Integrating games and e-learning (pt. 2)
Aww, crap, I did it again… Once more I have managed to neglect my blog for more than two months. Quite a feat, indeed.
For the comeback, I will be completing the post that I left uncompleted about four months ago. In the post Integrating games and e-learning (pt. 1) I discussed Aldrich’s six stages for new technologies and ideas, concluding that educational videogames were slowly entering a critical phase where public awareness and the expectations generated by the media put a pressure on any future game-based learning initiative.
As I stated in that post, the value of games as an educational tool is barely disputed in the academic field. The debate has moved on to discuss if they are cost-effective (is there a real ROI if you spend a million dollars in an educational product?) and how we can introduce educational videogames and game-like simulations in the current educational system without disconnecting them from the rest of the curriculum. The post ended with the open question of how to overcome those issues, which is the topic of my thesis.
I would like to focus this discussion on the second issue, the integration of the games with the rest of the educational process. A typical target for educational gaming is K-12 education. Often this is because we consider that only children play games. This is an idea that I strongly dispute, but that’s not the point of this post. Taking a step back from the concept of regulated schools, other environments may be willing to use game-based learning approaches. In particular, the e-learning arena is currently evolving to meet the challenge of improving the quality of the learning experiences and compensating the consequences of the separation from the instructor (e.g. lack of motivation, the inability to detect students that require additional support, etc.). This has caused e-learning technologies to move beyond the concept of mere static-content repositories, becoming complex environments that manage learning experiences, allowing the interaction between instructors and students, giving the instructor the ability to monitor student progress, and offering complex interaction mechanisms that improve the learning experiences: They are the so-called Learning Management Systems (LMS).
The field is ripe for the introduction of game-based learning. LMS vendors are constantly reinventing the concept trying to explore new alternatives that may give them a competitive advantage. In addition, focusing our efforts on the introduction of educational videogames in these environments allows us to leverage the existing technological infrastructure and facilitates the the integration of the games with the rest of activities in the instructional design.
Additionally, even though these e-learning systems were born as an alternative to traditional (schooled) learning, they are currently being used to enrich and complement those traditional models in what has been branded the b-learning approach (as in blended learning). I consider that the integration with modern e-learning environments can be a base on which to build an educational model that combines all the elements previously identified: The role of the instructor, the importance of rich instructional designs, the use of traditional contents, and leveraging the benefits of educational videogames. Additionally, given the current trend towards the adoption of b-learning approaches, the benefits can have an impact on both online learning environments and traditional environments willing to embrace blended approaches.
In the development of the <e-Adventure> platform, we always had LMS platforms in mind. The engine can be deployed as a Java Applet through any web system, just like any other kind of web content. The problem is, if we simply do that, we only get the advantages of any other kind of web content. Games can be dynamically adapted, they can generate traces of the activity of the student and even perform automatic assessment. Those are all desirable features in online learning, and all that we need is to connect the games with the LMS (and thus with the rest of the learning experience). That’s the reason why the <e-Adventure> platform includes an API that enables the communication between <e-Adventure> games and LMS platforms, as well as a reference implementation of the API on both the client and the server sides.
When the games are deployed through a compliant LMS (in our current state, that means an LMS that follows the IMS Learning Design specification), they establish a communication link through this API, and use this channel to exchange adaptation and assessment information with the LMS.
We are only beginning to explore the possibilities of this integration and the learning patterns that emerge. For more information about this integration and its educational possibilities, I recommed reading our paper Adaptive Units of Learning and Educational Videogames, recently published in the Journal of Interactive Media in Education.
