Week 9

Games, the final frontier: Play theory in the classroom

Psychiatrist William Glasser decided on five basic needs that every student has:

• Survival
• Belonging
• Power
• Freedom
• Fun

 The last basic need seems like the most difficult to meet: how do we as educators create opportunities for students to have fun without losing sight of content objectives?  Many other teachers I know have tried but their classrooms have fallen into a state of a perennial "free day" and nothing gets done.

In chapter 33 ("Games...and...Learning") the author states that in order to bring games to the classroom, the bells and whistles of contemporary games aren't as important as how one is built.
There are six "must-haves" for an educational game to be effective:

1. Conflict/challenge (a problem to be solved)
2. Rules of engagement
3. Particular goals/outcomes to achieve
4. Continuous feedback
5. Interaction with the environment
6. Compelling story line

As I typed this previous list, I thought about ARIS, an educational game that can be played while mobile via smartphones.  The instructor takes a lot of time and care to create a game that teaches students without having to be confined to the classroom, and the result can be something where fun is being had using the above six rules (without an overbearing sense of "learning").

There's an example in ARIS of something that happened at the University of Wisconsin (where the game was developed).  Players wander around campus from one point to another, "talking" with historical figures that are laid down on the map (accessed by your phone, which buzzes when a player gets within a specified distance from the point).

There are many ways this could be use across disciplines, and it allows students to use technology that they're so familiar with and dependent on.