PREFACE
In 1989, movie audiences were introduced to Bill and Ted, two likable yet zoned-out high school students who congratulate themselves for being able to identify Caesar (“Isn’t he the salad dressing
dude?”) and who decry all world events as bogus. In danger of failing their history class, the two
bring down the house for their final project when they travel back in time and return with Sigmund
Freud, Genghis Khan, Abraham Lincoln, Napoleon Bonaparte, Billy the Kid, Beethoven, and Joan of
Arc. For many, Bill & Ted’s Excellent Adventure was one in a string of clever, time-traveling movies.
But the movie embodies much of what we now know about successful learning.
Like many students, Bill and Ted wilt in a traditional classroom setting but come to life when given
the opportunity to interact with history’s greatest and most infamous figures. When they find themselves in new and unfamiliar situations, the two are forced to make choices, piecing together data
and transferring what they’ve learned to the next situation. Ultimately, they acquire more than just
historical facts; they acquire a deep understanding of the influence individuals exert on specific
moments in time. And they’re transformed by history’s relevance to both their modern-day world
and their modern-day lives.
BEFORE AGE
21,
THE AVERAGE
PERSON WILL HAVE
SPENT
10,000
HOURS PLAYING
VIDEO GAMES
It’s unlikely that students today will travel back in time in a phone booth, but their attraction to computer- and Internet-based gaming and simulation suggests they’ve found a way of leveraging technology to achieve mastery of content both in and out of the classroom.
Today’s college-age students feel a greater comfort with technology than any generation before them.
Technology is not only a part of their lives; it’s an extension of their lives, as evidenced by their
attachment to cell phones, instant messaging, and e-mail. At the same time, advances in computer
and communications technologies have raised the bar on what we can expect from computer gaming and simulation. Many games are easily accessed by hundreds of thousands of loyal—often fanatically loyal—users for whom gaming has become a replacement for reading or television as a leisuretime activity. This dynamic confluence of events has enormous implications for education. Are computer- and Internet-based games and simulations reasonable alternatives to traditional learning
resources? Can they effectively augment existing environments? Are they appropriate only for certain learners and in certain situations? Or is it possible that gaming and simulation will become an
effective learning tool for all learners? And finally, could gaming and simulation be the next big
things in educational technology, pushing us beyond the conventional notions of hyperlinks, online
syllabi, and Google?
While for many, the notion of computer gaming conjures up images of transfixed teenagers spending countless hours in front of television or computer screens instead of playing sports, doing homework, or socializing with friends, a number of educational experts see gaming as offering a highly
productive and highly social learning environment. For them, gaming and simulation are far from
the numbing, solitary, time wasters some parents and educators fear. In fact, they typically involve
UNLOCKING THE POTENTIAL OF GAMING TECHNOLOGY
1
high degrees of peer interaction and analysis and may well be the missing pieces in both traditional
and nontraditional educational settings.
Part of what games represent, according to Diana Oblinger, executive director of higher education at
Microsoft Corporation, is the concept of learning by doing—a concept that colleges have long recognized as essential to mastery of content. For example, mock trials have been the practice for
decades at law schools. Role playing is common in colleges and even high schools as a way of helping students understand both a subject and the nature of human interaction. In most of those settings, students are not only doing but also analyzing what happened and why. The learning sciences
literature shows that “doing with understanding” produces better transfer than mere “doing
alone.”1,2
The focus on context and the application of knowledge in lifelike settings makes games and simulations appealing additions to courses or curricula. They enable faculty and students to experience a
broader range of situations firsthand. Simulations offer realistic environments whereby learners can
step into challenging situations, make choices, use information they’ve acquired, or discover what
information is missing. In gaming environments, it’s possible to advance to the next level of learning only once the prior level has been mastered. And in that context, learners can experiment and
take chances—all of it without the consequences or risks associated with real-life situations, whether
it’s in the boardroom, in the operating room, or on the battlefield.
However, as with countless other advances in technology that have made their way into the classroom, gaming and simulation present challenges, risks, and a host of unknowns. Before age 21, the
average person will have spent 10,000 hours playing video games.3 Some say this offers evidence that
today’s students would be responsive to educational uses of gaming and simulation. Others fear that
educational gaming will never capture the attention of learners in quite the same way as commercial
games do. Still others are skeptical of certain gender and age issues that have become associated with
games, and most of those issues remain not entirely understood. Many educators suspect that higher education’s culture itself may present barriers, with few professional rewards waiting for those
who integrate gaming and simulation into courses. But for hundreds of thousands of dedicated
gamers, gaming and simulation are already educational tools—albeit informal ones. And for a growing number of educators and technologists, they’re already integral parts of a student’s education; it’s
only a matter of time before they become a part of their formal education.
At the second Microsoft Higher Education Leaders Symposium, called Unlocking the Potential of
Gaming Technology, 32 educators, technologists, and learning experts participated in a variety of
vivid demonstrations of games and simulations currently being used in classrooms, professional
training environments, businesses, and the military. Together the group affirmed the potential of
gaming and simulation to improve teaching and learning and explored the barriers that might
impede their implementation and use.
2
HIGHER EDUCATION LEADERS SYMPOSIUM
SECTION I
Fun and Games: What Do They Have to Do with Learning?
Sivasailam “Thiagi” Thiagarajan became interested in gaming at the age of 7, when his mother died.
Thiagarajan’s grandmother assured him his mother would be born again, that life was a game. “We’re
pieces being moved around by a pantheon of gods,” says the popular leader of seminars that rely on
role playing and simulation for learning and professional development. Thiagarajan is unconflicted
when it comes to assessing the impact of traditional learning methods on students’ ability to absorb
and retain knowledge and information. “Kids start out learning by playing, and then we start teaching them—and they stop learning,” he says.
Few would argue against the value that playing out imagined situations has for young children.
Through role playing and simulation, children make choices and experience consequences. From
Barbies to GI Joes and from playing house to playing cops and robbers, children frequently immerse
themselves in imagined events and assume roles and identities. Through such play, they draw on
existing knowledge as they navigate new situations. Along the way, they learn how to use materials,
how to communicate, even how to manage. Repetition is key to success: the more the game is
played, the more sophisticated the activities become. Children build knowledge through playing. It’s
how they learn.
Learning, however, is more than just what happens while playing a game. It’s also influenced by
upbringing and environment as well as our cultural and social interactions and influences in the
world in which we’re raised. Baby boomers were raised with television, typewriters, and communication by memo. GenXers are the products of video games, computers, and e-mail. Millennials—
those born after 1982—are products of the World Wide Web, mobile devices, instant messaging, and
online communities. As today’s college-age students, they’re digitally literate, always connected, and
drawn to community. They prefer to work collaboratively and experientially. They learn best when
engaged and excited. They and their older siblings—males in particular—are enthusiastic gamers
who know how to work in groups, navigate new situations, build on prior knowledge, and learn new
technologies quickly.4 They grew up with computer-based games and simulations, and the computer-based gaming and simulation industry grew up with them.
According to Oblinger, games and simulations have become part of the fabric of college life, albeit
mostly in a recreational way. Studies by the University of Illinois at Chicago show that nearly twothirds of U.S. college students are regular or occasional game players—with many college-age men
reporting that they play games more than 15 hours per week.5 As Steve Jones, author of the resulting report, writes, “By the time the current cohort of college students graduates, virtually all of them
will have had some kind of experience with gaming.”
For college students, games—computer, video, and online—are intertwined into everyday college
life. According to Jones:
UNLOCKING THE POTENTIAL OF GAMING TECHNOLOGY
3
• Sixty-five percent of those surveyed are regular or occasional game players.
• Games are part of college students’ multitasking environment; they play games while visiting
with friends, listening to music, or doing academic assignments. In observations, male students were frequently seen to have online games open alongside their assignments.
• Students integrate games into their lives, playing between classes or while socializing.
Students were observed stopping by computer labs for after-class or predinner gaming sessions. Games are seen as a way to spend time with friends.6
GAMES AND
SIMULATIONS
OFFER THE
PROMISE OF
It’s a phenomenon that many of those who attended the Microsoft symposium have noticed in their
own work. Don Marinelli, codirector of the Entertainment Technology Center at Carnegie Mellon
University, says that the time students spend with games today is on a par with the time earlier generations spent reading. “It’s common for young people to spend 50, 60, 70 hours or more in a particular virtual world playing a game,” says Marinelli. “We could just as easily say it took 60 hours or
so to read War and Peace. The difference is that games provide a ‘multisensorial’ environment. The
students are there in body as well as in spirit, and hence the effects in terms of memory and stimulus are enhanced. So to me, gaming as a means of teaching this next generation of students makes
all the sense in the world, and we’re going to have to look at how these games and other technologies today can fit into the classroom environment.”
But what are games? What are simulations? What do educators need to know about both the differences between them and the value they bring to learning environments? And finally, how do we
break through the fears fueled by endless media reports and complaints by parents that games and
simulations are what kids do instead of learning?
IMPROVED
GAMES AND SIMULATIONS
LEARNING
BEYOND TODAY’S
E-MAIL- AND
POWERPOINTENHANCED
LEARNING
ENVIRONMENTS
4
“Games blend life, leisure, and learning.” “They’re a gross abstraction of reality, like a Greek chorus
in a play.” “Simulations are a concentrated reality.” “When done correctly, games are more real than
reality.” “They’re rehearsals for life, alternatives to traditional education.” “They’re how people face
situations that are difficult to replicate.” “Games make learning fun.” “They marry the best of entertainment with the best of learning.” “They’re sets of rules for having fun.”
Those are just a few of the definitions of games and simulations that participants offered as the symposium began. Dexter Fletcher, an expert from the Institute for Defense Analysis who’s studied learning extensively, contends that simulations emphasize realism over fun, as well as the ability to operate in real time. Games, on the other hand, he described as “emphasizing fun over realism.” By and
large, all of the definitions are positive, reflecting a growing belief on the part of educational leaders
that games and simulations offer the promise of improved learning beyond today’s e-mail- and
PowerPoint-enhanced learning environments. “In a game, at least two individuals or groups must
adapt to one another’s changing strategies in order to win,” says learning expert John Bransford of
the University of Washington. “In contrast, many PowerPoint and other types of presentations are
one-way experiences, and the participants do not have to continually adapt to each other’s moves.”
HIGHER EDUCATION LEADERS SYMPOSIUM
But what is it about games and simulations that make them first, so attractive to learners and second, such potentially effective learning tools? Is it because they’re fun?
Fun is a popular description of games but it’s their ability to engage that seems to matter more. “Fun
isn’t all it’s cracked up to be,” says Thiagarajan, who frequently uses simulation when working with
people on issues involving death and dying. “The simulation isn’t fun, but it is engaging,” he says.
“Nobody finishes it without crying.”
GAME PLAYERS
Just as learners are different, so are game players. Howard Phillips is design manager at Microsoft,
and as a longtime producer and designer of games for Microsoft and Nintendo, he has a unique vantage point from which to observe game players. He describes four types.7
• Committed gamers: Committed gamers are driven by deep challenges and have a high tolerance for frustration in pursuit of their objectives. They are highly self-motivated—even driven—and represent approximately 15 percent of the game-playing population.
• Wannabes: Wannabes identify with committed gamers, and although they aspire to be like the
latter, wannabes are less tolerant of frustration. They represent another 15 percent of the gaming population.
• Fun seekers: Fun seekers play for immediate gratification. They view games as one of several
entertainment choices and will weigh playing a game against another form of entertainment.
Fun seekers make up 25 percent of the gaming population.
• Time killers: About 45 percent of players use games to kill time. Time killers tend to be shallow game players who want to experience the rewards of the game quickly.8
What are the implications for those who seek to use games as learning environments? For one, we
can’t assume that all learners will share the same motivation when playing. While committed gamers
will work diligently to learn whatever is needed to be successful in a game—whether it’s physics,
mathematics, history, or geography—the majority will not invest as much time and effort; nor will
they be as self-motivated. However, as Marinelli says, “If given the choice between a lecture and a
challenging, deep, and frustrating game for an hour, they might choose the game as an alternative
because it’s the lesser of two evils.”
UNLOCKING THE POTENTIAL OF GAMING TECHNOLOGY
5
SECTION II
Thinking in Multidimensions:
The Relationship between Gaming, Play, and Learning
Perhaps the organization that has the greatest depth of experience with learning games is the U.S.
military. According to Fletcher, the best military training involves massive amounts of practice with
diagnostic feedback. If you’re an artillery sergeant, it might mean firing artillery rounds that cost
$1,000 apiece. And although firing rounds may constitute the best learning environment, it’s also the
most costly and cannot be used frequently. Balancing the trade-offs between cost, efficiency, and
effectiveness led the military to the concept of selective fidelity, meaning that a learning environment
is chosen based on the instructional objective. If the objective is to learn a skill—and that requires
practice—then a game or simulation may be the best solution.
Consider, for example, the military’s use of SIMNET—a war-fighting networked simulation—which
enables users to experience fighting as in combat. With the simulation, they learn to plan thoroughly, exploit the terrain, and become aggressive, cunning, and bold. The simulation forces users to
think in terms of teamwork, to orchestrate the battle on their own terms, and to review action by
chains of command. “Sure, you destroy the opponent, but you’re also having fun,” Fletcher says.
Fletcher is quick to point out that the real value of computer-based instruction may be its ability to
take us someplace we never intended. “Columbus started off to find the West Indies and ended up
someplace completely different. Writing and books were big revolutions. With gaming and simulation, we may be onto something equally big.” The numbers are certainly large. As of September 5,
America’s Army—a realistic computer game providing civilians with an inside perspective on and a
virtual role in the U.S. Army—had 2,054,339 registered users; 1,308,201 had completed basic training; and 219,810,839 missions had been played. Not only does America’s Army serve as an effective
recruiting tool; it also helps prepare prospective recruits for the rigors of training.
Although the number of studies that explicitly evaluate the effectiveness of games as learning
resources is limited, evidence of games’ potential is capturing the attention of learning scientists. “In
simulated worlds, students are able to learn more effectively by assuming a different role, perspective, objective, even a different gender or age, and they can begin to explore what they think that
character would most likely do,” says Randy Hinrichs of Microsoft’s Learning Science and
Technology Group. “If the human and artificial intelligence models built into the game are accurate,
it allows students to learn pretty effectively what it would be like to be President Lincoln or to be a
woman in Colonial Williamsburg and to think about how to solve problems they might have faced.
It gives them a perspective they wouldn’t have just sitting in the classroom.”
According to learning experts, that kind of role play can help students achieve one of the primary
goals of education, which is self-reflection, or the ability to analyze situations objectively and
empathize with the way somebody else would be making decisions. Beyond self-reflection, games
possess a wealth of other characteristics that help enhance the learning process. Games create scenarios for thinking critically and for problem solving. They can provide rich feedback in context.
6
HIGHER EDUCATION LEADERS SYMPOSIUM
They increase time on task. And they motivate. And with the technology we have today, games not
only can immerse students in different worlds but also can do it in a personalized way.
Bransford says that by combining hands-on experiences with opportunities to reflect on those experiences and get ready for “the next time,” educators are able to paint a bigger picture for students
that includes what he calls “doing with understanding.” That, he says, is where gaming and simulation show the most promise. Bransford has written extensively on the subject of effective learning,
particularly as it relates to transfer across settings. “Most researchers use sequestered problem-solving measures of transfer, which means you sequester students and find out what they know,” he says.
“But the transfer literature shows that in many of these situations, evidence showing transfer seems
to be very disappointing.”9 Instead, Bransford and his colleague Dan Schwartz suggest broadening
our conceptions of transfer to include assessments of peoples’ preparation for future learning. This
means that the knowledge gained from some experience is used as the start—and not the end—of
the learning process. “You need to give students access to resources and technology if you want them
to use what they’ve learned to become even more effective. Using preparation-for-future-learning
measures makes the value of many learning experiences visible; they remain invisible if assessment
looks only at sequestered-problem-solving abilities.”10
In the course of their research, Bransford and colleagues have studied a number of courses that
incorporate challenge-based environments that are gamelike in nature. In doing so, they’ve seen
firsthand the ways that exciting scenarios increase attentiveness and help students learn how to
operate as real-world professionals. “Students are willing to work hard if they are presented with
exciting, realistic challenges,” he says. One way to do that is to use technology for creating tools and
sets of social norms that engage students. “With challenge-based learning, you’re able to start with
a challenge and get people thinking about it. They are then much more excited about hearing others’ perspectives on how to proceed. Students’ motivation can be enhanced even further by giving
them opportunities to influence the game by doing things like teaching characters the knowledge
and skills necessary to perform adequately in the game context. Research on teachable agents11 has
the potential to bring learning of academic content into the exciting world of games,” Bransford says.
Bransford has also been involved in a number of experiments that explore the effects of challengebased simulations and games in education. “Simply going through the motions of solving an exciting challenge or building some sort of design is a helpful part of learning, but it’s not sufficient for
optimizing transfer,” he says. Students need to be helped to reflect on their experiences and see them
from multiple perspectives. This is important because people not only learn from experience; they
also learn to experience. In learning to experience, learners begin noticing things they may have
missed the first time. It is the dynamic, ongoing interplay between learning to experience and learning from experience that develops expertise.”
THE GAME
CIVILIZATION
III,
REQUIRES
PLAYERS TO DEAL
WITH POLITICAL,
SCIENTIFIC,
MILITARY,
CULTURAL,
AND ECONOMIC
ISSUES
SPANNING
SIX MILLENNIA
Bransford says classrooms tend to be much less interactive than games and simulations. This limits
students’ abilities to receive feedback and revise their thinking—a critical part of the learning
UNLOCKING THE POTENTIAL OF GAMING TECHNOLOGY
7
process. “By the time students realize they need to revise their thinking, the class has already moved
on to another topic,” he says. Much of learning involves opportunities to engage in increasingly
complex, just-manageable difficulties, and games are built on that kind of structure. Games offer the
self-pacing and feedback that make the student want to go back and master the experience. In fact,
a key benefit of gaming lies in acquiring massive amounts of time on task.”
GAMES AND
SIMULATIONS
Games can also make it possible to more easily synthesize knowledge from various subjects and put
it into practice within a social dynamic. The game Civilization III, for example, requires players to
deal with political, scientific, military, cultural, and economic issues spanning six millennia.
Environmental Detectives, a game developed as part of the MIT/Microsoft Games-to-Teach project,
uses handheld global positioning devices and Pocket PCs as student teams sleuth out an environmental disaster by using their own campus as a real-world backdrop for the game.
MAKE IT
POSSIBLE TO
ACTUALLY USE
INFORMATION IN
CONTEXT AND
EXPERIENCE THE
REWARDS OR
CONSEQUENCES
OF MAKING
Each situation requires cooperation and teamwork along with the ability to make deductions based
on a variety of information. “In many of these games, students must collaborate to achieve a goal,”
says University of Wisconsin-Madison instructor Kurt Squire. “They have to negotiate objectives
very clearly up front. They need to understand what resources are available and what partnerships
they need to engage in. Then, on top of that, they’re making decisions about the right way to do
things. In the case of Environmental Detectives, that means the most effective plan for cleaning up
a toxic spill. So you have social concerns and ethics entering into the scene as well.”
This kind of collaborative, multitasking approach is actually closer to the way students today think
and work anyway. “Students today possess a new type of information literacy,” says Oblinger. “This
means that students’ understanding of a subject is no longer based primarily on text or authoritarian models but on discovery or experiential learning methods that they have developed through
exploring the Internet, working in teams, and, yes, playing games. This can create a disconnect
between the way earlier generations experienced learning and the way today’s students prefer to
experience it.
CHOICES IN A
SAFE AND
FORGIVING ENVIRONMENT
8
“The focus today is more on comprehension and problem solving than on memorization and recall,”
says Oblinger. “These students favor a different learning style, which tends toward teamwork, experience, engagement, and the use of technology.”
According to Marinelli, the changes in the ways young people learn should be central to the ways
we approach education in the age of technology. “We have to start by reordering the classroom
topography,” says Marinelli. “We can’t just incorporate new technology into the standard classroom,
which has largely been the same since Socrates. It’s time to think out of that box and move beyond
it. Get the movie projectors in there. Take advantage of technology with input devices and display
devices. Get these kids to look up from their note taking and participate.”
HIGHER EDUCATION LEADERS SYMPOSIUM
BENEFITS OF GAMES
Imagine a student who’s a first-year college history major stepping inside the Battle of Gettysburg.
What if you gave that student the power to make choices other than the choices made at the actual
battle? What if that student were participating in the navigation of that conflict with several hundred—or perhaps thousands—of others, each of whom is assuming a different role and making decisions simultaneously? Certainly the best history textbooks and the most-dynamic teachers do their
best to make history come alive. But everything we now know about effective learning points to participation and engagement as key to knowledge retention and transfer. And that’s when games and
simulations—particularly those that are networked—have an advantage over lecture- and textbookbased learning environments.
Games and simulations make it possible to actually use information in context and experience the
rewards or consequences of making choices in a safe and forgiving environment. In networked gaming environments, the benefits are even more profound. As J. C. Herz says in Gaming the System:
What Higher Education Can Learn from Multiplayer Online Worlds, networked gaming environments
create vibrant and highly sophisticated communities made up of individuals. Individual players
understand implicitly that they are part of a larger community, with all of the pressures, allegiances,
and politics of any group. Gamers strive not only to succeed at the game but also to build on the
game. It’s not uncommon for committed gamers to create enhancements and root out bugs and flaws.
Their contributions are rewarded with something more important than money; they’re rewarded
with recognition and respect from the community. Herz writes: “This acknowledgment fuels participation and invests the player in the experience because it transforms knowledge into social capital.
Not only do players ‘own’ their learning (because they participated in the construction), but ownership is worth something in a social context where one’s status derives from peer acknowledgment
(an incentive that is often more powerful than grade point average or teacher approval).”
As Herz says, it’s the social ecology of games—such as the interpersonal interactions that create identity and status within a group—that drives mastery and knowledge exchange. “Commercial game
culture is structured to harness innate human behavior: competition, collaboration, hunger for status, the tendency to cluster, and the appetite for peer acknowledgment. In other words, the forces
that hone games (and gamers) have more to do with anthropology than code,” she writes.
Games inspire players to seek out data and information in order to be successful rather than starting with facts and figures and then figuring out how they may be relevant. Games enhance learning
because they demand that you go beyond what you already know. Kurt Squire spent two years at
MIT doing research on the effects of gaming on learning, hoping to learn more about how games
might fit within an educational context. What he found is that it is the core content of a game along
with its underlying architecture that is the secret to gaming as a teaching and learning tool, and not
its spectacular 3-D graphics. Games such as Civilization, SimCity, and Railroad Tycoon are successful because they model complex social, scientific, and economic processes.12
UNLOCKING THE POTENTIAL OF GAMING TECHNOLOGY
9
In the case of Civilization III, students are able to see outside the so-called grand narrative of history and understand that history is the product of several dynamic, interrelated forces.13 As Squire and
Jenkins say in Harnessing the Power of Games in Education: “Geographic terminology became a tool
for students to talk about their games.... Some students started studying maps to find out where oil
is located or how Rome’s borders evolved. As one student says, ‘Losing over and over again made me
realize that I needed to know more about geography if I was going to be any good at the game.” In
fact, Squire and Jenkins see games as anything but a replacement for traditional resources, such as
maps, texts, or educational films. With games, they say, “students are motivated to return to those
media to do better in the game. They don’t simply memorize facts; they mobilize information to solve
game-related problems.”
At MIT, Squire worked on 10–15 prototype game designs that mixed game genres and subject areas.
Civilization III was introduced into high schools and middle schools, helping students understand
the role of geography and resources in shaping political and economic development. In interviews
Squire conducted following his research, he found that “students were able to access geographic and
historiographic concepts to explain hypothetical scenarios, such as why China did not colonize
South America.” One student described to the class what he learned after playing Civilization III:
“Geographic location affected the civilization’s resources, which affected its economy as well as its
politics.” According to Squire, as the student tried to tease out the influence of those factors, he finally gave up, saying, ‘They all affect each other. What this game teaches you is that history, politics,
economics—they are all related.”14
The research of both Bransford and Squire goes a long way in countering assertions that games necessarily derail students from learning information that is central to knowledge building. Instead,
their research demonstrates that gaming environments motivate learners to find the information they
need in order to be successful and that information acquired in that way is more likely to be perceived as useful and used in solving future problems. Beyond the acquisition of academic facts and
concepts, games and simulations seem to offer a number of cultural benefits as well. Michael
Macedonia, chief technology officer of the U.S. Army Program Executive Office for Simulation,
Training, and Instrumentation, found that in today’s geopolitical world, “Soldiers need to shoot less
and interact more.” In many cultures, for example, men are not allowed to interrogate women. The
army needed to find ways to train soldiers stationed around the world to be sensitive to cultural differences; they turned to games.
As examples of effective uses of gaming and simulation in education emerged, symposium participants began to see opportunities being created. One of them is the ability to establish a better alignment between education and how the rest of the world operates. After all, families, businesses, and
governments use games and simulations. Why not education? Like all of us, students are often
intimidated by taking risks—particularly in real-life situations. Games make risk taking easier.
Taking a risk, even failure, teaches something, even if it’s only to prepare students in ways of handling failure in the real world.
10
HIGHER EDUCATION LEADERS SYMPOSIUM
Gaming may also offer improved learning opportunities for underserved populations. Squire’s
research revealed that low-income and minority students held firmly established attitudes and opinions about society that were based on their experiences. Those attitudes influence their approach
toward learning and learning environments. Like many marginalized students in America, Squire’s
subjects in underserved populations largely hated social studies and resisted standardized school
curricula, which they saw as propaganda. Several minority students were completely uninterested in
playing Civilization III until they realized it was possible to win playing as an African or Native
American civilization.15 “These kids took great joy in studying hypothetical history and exploring the
conditions under which colonial conquests might have played out differently,” Squire and Jenkins
write. “What if smallpox disease hadn’t wiped out millions of Native Americans? What if they had
resisted the first wave of European settlers rather than embracing them?”
UNLOCKING THE POTENTIAL OF GAMING TECHNOLOGY
11
SECTION III
The Business of Gaming
As participants were quick to point out, gaming and simulation may be a boon for education, but
they’re also exceedingly expensive to build with a business model geared toward a mass market of
consumers. And the game play itself may need modification if it’s to be embraced by education; education clientele are not likely to choose a shoot-’em-up action game as their first choice of an educational resource. To ensure that educationally relevant, pedagogically sound games get developed,
what level of investment is necessary? And who will make that investment?
Before those questions can be answered, we need to look at the business of gaming, the business of
education, and how the two intersect. The game industry has grown so rapidly and so completely, it
now rivals Hollywood in gross receipts.16 Like Hollywood, the game industry is driven by hits. As
Howard Phillips says, the goal of game producers is not complicated. “It’s to re-create success.” And
with the rising popularity of Internet-based, massive, multiplayer games, the growth of the game
market seems especially unrestrained.
Built into the business model is a significant level of investment that is necessary to capture and keep
customers’ attention. Customers expect more and better graphics, audio feeds, and realistic or highly imaginative game environments. And technology itself is a moving target for game producers. All
of this poses challenges for the gaming industry and limitations for what are now ancillary markets,
such as education. According to Microsoft Game Studios’ Adam Waalkes, continual changes in technology keep game producers in a state of flux. Games today need to adapt to multiple platforms.
Production costs rise regularly. And as Waalkes points out, the industry faces a few challenges even
Hollywood hasn’t had to contend with—that is, the introduction of new technologies that replace
the technologies on which games are built: “Imagine if every time the movie industry wanted to
make a movie, it had to re-create cameras and film?” he says.
The pressure of production costs weighs heavily on game producers, forcing them to continually
increase their investment in order to satisfy gamers’ expectations. Waalkes played a demo of a yetto-be-released game called Mythica to illustrate where production values are going; the result was
impressive. But do the same set of assumptions apply to education? Do educational games and simulations need to be of the same production quality in order to be effective? And if so, where will the
financing of educational games and simulations come from? How will businesses be convinced to
invest in the development of these tools?
Breathtaking, 3-D graphics and multisensory experiences may wow consumers, but such enhancements don’t necessarily capture and keep a gamer’s attention. Instead, the challenge, the interaction,
and the control of games are what matter most. “Gamers play games in order to experience a sense
of mastery,” says Phillips. “When they play games, they want to feel that they are in direct control of
their destiny and that they are able to improve their performance.” Although many assume that great
12
HIGHER EDUCATION LEADERS SYMPOSIUM
graphics make a game successful, Phillips’s research shows the fallacy of that belief. “People will
accept lower graphic quality if the game control and quality of game play are high.”
Interestingly, gamers are more or less in control of the game industry. In networked environments,
they can determine the success or failure of a product in ways not typically associated with other
forms of entertainment. And that’s due in large part to the participatory nature of gaming. Gamers
feel an ownership over games because they spend an enormous amount of time with them, and in
the case of committed gamers, they very often influence their development. That benefits game producers—who have no need to invest in beta tests—and completely redefines the producer-customer
relationship. As Herz writes: “[Not] all players roll up their sleeves and write plug-ins. But if even 1
percent contribute to the innovation of the product, that’s 10,000 people in research and development.”
One obstacle to the successful business modeling of gaming in higher education is the question
about who will pay for its development. Institutions are unprepared to pick up the tab for the development of educational gaming. And quality is a big issue too. A dynamic game may capture the
attention of learners and even improve retention, but who’s vetting it for accuracy and quality?
Civilization III interests educators because it organizes 6,000 years of innovation and links together
developments in science, religion, and the arts.17
Symposium participants concluded that successful development and implementation of educational
gaming need to be accomplished within a collaborative effort that brings together content experts
(faculty), curriculum designers, cognitive scientists, game producers, and perhaps even students.
Rather than seeing commercial gaming as a separate set of products, it’s possible that commercial
games offer basic components—design features and learning objects—that can be adapted for integration into the learning experience.
When one stops to consider the viability of gaming in the educational marketplace, the biggest
obstacles may be ambivalence and hesitation on the part of educators, administrators, and, in some
cases, students themselves. Squire found that his MIT students—100 percent of whom were
gamers—were suspicious of their educational use. For many, computer gaming simply hasn’t proved
itself in education. And yet, until examples of success in education have been widely disseminated—
and the value proposition has been established—developers are less likely to take a risk in the marketplace.
UNLOCKING THE POTENTIAL OF GAMING TECHNOLOGY
BREATHTAKING,
3-D
GRAPHICS
AND
MULTISENSORY
EXPERIENCES MAY
WOW
CONSUMERS, BUT
SUCH ENHANCEMENTS DON’T
NECESSARILY
CAPTURE AND
KEEP A GAMER’S
ATTENTION
13
SECTION IV
The Value—and the Challenges—of Gaming to Education
Even though for years, gaming and simulation have been frequently used methods for training soldiers, firefighters, police, and others to respond to emergency situations—methods that allow them
to learn without putting themselves in danger during the learning process—it is unlikely that largescale game use will appear in classrooms anytime soon. While most attendees at the Higher
Education Leaders Symposium are eager to bring the future of educational games to fruition, most
agree that both the games themselves and the market for them need to evolve before games and simulations take higher education by storm.
The tipping point, however, may be near. Several participants pointed to the quick and useful feedback features that games and simulations offer users, which enable those users to apply more and
more knowledge as the game progresses. Others see value in the increased participation in game
development and advancement that is the nature of gaming in networked environments and in educational settings. As Thiagarajan says: “If the designer is the only one who’s learning, then why not
make the user the designer? Just provide a template and create a conflict. In the process, they learn
a lot.” The work on “teachable agents” mentioned by Bransford fits that point of view.
Marinelli agrees. “In an educational setting, it’s pretty clear that you have to achieve a certain objective in a certain amount of time and apply that knowledge to some task moving forward,” he says.
“That’s when you know you’re being educated.”
Symposium participants say games can play a significant role in the enhancement of learning, but
how do we bring that to life? Where will the leadership come from—both in terms of the industry
that develops games and in terms of the institutions that implement them? What principles will
guide the development of games that truly help students learn? Are we even ready to believe that
games can be serious and deep learning experiences?
OVERCOMING OBSTACLES
As with most advances in the application of technology to improve education, effective use and integration of gaming and simulation in learning environments present a number of challenges. While
evidence abounds that gaming and simulation offer clear benefits for learners, institutional culture
may pose barriers. Faculty are often eager to embrace new methodologies, but new methodologies
require significant changes to existing practices as well as administrative and departmental support.
Although a number of games exist for training purposes—such as those used by the military for
training as well as those used in business for professional development and leadership training—few
are available for undergraduate education. So far, only a relative few faculty have taken the time and
made the effort to find and leverage those tools. It is unclear how easy or hard it will be to get their
departments or institutions to invest in games, especially when such an investment goes beyond the
14
HIGHER EDUCATION LEADERS SYMPOSIUM
games and simulations themselves. As participants noted, the faculty development and support
implications of integrating games into the curriculum—in addition to the increased need for faculty
to collaborate in teams rather than operate as autonomous entities—are significant. In return for their
efforts, participants were skeptical that faculty would be rewarded through tenure and promotion.
Many unresolved questions remain about games. Participants identified the most important ones as
they relate to education.
• Creating an effective business model: Who are the customers? Are they students? faculty? college
and university administrators? Are we selling to individuals or to institutions? Who will decide
to make the investment? Who will pay for products—or for subscriptions, if that’s the model?
• Efficacy and measures: Is gaming efficacious in a meaningful way? If it’s really revolutionary, how
do we convince the skeptics? Provable and measurable results may be necessary to get buy in,
as will a clear cost-benefit equation. Many questions remain about how products will be evaluated and how quality will be measured.
• Greatest value: For whom and under what circumstances are games most valuable? Do they
apply in every learning situation? Or are they better suited for specific types of learners and specific types of learning needs? Evidence is lacking about the applicability of games across the
entire spectrum of learning situations.
• Leadership: Who will lead this effort? Interest groups will want to jump in, such as government,
institutions of higher learning, and the private sector.
A number of impediments were identified as well. When participants were asked to identify the hurdles that institutions will face as they seek to use games and simulations, the following were considered the most significant.
• Lack of value in terms of tenure and promotion considerations
• The term gaming has negative perceptions; parents, legislators, administrators, faculty, alumni,
and trustees may think games are frivolous.
• Faculty unease with a new form of pedagogy
• Relatively sparse data showing that games are effective learning tools
• The possibly multimillion-dollar price tag for the funding of games. Beyond the high costs of
development, there’s the need to consider the costs associated with updating the technology, as
well as investing in faculty and technical support.
• Questionable “profit” in educational game development: Is there a business case to drive this
market? Where are these games coming from? industry? universities?
Resolution of those issues will come not only from an understanding of the business of gaming and
the culture of education but also from the ability to challenge our understanding about how business, education, and learning intersect.
UNLOCKING THE POTENTIAL OF GAMING TECHNOLOGY
15
CONCLUSION
We know from work done previously18 that today’s students take seriously the connection between
their studies and their future careers. For them, the value of gaming and simulation lies in the ability to explore new ideas, build on their knowledge, and test out experiences in a safe environment.
Gaming and simulation fit today’s students’ experiential, trial-and-error style of learning. They
increase motivation and encourage users to seek out information in order to be successful. Gaming
and simulation offer environments in which students can make mistakes, go back and try again, and
pace their learning.
Within those environments faculty have the unique opportunity to guide and mentor rather than
drill and instruct. In fact, many of them say games further advance the redefinition of the studentteacher relationship that began with basic technology enhancements in learning, wherein the student is moved to the center of the learning experience and the instructor becomes the guide.
Given what we know about cognition, gaming environments seem to offer a multitude of potential
advantages such as the opportunity to learn by doing with understanding, to learn in context, to
build on prior knowledge, to get feedback, and to be engaged. At the same time, gaming—especially massively multiplayer games—builds communities of gamers who will continue playing as long
as they can. But is that true for everyone?
For change to happen, leadership will be necessary. But who will take the leadership role? This is a
conundrum. Without clear examples of gaming and simulation specifically designed for postsecondary education—and without clear documentation of the benefits—leaders are hesitant to take
action. But without leadership, few businesses or educators will be willing to come forward and
make the investment.
What gaming offers is another tool in education’s tool kit—one that can build on existing technologies and can be adapted and reimagined to suit a variety of learners. Games are not a panacea. As
with all learning tools, there are good games and bad games. In order to effectively advance the
potential of gaming in learning environments, it’s necessary to avoid promoting it wholesale. Rather,
we need to promote stellar examples of gaming and simulation and understand what makes them
exemplary.
So what should higher education do? According to participants, educators need to seek out impressive examples of games as well as spectacular examples of how games can be integrated into learning environments. Perhaps as educational outcomes rise, people will seriously explore gaming and
simulation. Equally important is an understanding of students: today’s students are already using
games for learning.
16
UNLOCKING THE POTENTIAL OF GAMING TECHNOLOGY
How do we open the door to these new environments? Most likely, it will happen by following the
path we started down when we began recognizing the value of information and communications
technologies in educational environments. And it will happen because students are making it happen. We just need to follow their lead.
—Wendy Rickard and Diana Oblinger
December 2003
UNLOCKING THE POTENTIAL OF GAMING TECHNOLOGY
17
APPENDIX
Symposium Participants
Beth Agular
Jayson Goh
Norma Northern
Vice President
Centre Director
Interim Chief Executive
University of Phoenix
Economic Development
Officer
Board of Singapore
Kentucky Virtual University
Lead Designer of Virtual
Randy Hinrichs
Diana Oblinger
Leader
Group Manager, Learning
Executive Director of Higher
SimuLearn, Inc.
Research
Education
Microsoft Corporation
Microsoft Corporation
Senior Vice Chancellor
Maxim Jean-Louis
Jim Petch
Minnesota State Colleges and
President/CEO
Head of Distributed Learning
Universities
Contact North/Contact Nord
University of Manchester
John Bransford
Richard Katz
Howard Phillips
James W. Mifflin University
Vice President
Game Designer
Professorship and Professor
EDUCAUSE
Microsoft Corporation
Henry Kelly
Rollin Richmond
President
President
Allen Breslau
Federation of American
Humboldt State University
President
Scientists
Clark Aldrich
Linda Baer
of Education University of
Washington
Martin Ringle
MindTree International, LLC
18
Michael Macedonia
Chief Technology Officer
L. Miguel Encarnação
Chief Technology Officer
Reed College
President and Program
U.S. Army Program
Director of Research &
Executive Office for
Katarina Rydberg
Development
Simulation, Training, and
Sales Manager
Imedia Academy
Instrumentation
Att Veta AB
Dexter Fletcher
Donald Marinelli
Eduardo Salcedo
Research Staff Member
Professor
Director of Technology for
Institute for Defense
Entertainment Technology
Education
Analyses
Center
Tecnológico de Monterrey
Robert Gehorsam
Susan Metros
Kathie Sigler
Vice President of Strategic
Deputy Chief Information
Provost for Operations
Initiatives
Officer/Professor
Miami-Dade Community
There, Inc.
Ohio State University
College
HIGHER EDUCATION LEADERS SYMPOSIUM
Kurt Squire
Instructor
University of WisconsinMadison
Jim TerKeurst
Research and Business
Development Manager
IC CAVE
Sivasailam “Thiagi”
Thiagarajan
Workshops by Thiagi, Inc.
Mike Uretsky
Director
New York University Center
for Advanced Technology
Allan Varcoe
Chief Technology Officer
Att Veta AB
Adam Waalkes
Product Unit Manager
Microsoft Corporation
Bradley C. Wheeler
Acting Associate Vice
President for Research and
Academic Computing
Indiana University
UNLOCKING THE POTENTIAL OF GAMING TECHNOLOGY
19
Higher Education Leaders Symposium: Unlocking the Potential of Gaming Technology
by Wendy Rickard and Diana Oblinger
Copyright © 2004 Microsoft Corporation
1
Barron B.J., Schwartz D.L., Vye N.J., Moore A., Petrosino A., Zech L., Bransford J.D., and Cognition and Technology
Group at Vanderbilt [University]. (1998). Doing with understanding: Lessons from research on problem and project-based learning. Journal of Learning Sciences, 7(3, 4), 271-312.
2
Bransford J.D., Brown A.L., and Cocking R.R. (1999). How People Learn: Brain, Mind, Experience, and School.
Washington, D.C.: National Academy Press.
3
Prensky, Marc. (2001). Digital Game-Based Learning. New York: McGraw-Hill.
4
For a discussion on the characteristics of the next generation of students, see “The Next-Generation Student,”
August 2003. Wendy Rickard and Diana Oblinger. <http://www.microsoft.com/education/?ID=NextGenStudent>
5
Jones, Steve (2003). Let the games begin: Gaming Technology and Entertainment Among College Students.
<http://www.pewinterent.org/reports/toc.asp?Report=93>
6
Ibid.
7
The research data is not limited to college students. However, the results should be generalizable to college and university students.
8
Phillips, Howard. Personal communication (phone), August 13, 2003.
9
Detterman D.K. and Sternberg R.J. (eds.) (1993). Transfer on Trial: Intelligence, Cognition and Instruction.
Norwood, N.J.: Ablex.
10
Bransford J.D. and Schwartz D. (1999). Rethinking transfer: A simple proposal with multiple implications. In A.
Ira-Nejad and P.D. Pearson (eds.), Review of Research in Education (vol. 24, 61-100). Washington, D.C.: American
Educational Research Association.
11
Biswas G., Schwartz D.L., Bransford J.D., and the Teachable Agents Group at Vanderbilt [University]. (2001).
Technology support for complex problem solving: From SAD Environments to AI. In K. Forbus and P. Feltovich
(eds.), Smart Machines in Education, 71-98. Menlo Park, Calif.: AAAI/MIT Press.
12
Squire, Kurt, and Jenkins, Henry (2003). Harnessing the power of games in education. Insight. Inpress.
13
Ibid.
14
Ibid.
15
Ibid.
16
Herz J.C. Gaming the system: What higher education can learn from multiplayer online worlds.
17
Squire and Jenkins.
18
Next-Generation Student (2003).
UNLOCKING THE POTENTIAL OF GAMING TECHNOLOGY
20