XplanaZine

Yesterday’s Boston Globe ran an article that asked what kind of culture is being produced by video games. The article, written by the father of an eleven-year-old son, lists the pros and cons of the our videogame culture and ends by concluding what parents have concluded about almost every generational technology influence since 1950 — moderation is a good thing.

In order to provide some context, here are a few interesting facts about the pervasiveness of videogames in today’s society:

• 60 percent of the American population has played some kind of video game
• Half of all children aged 4 to 6 have played video games, and a quarter say they do so regularly
• Children starting to game today are likely to have parents who played as teenagers themselves
• The average age of video gamers is 29, and 17 percent of gamers are older than 50
• Last year, Americans spent $9.9 billion on video games, not counting the $1 billion that buyers paid for PC games and accessories.

Often, when educators and researchers start throwing around these statistics, there is a warning about a radical shift in the way we do education. Our classrooms will have to focus more on the principles of gaming. Our online courses will need to be come entirely simulation-based. But that’s not what I think these statistics necessarily tell us about education.

Rather, what we should be learning from the exploding videogaming culture is that there are some basic truths about good education and educational content that continue to hold true. The popularity of videogames reminds us that if we want to have successful education, we must adhere to some principles that continue to hold true in our modern world. We must create learning environments and content that match up well with the following characteristics.

• They must be participatory. Participatory means that student actions matter — they actually have an impact on the quality and content of the course. Popular strategies for making courses and content more participatory include peer reviews, student journals, and team projects. The more impact a student feels that his/her actions have, the more vested he/she is in the course. In current videogaming, this is one of the key elements. Players actually have control over the outcome of a game. Whether playing alone or in a group, their independent actions make a difference.
• They must be interactive. Interactive refers to the number of things that it is possible for the student to access at any given time. In a traditional classroom, with a lecture format, the student is limited to one activity — listening to the instructor. this means that interactivity is generally very low. In a different type of classroom, students may have the opportunity to interact with the instructor, work in groups with other students, and participate in interactive projects on the Web — all from the classroom. These options and possibilities raise the interactivity level to high. Successful games have high levels of interactivity and actually demand multitasking by their users.
• They must be community-building. A significant amount of learning is dependent on the context of community. Human beings can process and memorize information in isolation, but they find purpose and application for knowledge within community. Community-building is also the greatest deterrent to dropouts. The greater the community element, the greater the student retention rate. Within the online courses, community building is fostered through group projects, shared weblogs, message boards, and peer reviews. In gaming, community-building is what adds to the fun and make game popular beyond the the initial play period.
• They must be entertaining. Entertaining means fun. Fun means engaging, stimulating, riveting, and challenging. This is essential both for successful education and videogames.

Notice, these guiding principles apply to traditional classrooms, online learning, and videogames alike. They are the common-sense underpinnings of good textbooks, activities, classes, and teaching styles. When we ask whether or not we are building good content or teaching materials, we need only ask about participatory, interactive, community-building, and entertaining.

Should we endorse a particular technology for the classroom? Ask how it measures up to these principles. Should we stream lectures in a particular format for our online classes? How does it align with these principles?

Indeed, videogaming will be replaced by something else in the next couple of decades. I don’t know what it will look like or the technology that will drive it. I do know that it will likely embrace these four principles of good education.