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Can a quiz help you learn content? Yes...if it's low stakes and you can repeat it. I was reminded of this when my colleague Brett Bixler sent this link to a European geography game from Lufthansa. This one is really fun because you have to point to a given city on the map before the plane "lands".

The challenge builds from giving you cities and national borders to just national borders then finally a blank map of Europe in the background. I can guarantee that if you play this enough, that not only will you learn where Hanover is, but where it is in relation to Cologne and Hamburg. It's about the quickest way to learn German geography without actually flying to Germany.

But I have to say that you don't need Flash or sophisticated game play to take advantage of this. For instance, I've learned a lot about African American history by testing an interactive quiz designed for that course. I knew I could get a perfect 10 pretty quickly by memorizing the answers.

The more I see games, the more I appreciate the factor of motivation in learning. Sometimes you learn, not to learn but in order to beat the system and gain point. It's somewhere between pure intrinsic and extrinsic motivation for me. I would be curious about retention, but I bet something does stick. I definitely remember pivotal answers (both right and wrong) from my high school trivia competitions. Some were actually those learned from my team mates who knew better than me in sports (there is peer to peer learning here), but many were actually mistakes I made (D'oh!).

I would add that I think there's an art to writing trivia questions. Questions asking just for canned answers (e.g. What's the French word for "again"?) are boring, but those that ask you to guess based on dropped clues can be interesting (What French word for "again" is used to refer to a request for a repeat performance? Answer: Encore).

I think that's one reason why Jeopardy is so watchable. Even if you don't know, you have a fair chance of guessing in many cases, and guessing does often involve synthesizing information. When I do remember my correct answers from that long ago, they were usually the good guesses (because I triumphed over pure memorization).

As I'm writing this, I do realize that there are limitations. First, trivia games generally appeal to a certain "trivia geek" who usually DO have lots of random information memorized and are building on it for more complicated answers. The European map game is fun for me because I have a certain knowledge of European geography, but could be totally frustrating to someone with absolutely no knowledge (or no interest) of European geography whatsoever.

I think there are a lot of people who will enjoy this game, but I can imagine someone in a course uninterested in the content who will be uninterested in the game. Or will they? I did actually use a "game" where I asked students to guess what language a blue patch of non-English speakers somewhere in the U.S. might mean. Even though the class didn't always get the right answer, I think most found the challenge interesting (especially since no grades were attached). The game also showed where some low level knowledge (e.g. knowing state borders) was useful to know.

Could the spirit of competition (or challenge) help students find the trill of academic victory beyond the trivia buffs? A lot of educational theory speaks to the benefit of cooperation, but maybe a little friendly competition isn't so bad either (especially between teams). It could be more interesting than listening to another 5th grade "My Presentation About A Random State" presentation.

The session I chaired was the music and gaming session "Blurring the Lines: Gaming as Preparation for Real Life," with Ann Clements, Tom Cody, Eric McKee from the School of Music. I admit I was motivated by the chance to see a demo of Guitar Hero, but the session actually touched on a lot of themes of NextGen issues, community building, authentic learning, and of course games.

The initial motivation was an observation that not music is (not always) learned in music class or band camp, but through Guitar Hero, DJing, remixing and playing with MIDI music. How can music educators capture the motivation of Guitar Hero and put it in the classroom?

The first part was an explanation of Guitar Hero. Although it looks like a toy guitar with colored buttons, Cody explained that the way it set up chords, melody and rhythm was very accurate. He was able to use the Guitar Hero notation on a music staff as is.

When you're in guitar hero though, I thought the visualization of a stream of incoming commands actually showed the structure of the rhythm and cords in some ways better than traditional notation. Already I could see that Guitar Hero would help you with (reading) traditional music (scores). I think it could help with basic fingering or other kinesthetic skills depending on the instrument. One student reported that Drum Kit did help with learning to play "real" percussion.

Guitar Hero was presented to a set of preservice music teachers, many of whom had succeeded in traditional music education. Interestingly, they were very skeptical of the value of Guitar Hero, but fortunately playing is believing.

In fact, many students reported that they felt Guitar Hero (as well as the Rock Band suite with multiple instruments) was a good tool for teaching improvisation. Not only can you "play" a band, but you can pre-program other instruments and improvise on the real instrument. In addition, Rock Band has a "studio" portion in which you can program custom tracks and play with melody, chords, rhythm and so forth for each instrument. You can experiment with different effects relatively quickly.

A final benefit was how the game changed the course dynamics. In the beginning, the atmosphere was very formal with students feeling competitive, but the band atmosphere of the game allowed the students to take charge and develop a "jam session" groove valued by many musicians.

As with all technology, there were kinks including dialup speeds for uploading modules. But this is one gaming technology that really shows how learning can be fun and educational.

The ESL game I encountered two weeks ago at a conference has got me thinking. Can we use the simple "beat the system" technique for something besides homework? The engineering course I'm developing includes (not surprisingly) a lot of formulas. Pages and pages of them in fact.

As an instructional designer attempting to think like a student, I kept wondering - what are they all for? It wasn't until I started working through some sample problems in the course that I began to understand their function (and began to realize which ones were actually time saving tricks).

If you're given a list of formulas, it's really very overwhelming. They are essentially pieces of random text you have to memorize, with weird symbols at that. Even though this class is designed for engineers, it has to still be a little confusing to wonder which formulas are the most important and when to use them.

But what if the formulas were presented sequentially as "rewards" for successful problem solving at the early level? First you're asked to solve problems (review perhaps) based on math you already know, but as you are required to solve more different or more complex problems, you might be given new formulas to unlock.

An Arithmetic Scenario

I thought I would write an arithmetic scenario to capture what I mean. Suppose you have learned to add and you solve a few addition problems like "What is the cost of one apple plus one orange plus two grapes." At some point a student might encounter a problem like "What is the cost of 6 apples" which is actually more quickly solved by multiplication.

Maybe at this point, the game could whisper "Hey kid, want a secret tool called multiplication?" This would open a mini lesson on multiplication with a secret reference source called a...multiplication table. Would this turn a multiplication table from a torture device to a secret weapon? Maybe, if the right real-world scenario were given.

Moving On

Math in particular seems like a field in which "gaming levels" really apply. For instance, you need addition to do multiplication which leads to exponentiation then logarithms (not to mention basic algebra). Math is taught in a sequence because skills often build on each other (although it can be hard to see the payoff in high school).

I think there are K-12 math activities like this, but can we extend this to high school and college? I've seen "capstone" activities (e.g. design a survey in statistics) where you put what you learn into practice, but it still seems like we present math as an abstract tool you will use at some later date.

The statistics / romance manga is moving in the right direction in terms of adding a plot line, but I'm wondering if a game element can add more of a reward system to with the real world context. I suspect the original mathematicians thought the current formulas were a gift in comparison to the "old way." Can we share that same "gift" with our students?

Post Script - Mar 26, 2009

I just read post on the Kapp Notes blog about using a "survival" game to explore engineering formulas. It'll be interesting to see how it works out.

Last week, I attended the CALICO conference on technology use for foreign language teaching. Since foreign languages involve communication skills, it's always a good conference to see communication tools in action as well as other developments such as gaming.

ESL Homework "Game"

There was only one game element in this English as a Foreign Language class (taught in Thailand), but it really changed the dynamics of doing homework. The students were assigned the usual reading & grammar exercises, but with the following conditions.

* Students earned "money" for completing exercises.
* The money could be used to open up more exercises and gain more money
* Students start at $0, but can continue to earn higher amounts of money to open more advanced exercises. The most "expensive" was $1400.

This simple device turned homework into a "beat the system" competition in which students were asking instructors to grade assignments more quickly so they could earn more money (reminds me of Mafia Wars). Students could see each other scores, but only the top 1/2 liked that feature. The presenter said he might disable scores, but I wonder if it should be a top 5 or top 10 list (like the old arcade games).

Very interesting psychology, and it might be easy to program.

Other CMC

As always, CMC (Computer Mediated Communication) was a major topic with presentations on Twitter, Second Life, blogs, RSS and wikis. Presentations were mixed, but one blog presentation was able to document that using blogs with a second language pen-pal was as effective as e-mail (if not more so) in positively changing student attitudes towards a foreign culture.

Neverwinter Nights

The best demo was probably Neverwinter Nights, a system where you can create custom "quest" modules. The instructor made a Neverwinter Nights module with a mystery. The wizard has to go through a village (where everyone speaks in a different language) and determine if a witch has cursed the town. The answer was that it was her chickens who caught the bird flu (and later stolen) that was the problem (interesting plot twist). It also showed the use of both dialogues and "realia" (maps and signs in the target language). The speaker also noted that you can set traps to destroy wizards who refuse to help the town.

Then of course we saw her insert an attack grizzly bear into the module and eat a character. Totally realistic.

Tech Room Design

We got to see some of the computer lab & tech classroom layouts at ASU. First there were lots of electrical outlets for our laptops, many built right into the desk. Clearly the school had a lot of money available in the recent past, and it seems to have been well spent.

But it seems like the designers are thinking about facilitating collaboration. Many labs grouped computers in groups of 3-4 at a round table. It would be pretty easy to swing around to one screen or compare screens. The newer flatscreens also make it much easier to move monitors around, and some were set on special arms (so you could lower the monitors for a compelling lecture).

Another room that was interesting was my seminar room in the Cronkite School of Journalism (yes that would be Walter Cronkite). It had the Macs all along the wall, but a central table in the middle. I think the idea was to do a mini-lecture than have people work on their own machine (maybe research a story). Interesting idea, but awkward for a hands on training session because the students in the back would be have to face me or their monitor. Fortunately, the class was small enough that everyone was on the side and could face both me and the monitor.

There have been several strategies proposed to encourage teen girls to relate more to math, but perhaps the most romantic is The Manga Guide to Statistics as publicized in the Chance Newsletter from Dartmouth. It's the story of typical teen girl Rui who realizes that the path to the heart of "dreamy" Mr. Igarashi is to learn statistics. Of course, this means her father hires a math whiz tutor which creates an instant romantic triangle.

Based on the sample chapters posted, the story seems to be surprisingly well written, magically combining statistical concepts with real-world situations (e.g. curves on an exam or categorizing ramen noodle restaurant types). Providing a narrative is important to learning how to do problems in context, but many narratives seems forced. These scenarios seem plausible somehow.

The tone is also gently humorous, like a father fondly recalling his ditzy teen daughters who manage to make sense in the end. An interesting scene is when our tutor tries to explain Rui and her friend Yumi, why a 90 in an English exam is not scored as well as a 90 in a Classical Japanese exam. Of course he really needs access to the raw scores to the class. No problem says Yumi: "I have them" (a mystery not lost on Rui). Looks like some girls are smarter than they first appear.

I've only read two excerpts (linked from the Chance site), but I admit I am intrigued. How WILL our tutor hero convey binomial distribution to Rui? It's an interesting story. Is it interesting enough for our target audience?

On A Cultural Note...

This manga really is from Japan, hence the choices of both English and Classical Japanese as foreign language offerings. It's interesting to see how teen girl life is both the same and different here. You may even learn a little bit about different types of ramen. Interesting.

I ran into an interesting site on collaborative data collection at the The Center for Innovation in Engineering and Science Education.

The site is a series of data collection activities which students in a school can do such as timing and temperature for boiling water (varies w/ altitude), collecting and analyzing local water samples, etc. I like these because the activities are simple, but students participate in actual research because they can submit results to a global database.

It's also a good example of how we can use non-specialists to gather valuable scientific data. I know of programs where people report which bird visit their feeders (to Cornell) and local weather observations (to the local TV station). What can we do to harness this kind of interest so that more people can become "weather experts" (like one of our writers).

The Math Forum sent on a nice site - www.talkaboutmath.org about parents helping children learn math, starting with the basics...counting. There are also some great videos of how and when kids go astray in the beginning.

There are lots of sites for parents on learning math, but I like this one because it breaks down a skill we all take for granted - counting - and breaks it down into it's constituent steps of learning number names, their order, not counting the same thing twice and knowing when to stop. It's actually a cool cognitive trick kids learn when you think about it.

I also liked her suggestions for facilitating counting...with games of course.

I was also amused when she said counting has a magical power for kids. I definitely remember going through a counting phase myself. It WAS the coolest thing I knew about at the time.

Way back at NMC 2006, I attended a gaming workshop and we were asked to design a game which would teach and motivate children to brush their teeth.

To me, the interesting part of the game was writing a scenario which would help children visualize the benefits of brushing their teeth while still focusing on "entertainment". One of our group members suggested "War of Toothcraft" which would chronicle the never-ending fight between the evil foces of plaque and gingivitis versus the valiant fluoride, floss and mouth wash army.

So for your Halloween pleasure, I present World of Toothcraft. Pretend the text is scrolling towards infinity.

I always like to find activities (including games) which apply what you learn to a real situation - even Cathedral Architecture.

I just ran into a simple "Green Blobs" Equation Plotter Game in which students try to generate an equation which will hit the most green dots on the grid. I've seen math games "shooting" games before, but this Green Blogs is unique in that it uses a skill that does occur in real math.

For instance, statistical regression is basically trying find an equation that best "hits" the dots from your data set. It would be interesting to see if these kids made a connection later, but at least the idea won't be a foreign concept.