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Games-to-Teach
Project Research
A
host of research issues have emerged from our effort to create the
next generation of games to support learning in math, science, and
engineering. Some of our initial research efforts include:
Publications
- Video
Games in Education. To Appear in the International Journal
of Simulations and Gaming. By Kurt Squire.
- Theory
by Design, by Walter Holland, Henry Jenkins, and Kurt Squire.
In Perron, B., and Wolf, M. (Eds). Video Game Theory. Routledge.
- Designing
Educational Games: Design Principles from the Games-to-Teach Project.
To appear in Educational Technology,
September-October, 2003. Squire,
Jenkins & The Games-to-Teach Team.
- Cultural
Framing of Computer/Video Games,
International Journal of Computer Gaming Reseach (2)1.
by Kurt Squire, MIT.
- Game
Theory: Digital Renaissance, Technology Review. By Henry Jenkins,
MIT. March 29, 2002.
- Games-to-Teach
Research Vision: Reframing the Cultural Space of Computer and
Video Games by Kurt Squire, MIT.
Recent
Presentations
- New
Perspectives on Games in Policy Making. Presented to the Serious
Games Workshop, Woodrow Wilson Foundation, Washington DC, February
2003.
- Supercharged.
Presented to the Learning Federation, Orlando, Florida, December
2002.
- Games-to-Teach
Project: Envisioning the Next Generation of Educational Games.
Presented At Educational Games Conference, Game On Exhibit, Edinburgh,
Scotland. November, 2002.
- Games-to-Teach
Project: The Initial 10 Prototypes. Presented to the Association
of Educational Communications and Technology, Dallas, TX, November
2002.
- The
Games-to-Teach Project: Initial Research Findings. Presented
to the Association of Educational Communications and Technology,
Dallas, TX, November 2002.
- The
Games-to-Teach Project: An MIT Workshop. Workshop presented
to the International Conference of the Learning Sciences, Seattle,
WA, October, 2002.
In
our first year, our goal is to explore the potential of using games
to support learning, and develop new gaming models that appeal to
a broad audience of gamers, infuse math / science/ engineering content
with the gameplay, and are designed so that teachers can actually
use them in classroom contexts. Growing out of these efforts, some
of our research questions include:
- What
is state-of-the-art game design? Where is this medium going?
- How
can we develop new gaming forms to attract a broader audience
of gamers?
- How
do researchers and developers create compelling gamespaces where
players engage in meaningful math, science, and engineering practices?
- Do
players think with the information learned in these games in other
offline situations?
- How
might we design games so that teachers can actually use them within
classroom environments?
- In
the past, educational innovations such as these have struggled
in schools; what can investigators learn from past innovations
to help ensure their success? What might a sustainable, scalable
model of next-generation educational media look like?
We
hope that the games-to-teach prototypes will provide tentative answers
to these design issues -- and point the way for more in depth formative
research. As such, we also believe that these issues point toward
broader issues more fundamental to the humanities and social sciences,
such as
- What
is the role of the viewer/participant in consuming media?
- How
do the cultural and social contexts of media consumption affect
the experience of interacting with media?
- How
does -- or doesn't-- knowledge transfer from one context to the
next?
- How
do technologies and media (i.e. games) affect classroom microcultures?
Over
the past year, the Games-to-Teach Project has begun exploring these
questions as a part of our design work. As of Spring 2002, we have:
- Surveyed
the MIT student body on its game playing habits, interests, and
perceptions of educational games
- Conducted
in depth interviews with MIT students
- Interviewed
a dozen top MIT faculty probing their perceptions of the pedagogical
potential of gaming
- Collaborated
with a number of top game developers, including Doug Church, Eric
Zimmerman, Brenda Laurel, Steve Meretzky, Chris Weaver, Kent Quirk,
Brian Sullivan, Alex Rigopulos, Ben Sawyer, Keith Ferrazzi, and
Ben Sawyer.
- Invited
top Educational Technologists, including Katerine Bielaczyc, Chris
Dede, Tom Keating, Michael Young, Alvaro Galvis, and Eric Klopfer
to our seminars to share their work and discuss the pedagogical
potential of games.
In
the summer of 2002, we will begin writing up and publishing some
of these initial findings, as well as begin work developing two
conceptual prototypes and a second suite of games in the humanities
and social sciences.
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