E-learning at Wilkes University

Prof. Trent Batson is the executive director of The Association for Authentic, Experiential and Evidence-Based Learning (AAEEBL), a ePortfolio community, who dedicates his work on investigating the uses of ePortfolio in education. In his article titled “Reviewers Unhappy with Portfolio ‘Stuff’ Demand Evidence”, Prof. Batson discuss portfolio’s failure to show evidence of successful learning outcomes – nor it leads to any other conclusion since these portfolio are a collection of just “stuff”. When an instructor requests students to work on an assignment which is later uploaded to an ePortfolio, the later reviewer will have difficulty to understand what is it that the student learned –  “What was the context for the original work? Why did the student do this work? And what does this work show?”

“Electronic portfolio technologies can store student work such as written assignments, photos of work on assignments with teams in or out of the classroom, diagrams, audio clips, video clips–basically anything in digital form. Students can upload those files from their desktops, laptops, or even their smart phones. Collecting is easy. Interpreting and integrating the collection is hard. “

Prof. Batson adds that simply collecting student’s academic work is not enough for accreditation assessment purposes. Both student and instructor must add evidence that there was a question to be answered and if the learning outcome was actually achieved. He points out that many of the portfolio evidences have date stamps, annotations, comments and respective student’s responses. Yet this still lacks qualitative evidence of student learning: “where it was found or created, how it is relevant to a problem or question, how it fits with other evidence, and finally, what claim it supports”.

Prof Batson suggests that in order to portfolios prove a student has learned concretely, courses should ask questions that lead students to produce work with learning evidence. Finally, he adds:

“The very best portfolio implementation, therefore, is a complete institution-wide implementation so this kind of explicit context continuity can be created for the benefit of students, faculty (for review purposes), and reviewers and assessors; as well as for accreditation review, institutional curriculum review, institutional transformation, and for the improvement of learning.”

Read the “Reviewers Unhappy with Portfolio ‘Stuff’ Demand Evidence” article here.

The activity of learning to play a game that in many cases implies on: learning the machines of the game,  the necessary skills to play it,  the possible strategies that causes the winning situation, learning to play online  by collaboration or competition, and many others

The fact that learning, a high complexity cognitive process, occurs while playing it implicates games into the sciences of education. James Paul Gee, Marc Prensky, Jan Plass, Constance Steinkuehler, Kurt Squire, Henry Jenkins,  Carrie Heeter, Clark Aldrichm, Katie Salen, Richard Van Eck and many other names have dedicated exorbitant amounts of time and effort, life, careers, money researching the influences of games in educational contexts.

Games come in many forms: video games, computer games, online games, board games, card games, physical games, sports games. Games are defined by rules to create a micro world, a simulacrum of a world of certain rules where people are free to play by these rules. Games are created for leisure, entertainment, engagement. But why do people play games? One of the many theories lays escape from the real world, to be better than other players, to explore the play world, to achieve and being able to achieve, for the social fun, to be in charge, to solve puzzles, to build their own world, to engineer. This very much relates to play in the literal sense of the word. Among humans, play has played a major role on learning, rituals, storytelling that asserts the culture of its group, and many other reasons. For these many reasons and others, play has been an intrinsic social activity. A Games is a medium for play. While play could be free, games have rules.

The reasons are multifaceted and plural. But games attract our attention, swirls with our motivations and feeds us with rewards that are not measurable.
We learn from rewards that we always want to come back for more. We learn from rewards that if we increasingly get more and more that becomes our motivation. Rewards have us produce positive emotions. Motivation leads us to seek such reward. When our motivation drives us to seek a certain rewards, the process that gets us there becomes a learning process. If something attracts our attention (the stimulus) that gives us a hint of the possibility of reward then our motivation will move us toward gaining that reward.

Games have lately been said to help us develop faster and sharper decision-making skills.  They have been said to incite the production of dopamine which is key for our brain to recognize we’re getting our reward. Dopamine also plays a major role in our memory retention. It is said that this neurotransmitter influences how we make decisions based on outcomes prediction. We think we will get something good (reward, positive outcome) out of something therefore there are a couple of decisions we need to make in order to reach that positive goal and avoid the bad things.

That’s what happens in our brains while we play video games. And the learning process that takes place out of it is incredibly powerful and effective.

Now, understanding the mechanics of cognitive learning while playing video games is it possible to transfer this  tool to a learning scenario? Let’s take a look at Bloom’s Taxonomy starting from simple learning outcomes to most complex: knowledge, comprehension, application, analysis, synthesis and evaluation.

– { KNOWLEDGE } Can we memorize a certain information and upgrade it to a knowledge level by playing video games?
Games whose focus is not on the play experience but on the information it brings inside the game are a good suggestion for this one such as science, math and history. A game on civil war facts, or a game on colony of ants hierarchy roles.

– { Comprehension } Can we describe, recognize, discuss or restate something that we just learn by playing video games?
Games whose focus is on the process such as how to the civil war took place or on how a colony of ants starts and how it grows.

– {Application) Can we demonstrate, operate, sketch, simulate something that we just learned by playing video games?
Simulations are common games that helps us manipulate a certain scenario. Simulating and/or re-creating civil wars or a colony of ants.

– {Analysis} Can we distinguish, analyze, experiment, compare, contrast, criticize, debate, question something that we just learning by playing video games?
Simulations, again, can be great tools that re-creates a safe scenario where players can test out different possibilities while their develop analytical process that can lead them to learning.

{Synthesis  and Evaluation} These higher order of complexity learning outcomes usually takes place at a social scenario where a mentor and colleagues are present, and where real life elements are involved. We learn to synthesize and evaluate when someone is there to guide us throughout the process which goes beyond than simply laying information out.

Suggestions of games that can be used in education (depending on the learning outcome):
http://nobelprize.org/educational/medicine/insulin/
http://howtoedu.org/2010/50-free-online-educational-games-that-are-more-fun-than-youd-think/ (scroll down for college and higher ed games)
http://edugamesresearch.com/blog/2007/12/15/the-top-10-free-educational-video-games/
http://www.marcprensky.com/dgbl/Prensky%20-%20Selected%20URLs%28web%29.htm
http://comets.wisc.edu/sims_games/
http://www.darfurisdying.com/

Resources:
Learning with games report: http://www.futurelab.org.uk/resources/documents/project_reports/teaching_with_games/TWG_report.pdf
Serious Games for College http://www.onlinecolleges.net/2009/08/17/50-great-sites-for-serious-educational-games/
Also if you’re an education in K-12, Edutopia founded by George Lucas has great resources http://www.edutopia.org/
List of articles and websites in games and learning http://www.ibritt.com/resources/dc_games.htm
http://gamestudies.org/1001
Social Issues Games  http://www.gamesforchange.org/
Health and Educational Games http://www.sheppardsoftware.com/web_games_menu.htm
http://www.educause.edu/blog/gbayne/RichardVanEckPresentationonDig/166999

Some References:

Gee, J.P. What video games have to teach us about learning and literacy
Prensky, M. Don’t Bother Me Mom I’m Learning.
Schultz, W. Neural coding of basic reward terms of animal learning theory, game theory, microeconomis and behavioral ecology. Science Direct (www.sciendedirect.com). Retrieved at http://www.life.umd.edu/faculty/wilkinson/BIOL608W/Schultz2004CurrOpNeuro.pdf
Vorderer, P. & Bryant, J. Playing video games: motives, responses and consequences.