Industry Workshop

This roundtable is therefore timely especially as a major games in education project is coming to a close (emapps.com) and EUN is starting work with the Interactive Software Federation of Europe (ISFE). During the event examples were given to fuel discussions on the benefits of using games in learning and how to bring about a change of attitude at the level of policy making and curriculum development.

Round table discussion – some key points

1. There are many myths about games that have to be dispelled amongst teachers. This could be done through an EUN overview of the topic, video clips of examples of practice and clear curriculum links
2. Industry won't produce the pedagogical arguments and ideas; it has to be education. The games industry 'doesn't know how to sell games to education'.
3. Games develop soft skills that are hard to assess and often not assessed at all.
4. Games have value in cross-cultural work and can overcome age differences
5. There is a need for a games in schools incubator to experiment, explore and pilot new ideas
6. Games should feature in initial teacher education programmes
7. Licensing issues make games adoption in schools difficult, why is an institutional licence not possible? No exceptions are allowed to the EC software directive unlike other products. Can suppliers vary contracts in the case of educational use?
8. Primary schools can use off the shelf games products.
9. All games need to have challenge, reward, mastership – they need to be motivating. Teachers should discriminate between games as child-minding and educationally valuable uses. They should be prepared to justify that learning can come through fun.
10. Children and young people can learn through:
    • A game within a gaming context
    • A game being used as a tool in a broader learning activity
    • Making a game
11. The primary audience for such games are the “new millennial learners” who
    • Learn in different ways from earlier generations
    • Are highly motivated by (instant) feedback and reward
    • Are adept at using the technology
12. How to raise awareness in ministries of education and then how to reach classrooms? There is enough research showing the benefits. One way could be to set up communities of practice linking together the hotspots of innovation. Another is to establish a games category for the EUN eLearning Awards in December 2008.

Conclusions

1. Research must continue
2. Consideration needs to be given as to how we can move this motivational technology into the classroom in more effective ways
3. We need to evaluate the impact and consider how to build on what is already being done
4. Next steps could include the collation of teacher stories and case studies
5. Teacher trainers are a crucial target group
6. The traditional curriculum does not cater for new and emerging technologies and the issues that they bring. The key competences agenda could be a vehicle for promoting greater uptake of games, particularly in how they support transversal skills that are difficult to teach, eg democracy, lifelong learning, digital literacy, interpersonal and inter-cultural learning, citizenship and entrepreneurship.
7. We need to link pools of enthusiasm across national boundaries and exploit the visibility of other pioneers within this area.

Playing games, and playing games in schools: what is the difference? Mind the Gap, from leisure to learning
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Janice Richardson from INSAFE, the safer internet network coordinated by European Schoolnet, mentioned several surveys showing the perception of the use of games at schools from the pupils and the teachers' perspective. It appears that using games do not feature among the priorities areas with only 22 per cent of teachers seeing games as a priority and 33% saying they lack confidence to deal with games in class. Additionally, teachers and students have a very different use of the internet. While teachers and pupils both use the internet to search for information, teachers do not play games online while kids do (70 per cent in UK, 90 per cent in Scandinavia); which shows a strong difference in practice. This gap is also reflected in a perceived lack of confidence from teachers for discussion in class about online gaming. Furthermore 39% of UK youngsters play games on their mobile phone (44% of them girls). Playing games decreases after age 17.

Janice mentioned some of the main assets of using games in learning. For instance, games contain rules and structure, something important for young people, and everyone is on an equal footing. Other characteristics include learning about democracy, placing children and teachers on an equal footings, fostering creativity, interaction and sharing. Among the skills games can develop are improving motor and special skills (for instance in the case of the Nintendo Wii), develop strategic thinking skills (in the case for instance of strategy games) and they can be integrated in all areas of the curriculum.

The other side of the coin and some of the criticism the education world has about games are that they create an addiction, contains racial or gender stereotypes (as mainly developed by an industry dominated by male influence), contain violence (although the link between violence in video games and impact on young people has never been demonstrated.) Online games raise the risk of 'stranger danger'.

In conclusion Janice asked 'where are the gamers'. They do not seem to be in the teaching profession, hence the lack of confidence, the gap between pupils - who are game-savvy - and teachers who lack the confidence to use games as a learning tool.

Following this, Karl Hopwood, an independent consultant presented the UK's perspective on games in learning. He pointed out that Futurelab has made research in this field. Their research show that:

• 59 per cent of teachers would use games in class
• 62 per cent of student would use games in class
• Games have particular value in classrooms with interactive whiteboards
• Boys gain using Myst for creative writing (Tim Rylands work)

However 70 per cent of teachers think that game playing could lead to anti social behaviour. Only 30 per cent of pupils think games could lead to more aggressive and violent behaviour. Once again there is a gap between teachers’ and pupils’ perceptions.

In the UK, there is an obvious gap between what the students and the teacher know as regards to new technologies. And this gap is growing which creates for teachers a sense of lack of confidence (For instance some teachers might not even know what is a social networking site).

Futurelab run programmes including newtoon which is on mobile phones games. It looks at how games can be used as a pedagogical tool. See http://www.futurelab.org.uk/projects/newtoon/ for further details on this project. However games in learning also empower students, break down barrier between students and teachers by turning the student into the ‘expert’ and empower him to ‘show how this work’… The teacher is an expert on pedagogy while the student is an expert on the game itself. There is a need to educate teachers to see this difference and use the game as a way to bring the learner on the centre stage and empower him to create his own learning.

Karl Hopwood also mentioned some key drivers linked to the topic of games in learning and some best practice examples:
Key drivers:

• Start with the learning objective not the game
• Authorship
• Ownership
• Playful/experimental learning
• Social value
• Involvement in authentic/real research
  

Examples of Best Practice

Myst game: As regards to this game Karl reports the enthusiasm from teachers about the game that even reluctant writers became completely inhibited. View a video explaining how MYST can be used in the classroom.

Grid Club: Research shows that student enjoyed this as this is a platform which allows learners to actually create their own game. It allows building a computer game controlling the graphics, sounds, images and backgrounds.
These examples show that there is a huge opportunity for game in learning we only need to convince teachers of this potential? One suggestion from Anja Balanskat from the EUN Office was to provide some guidance for teachers on games available and how they could be used. Patrice Chazerand from the video game producers federation mentions that game developers know as little of education as teachers now about games. So we need to find a way to link both.

Mind the gaps (plural), was one of the conclusions of this session. We need to find ways to look into these myths and misconception about games and be pedagogical to break the barriers and bridge the gaps between teachers and pupils, the education world and the game industry and policy makers and practitioners.

Games in the eMAPPS.com project (www.emapps.com)
Rob Davies from MDR Partners, described the eMAPPS.com project which was looking at game-like approach to learning, looking at games in primary schools, which can lead to more use of games, either teacher generated content of off the shelf games.

eMAPPS.com involves 8 new member states and is an IST FP6 project; there has been interest also in RO, BG, CY, MT, TK. Some outcomes showed significant impact on new learning paradigms, but one of the challenges is can policy makers be convinced? The expected results are a web based learning platform and qualified school teachers able to design games and train others.

The game outcomes:

• Children had fun while playing the games
• Teachers enjoyed the experience
• Topics which were particularly successful included history… games can be cross curicular
• Positive feedback from parents
• Difficult to mainstream immediately, policy issues, need more pilot in other countries, need valid business and implementation models
• Improved skills such as teamwork, cooperation, analytical appraisal, collaborating decision making, negotiating, independent decision making and confidence
• The project opened minds to new ways of learning, eg informal, out of school, working with local places like museums, nature reserves.
• Teachers were surprised to see unexpected children display skills playing the games; they brought out skills the children had not previously shown.

Two of the barriers for take off of games in learning is that the skills developed are not yet assessed by traditional assessment schemes in the countries, and the time needed to author a game. Therefore the potential remains unrealized:

• Lack of alignment between world of education and game (misunderstanding and false starts)
• Bridge the gaps between education and the game industry based on learning outcomes and they use sound pedagogical approaches.

Other concerns are linked to safety, privacy and cost of the platform.

The initial prototype can be licensed from ciberspacio (Spain) who will continue to support and develop the game. There is a re-engineered prototype currently been designed by the Uni of Ljubljana available by the end of the project. Using open source for download as GPL license.

Several sessions were organised in classrooms in CZ for instance and included learning about history or science using emapps through the use of mobile phones… Perception was that this was taking students outside of the school for an educational activity. The general perception was enjoyment for students and learners. It was also noted that the use of games can extend and enrich the curriculum for gifted and talented pupils – allowing them to move forwards at their own pace. Children and young people learn whilst making a game as well as when playing a game.

Games for education: Through the Wild Web Woods

Kasper Holst of the Council of Europe presented a game developed as part of a programme of the CoE to promote children’s rights and develop standards and tools for the protection and human rights and democracy in the information society, freedom of expression, privacy, human dignity.

There is an Expert group currently developing human rights guidelines to assist game developers in their practical understanding of human rights. I.e. how they can exercise freedom of expression and foster creativity.

The Wild Web Woods Game:

• is based on an internet literacy handbook, a lighter version of selected parts, target group 7-10 years olds.
• was launched in November 2007 in 14 different languages aiming to have all CoE languages but this is an ambitious challenge with 47 member states
• has the PEGI label.

The game is based on a fairy tale as this connects more with young kids’ imagination. The characters of the story based on Hansel and Gretel. Two kids are left out in the woods and needs to find their way out, in the game there are villages, each village is a ‘level’ of the game. There are three levels:

• Entertainment (lev 1)
• Information (lev 2)
• Communication (lev 3)

The aim for the player is to collect coins (skills): privacy (privacy issue, internet safety), awareness (of human rights), security and information, through the different level of the game. The goal of the game is to reach the eCity (promised land). These themes will all be developed when the Internet Literacy handbook is updated (June 2008)

Publicity for the game was successful thanks to events such as the Safer Internet Day in February which allowed to get many more hits… on this occasion the new language version were announced.

Susanne Boe of the Danish Film Institute talked about child safety issues related to the film industry. She raised issues for parents such as addiction, use of PEGI labelling. She has a meeting planned with a representative from the “gaming school” in Copenhagen which is a place to develop skills and provides the opportunity to meet other gamers etc. the Danish government is very sensitive to games in schools.

Hands-on is crucial – you must try the technology and the game for yourself. NB. The ministry in Denmark has funded the development of some video games – this has been administered through the film industry.

Gaming is a very time consuming activity for children and young people, parents in Denmark are very concerned about this. Govt are very reluctant to ban certain games etc. they want the industry to self regulate. Difficulties exist over violent games, the definition is difficult. It is very important to seek the views of gamers in all of this...

Finally Carlo Fabricatore outlined key ideas in game development. It is essential to start with the user when designing and developing games. There should be both instructional as well as games designers. Much can be learnt from analysing existing games.