can do something is being told they can't. This is common sense. Please don't unpack your own baggage on your students.
Also, it is just as damaging to assume that a boy will necessarily get everything, and then have problems asking for help because he doesn't get the controls. But the other one is closer to my heart.
For every immature weener that talks about how we suck because we don't have aliens for them to shoot, there are five actually thoughtful kids.
And this is why I have hope in the future. ^^ Also the adorable wee Final Fantasy fangirl that I want to adopt, omg.
Also due to positive response to the card game I came up with (in it's imperfect, took me two days to make form), I'm revising it and making it more awesome, as it is DEFINITELY going in with the final (and by final, I mean what we're rolling out to schools for now) product. I'm almost as excited about this as the video game itself! I mean I designed something that was fun and worked. I feel like a real game designer now!
I'm totally bringing it to Otakon with me, for anyone that wants to play. XD It'll be the shinier more awesome version that I'm consulting with the interns on (mostly because they have played Yu-Gi-Oh! and Pokemon, and my card game experience is solely Magic: The Gathering and I want to make sure I have maximum fun inputs).
Also, did I mention how much I love my interns? One's super excited about my Auron costume and is going to show up in the costume he's wearing to ACen, maybe. And the other is putting together a list of RPG-type games that he thinks are good for the DS, so I'll have stuff to play. They are such sweethearts.
I probably shouldn't, for professional reasons, discuss some of the specifics, but I would like to talk about a couple things that I learned out of this.
I'm also trying not to hyperventilate, as the June 1st deadline for first phase rollout is well, COMING SOON. FML.
An educational game can't replace a teacher, it's only a tool.
Now, we never designed it to replace teachers, just give them something to use to reach many different kinds of learners. So if a teacher doesn't provide something to go with it, some SUPPORT, it fails. And we did have this fail almost happen with a teacher.
I never thought that it would replace teachers. And really, I hope that this sort of instructional software doesn't replace teachers! Some things are best learned with a real live actual person. But this just means my work on the teacher materials that go with the game has gotten bigger.
Educational games aim to reach the most people. So they won't look like shooters or most commercial games.
This is something that 12 year old boys that play a lot of first person shooters don't get. XD Then again, I don't get first person shooters. But just because it doesn't have your bells and whistles doesn't mean it doesn't have ones that someone else likes (which I've seen some results showing that some of those things worked for non-gamer kids).
Graphics that I think are awesome are probably not nearly as awesome to preteens, because they were more immersed from an earlier age than I was.
It's true. But art is really expensive, and really, what we have looks pretty enough, most importantly we have something that WORKS and does what it's supposed to! So I think we did alright there.
And I started playing with computers when I was 3, so. XD On a Commodore 64.
Some kids actually will read the manual. Others will not.
The ones that did read the manual are my favorites. XD Because I made the student version of the manual, so. I'm biased.
Some kids felt like they learned nothing useful, but their post-tests show otherwise.
MWHAHAAHA STEALTH LEARNING.
Telling a girl that she will have difficultly with a game because "you know she doesn't play games" is really lame and counterproductive.
And if she hasn't, so what? Part of the reason she may not have is she keeps hearing that she'll suck at it. Maybe she's really not interested. But it's not the teacher's job to make up her mind about that. And yes, one teacher (a female teacher) said this to a group of girls in their class. We like to throw around the word "self-efficacy" a lot in educational theory speak. This is a fancy way of saying, "you feel like you can do something". If you don't feel like you can do something, you are less likely to do it, and a common way that people don't feel like they can do something is being told they can't. This is common sense. Please don't unpack your own baggage on your students.
Also, it is just as damaging to assume that a boy will necessarily get everything, and then have problems asking for help because he doesn't get the controls. But the other one is closer to my heart.
For every immature weener that talks about how we suck because we don't have aliens for them to shoot, there are five actually thoughtful kids.
And this is why I have hope in the future. ^^ Also the adorable wee Final Fantasy fangirl that I want to adopt, omg.
Also due to positive response to the card game I came up with (in it's imperfect, took me two days to make form), I'm revising it and making it more awesome, as it is DEFINITELY going in with the final (and by final, I mean what we're rolling out to schools for now) product. I'm almost as excited about this as the video game itself! I mean I designed something that was fun and worked. I feel like a real game designer now!
I'm totally bringing it to Otakon with me, for anyone that wants to play. XD It'll be the shinier more awesome version that I'm consulting with the interns on (mostly because they have played Yu-Gi-Oh! and Pokemon, and my card game experience is solely Magic: The Gathering and I want to make sure I have maximum fun inputs).
Also, did I mention how much I love my interns? One's super excited about my Auron costume and is going to show up in the costume he's wearing to ACen, maybe. And the other is putting together a list of RPG-type games that he thinks are good for the DS, so I'll have stuff to play. They are such sweethearts.
(no subject)
Date: 2010-04-28 11:37 pm (UTC)If teachers could just observe this simple rule, schools would be so much better.
(no subject)
Date: 2010-04-28 11:51 pm (UTC)And I keep meaning to ask, which subject do you teach?
(no subject)
Date: 2010-04-28 11:57 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2010-04-28 11:58 pm (UTC)