In order for a game to be effective at teaching children it needs to engaging. Students at all ages will very quickly loose interest in a provided game if it does not meet certain criteria. The most important engaging game play experience is one that taps into many of players sense. They may include thoughts, feelings, actions, and meaning making.
According to Laura Ermi’s article engaging games are ones that allow the players to fail. Players need to feel they are challenged by the game. They work to improve their performance, learn new moves, and improve their understanding of the game. With this in mind players will feel suspense, anxiety, and physical arousal which can be translated to positive feelings with the anticipatory feeling of success when a level is beaten, or a certain achievement in the game is met.
This may sound like a cheesy example, but as I read the articles and paper for this weeks essential question I found myself reflecting on why I love playing certain games. If you look at my phone I only have two games.
1. Solitaire
2. Best Fiends
I think solitaire is a good representation if a game that challenges my brain to think more mathematically. There is not very much creative thinking involved and it doesn’t really force me to learn new moves or feel any anxiety. Solitaire is a game that I can stop and return to and it will make me feel the same amount of calmness as when I put the game down. With this game the completion is against myself. Each time I try to win the game in less moves and time then previously.
Best fiends on the other hand is a game the creates a lot of anxiety and suspense for me. It is a matching game that involves levels and different challenges. I find this game is a lot more engaging then solitaire. With new updates there are always new special games to play and earn more points. It also has an option to compete with your facebook friends.
I think these two games are great examples of how one game can be very engaging in a more competive way.
Ermi, L., & Mayra, F. (n.d.). Fundamental Components of the Gameplay Experience: Analyzing Immersion(Master's thesis, Hypermedia Laboratory) (pp. 1-14). Finland: University of Tampere.
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ReplyDeleteHmm, you're the second person to bring up "Best Fiends" in a post this week, I might have to check it out. I don't have any games on my phone, I never really sit on my phone for long periods of time. But I have played Solitaire before and that one is super fun to me! Great example of relating the essential question to your personal experiences!
ReplyDeletecareful it's addicting!! only do it if you have lots of extra time to waste trying to defeat slugs :)
DeleteI agree with your point about games giving students the opportunity to fail and learn from their mistakes. Gamers don't stop after a failure, they keep playing and apply their newly acquired knowledge to move through the game tiers or levels.
ReplyDeleteI find your comment about engaging through the senses, including a sense of mean making intriguing. The visual, sound and tough senses often get involved fairly obviously in computer games - all those graphic characters and scenes make that obvious. But 'meaning making'...definitely that is one of many things that will engage me in a book is that it gives another way to look at meaning or to make sense of how people work. I suspect this might be more so in games that build a story - which I think might be part of what the TED speaker was alluding to with World of Warcraft - though I have to admit I meant to look up the game, but never did remember while near a computer, so pure guess work there.
ReplyDeleteI think it's important to consider students' feelings when incorporating games in class, or any sort of challenge. I'm glad you brought up the different feelings that are elicited when gaming, because I think that different games bring up different feelings, and that's okay. If a student is frustrated but engaged, they could use that frustration to push through and succeed at the game. Or at least, that's sometimes how I function— I might get frustrated that I'm not passing a level or solving a problem, but if it's a good challenge and I know the goal is within reach, the frustration I'm feeling is a good motivator to keep trying. And I think, like you said, we need to encourage students to think that failure is not the end, and that they should keep trying. Gaming in the classroom could very well encourage that mindset.
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