I was wrong: games ARE an alternative vision.
Tuesday, December 15, 2009 at 03:59PM |
About three years ago, I did a posting called "Games are not an alternative vision in response to Kurt Squire's paper. My basic argument, which I've talked through many times since, was that we need to get away from either/or distinctions when we're discussing serious games and e-learning. The latter can be very game-like; the former can be like e-learning. If you think of all the elements that go to make up an online learning experience - narrative, interactions, media, scoring, timing, user contributions, characters, questions etc. etc. - you can assemble these in various ways. Depending on the elements you choose, and how you assemble them, you move up and down a spectrum at one end of which is a "pure" game, while at the other end there's "pure" e-learning. Somewhere in the middle there's an invisible, and very blurry line. |
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"If you don't play games, you're not just missing out, you're wilfully ignoring the most rapidly evolving
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But I'm beginning to wonder whether this was too technical, componentised an approach. In fact, I'm not. I was wrong; games are an utterly different vision of learning, separated from e-learning by a huge and uncrossable chasm. My first seeds of doubt were sown in a couple of projects recently where I was working with experienced and talented e-learning professionals who just couldn't make the leap into gaming. We kept slipping back into the linearity, simplicity and blandity that is the hallmark of so much e-learning. Then I did a project with a games agency and they kept over-complicating, avoiding the obvious and the simple, telling stories when information was all that was needed...
Both situations seemed inexplicable to me, until I realised that the distinction is not a technical one. It's about culture, values and beliefs, those invisible guides that we're not aware of most of the time, but which channel our behaviour and shape our assumptions.
It seems to me that there are at least four diametrically opposing belief sets underlying the two types of learning experience.
- E-learning designers believe that people learn through "content". They assume that encountering content will lead people to change their behaviour. Games designers believe that people learn through "experience". They assume that having experiences - doing and feeling things - leads to change in behaviour.
- E-learning designers believe we must be "nice" to our learners in case they go away. They assume that the relationship between the course and the learner is a weak one so that if there's any significant challenge, the learner will give up. Games designers believe that we can challenge people and they'll stick with it. Indeed, it is progressive challenges that form much of the motivation for gamers.
- E-learning designers believe that we learn step by step (hence linearity, page-turning etc.). Game designers believe we absorb lots of things all at once (hence HUDs, complex information screens etc.).
- E-learning designers believe that learning experiences are emotionally neutral (in spite of all that's written about the importance of emotion in learning). Games designers always seek an "angle", an attitude.
This all clarified for me when I read Charlie Brooker in the Guardian. He writes, very amusingly, about trying to describe the excitement of gaming to non-gamers. It's clear that there's a chasm of belief and values that sometimes just can't be bridged.
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I'm going to be a bit naughty now. Yesterday I posted up this link to my 3D advent calendar game, which is another Thinking Worlds doodle/sketch/mess-about. As loads of people are looking at my posting today, I thought I'd link to it again...
Reader Comments (8)
To your point about "E-learning designers believe we must be "nice" to our learners in case they go away." -- I struggle with this one a lot. E-Learning designers have been transfixed by the engagement they see in video game players, and have been trying to figure out how to get some of that mojo for their own projects (mostly unsuccessfully). It's been a bit of a cargo cult -- "Well, if it *looks* like a game..."
But here's the rub for me on the be nice / challenge dilemma -- game players are almost always a self-selecting group. The levels of difficulty and challenge can make for great game experiences *does* drive some users away - which is no big deal in an entertainment product, but different in a learning piece.
One example is the Thinking Worlds engine use of keyboard navigation (Thanks for posting your TW experiments here, btw. I've been considering whether I can use the engine for some projects, and it's been really helpful to see your examples). Thinking Worlds is potentially a game changer in the industry, due to the sophistication of the authoring environment and the price point, but at this point, I would have a hard time justifying its use for a training project where participation was mandatory for a diverse audience. There would be some segment of the population who would wind up hopelessly stuck in a corner of the virtual environment behind the copier banging into the wall, unable to extricate themselves with the keypad. There would be a further segment of the audience who would be able to navigate, more or less, but would be endlessly pissed off about the whole thing (could be that I'm too pessimistic here -- user testing would be the way to go on that).
But I do think game designers can at least assume, in the majority of cases, that the person playing the game has chosen to do so (rather than it being an assignment or a job requirement).
Please understand -- I'm passionately opposed to the kind of dumbing down that happens all too often in e-Learning, which can completely neuter the learning experience, and I don't have a solution other than to advocate for usability design practices to ensure that the interface doesn't get in the learner's way. But I do think it's important to at least acknowledge that learning designers do frequently have the extra constraint of a predetermined audience, rather than a self-selecting one.
Completely with you on the content vs. experience issue (blogged on that here http://bit.ly/935vca and http://bit.ly/78UyuH). Knowledge does *not* equal behavior.
Here's a point I think you're missing.
I've never ever ever completed an eLearning course. I hate them. One of the reasons I follow this blog (and Julie) so avidly is that I keep wondering when somebody's going to show me what I'm missing. People like Ruth Clark and their emotionless minimal cognitive-overload approach drive me to distraction. There's no learning curve - just a grinding (to use a game term) vertical line which is always always too frickin' shallow.
And learning and development is the way I've chosen to spend the majority of my life. If there's anybody on the planet who should have completed an eLearning course, it should be me. I spend whole days beating myself up for 'missing the eLearning boat' - I must be the only relatively tech-savvy, technophile who still does classroom-based learning and resolutely non-techy project-based-learning projects. (Whereas, I'll quite happily play games just to check out the 'mechanics' - by coincidence, something I Tumbled earlier today, http://rtbc.tumblr.com/post/285580038/in-my-immortal-future-ill-probably-end-up)
Please, you two. Don't let yourselves go down this path. Here's a more accurate version of your piece:
eLearning is an utterly different vision of teaching, separated from learning by a huge and uncrossable chasm. (Gaming is a route out of this).
All of your 'gamers' belief sets are also common among Knowledge Managers, Sensemakers/Cynefin practitioners, marketers, management consultants. . .
First, e-learning can be non-linear if we use branching scenarios in which the learner creates its own learning path based on the choices he makes. In such e-learning modules, not only does learning happens from interacting with the content but also from the decisions process leading to the content. Bad choices force the learner to think about what he should have done.
The fact that learning people can't see the value of Serious Games or that gaming people fail to see value in linear concepts is not due to the fact that serious games canot be used for e-learning. It is in fact due to cultural reasons: they are used to do things one way and they just don't know what they don't know.
Many studies demontrated that learning happens in well designed serious games. If learning happens through electronic (i.e. computer) means, the to me this is e-learning.
I think that the problem is that there are few people with both extensive Instructional Design and game design and development domain knowledge. The syntheses necessary to cross the divide will happen in the heads of such people, as they can see both the problems and the solutions inherent in both worlds.
This problem is exacerbated by the fact that universities and eLearning firms do not seem to be actively seeking and retaining such people and giving them the free rein to exercise both sides of their knowledge on the same project (I know this from experience).
We need to have several of these people teaching at key universities or teaching adult learners at conferences, seminars, etc. Once we have enough of these people, I think we'll really start to see things emerging from eLearning that we can't imagine now.
I also think that developers will start coming out with tools (for instance, a visual decision tree editor) to help designers past the mental hurdles they face in being able to visualize branching eLearning like Guy advocates. We should also see some kind of new processes evolving that help ensure that both designers and developers "keep their eyes on the prize" and tie each rich interaction to a learning objective.
We can't give up or cop out because we are in a period where the talent needed to take eLearning into the next level doesn't yet exist. Instead, we need to look honestly at the causes and see what can be done to make the changes that are needed.
There are a number of different questions. Does the business demand it? In many cases no. If your after a tick box exercise in compliance related content or 10 things to remember about x, then non linearity, rich practice scenarios and problems are probably not the way. But then, does the business only give us these types of objectives because they think we are only capable of designing basic experiences that hit these types of objective? Thus, we remain outside of the top table because we can't design experiences that change behaviours and impact business performance? I have seen this debated on Cammy Beans blog and Karl Kapps blog in the 'accidental ID' thread.http://karlkapp.blogspot.com/2009/12/accidental-instructional-designers-may.html
I agree on the skillsets issue. In training IDs in sim development, the concepts of scenario design and non-linear learning events are often difficult for IDs to get to grips with. The technology bit is pretty easy, its the question - ok, with so much flexibility, what should I design? What is the scenario? A compelling narrative? Mechanics and behaviours that will drive learning and objectives? Adding emotional stimuli. Safe failure and meaningful consequences. Replayability methods. Diagnostics and feedback in a data rich environment. Etc. We spend alot more time on these types of subject as opposed to the tech. They are pretty alien to most IDs for whatever reason
Excellent, concise post about these important differences.
Of course the e-learning designer perspective is somewhat stereotypical, but I completely agree that your analysis applies to the vast majority of e-learning being produced today (and yesterday, and the day before, and so on, and probably into the future as well).
I have found that when trainers are responsible for directing the output, the focus shifts from 'can the learner perform' to 'the learner needs to know about such-and-such'. Even the tests created reflect this objective: mostly recall of information presented during the training. The trainers are so passionate about the material, they feel that the learners MUST get an appreciation of that depth. However, most of the time, a more casual understanding (so long as the learning is tested to perform) is perfectly acceptable.
When I consult with clients about producing training for equipment (and now product marketing), I am constantly running into the traditional mindset about simply presenting the facts. Boring, and most importantly, difficult for the learner to apply the facts in the field, without the proper context!
Rather, present materials in a challenge format, and remediate in several stages if the learner is not getting it.
To be an even-handed basher (not just e-learning designers), I should point out the video game creators and technology enthusiasts tend to swing too far the other way. I think they feel they need to inject too much entertainment or technology, which, if not designed properly instructionally, can weaken the learning. Learners do have motivation and incentives to learn the materials (interest, job promotion, increased capability, safety, etc.), so understanding those motivations can help focus how the training is produced. If you lose sight of the personal motivation factor, you will be completely off no matter how boring or how fun you create the training.
I've also talked with several manufacturers who want to create "games" to engage and teach customers, but they put the fun and interactive part over the learning objectives. For example, a game that features a product, but the use of that manufacturer's product is incidental -- it could be any of their competitors as well. Who remembers the 'viral videos' like the make-your-elven-head (I think Office Depot, or OfficeMax) but people forgot who it was produced for, or even thought it was made by a competitor (Staples)?
In any event, great insight and great post. Thanks!
Alena
http://onlinemariogames.net