Living in other time zones in the rooms off the corridor

"Magnet for Misadventure", and "Have Just Got To Stop Making Those Prank Calls" and I are  meeting tomorrow to plan the start up professional learning experiences for one of our ict_pd clusters. 

We are framing this cluster around two questions.

• What are the conditions of value for teaching and learning when “students are researchers”?

• How might these conditions be enhanced (or betrayed) through ICT?

And I am imagining myself in a Calvin Klein g-string, as I plan how we might address these.

[I know, I know what you are thinking, oh imaginary friends of the Artichoke - that the  closest I will ever get to a C K g-string experience will be by squeezing those flamboyant and plumptious Artichokean buttocks into XL instead of XXL cotton tails – but it would be unkind to break the visual flow of the post for Jo  with comments to this effect, and anyway for some of us the C K g-string index will always have to be metaphorical, so desist.]

Observing what students are doing online when out of school has encouraged me to look at  the thinking processes used in “students as gamers”, since that is how my day started at 4am  this morning.  The two World of Warcraft™ guild members who live with me commonly start their raids  at 6pm server time (which just happens to be 3am my time).  And 4am is often when the  celebrations, recriminations and accusations mean they forget those who live in other time  zones in the rooms off the corridor, and let rip.

Computer gaming, unlike Shakespearean Extreme Sports, Calculus for Cultural Studies, and Newtonian Physics for the Sandpit, is a consistently undervalued domain in schools.  (Unless  you consider the replication of pre-existing and numbingly simplistic platform style games  using FlashMX, when the initiative is held in the highest regard by all those who are  unfamiliar with FlashMX – aka the Digerti).

Yet as Papert observes,  "Game designers have a better take on the nature of learning than curriculum designers.”  (Papert cited in Prensky 2001, p131). 

I have always claimed that learning to think through gaming has been around so long it should rank as traditional pedagogy. Yet we are currently flooded with edu_speak rhetoric about the innovation in gaming.  Even claims of “cutting edge” ICT  initiatives in educational computer gaming are put in  perspective when you realise that Scriven (1988) was arguing over 17 years ago that

"Computer games, including arcade-type games, represent the most important educational  software resource available today. If one includes reasonable extrapolations from the  present examples, they could become the most important educational resource (for the  schools) of all kinds, not excluding books.  Even the most-condemned commercial games are  strongly focused on educationally significant skills and attitudes and offer unique opportunities to teach them." (Scriven, 1988, p1.)

So it is not surprising to discover that Gee's four part virtual world probing process,  “probe, hypothesise, reprobe, rethink” cycle (Gee 2003, p.90)  readily aligns with the  generic inquiry process models for science, technology, statistical thinking and inquiry  learning currently used in New Zealand classrooms.

"Students as gamers" aligns with "Students as researchers” (ie those used in inquiry and  problem based learning), aligns with “Students as scientists” and with "Students as design  technologists" and with “Students as statisticians”.   

So where do we go with the ict_pd cluster teachers this year? How can I show them that ICT  can enhance students working as researchers, just as it can be used to enhance students as gamers? I need to unpack how each process starts ...

1. Students as gamers: The player starts by probing the virtual world (which involves looking around the current  environment, clicking on something, or engaging in a certain action).
2. Students as scientists: Students will identify and analyse the problem, and gather relevant information. (Focusing  and planning).
3. Students as statisticians: Students recognise the need for data, and then capture measures and representations in order  to seek meaning from, and to learn about observed data. (Transnumeration)
4. Students as researchers: Student explore information surfaces around the topic to find the question/s, for their  inquiry - question finding. Then they retrieve information in response to their question/s

If the generic process starts with - Probing, gathering relevant information, capturing measures, retrieving information, Then I'm going to start by thinking about how ICT might enhance these processes.

I might start with explorations of Search Engines. And reckon Blogbar the  free search engine bar you can include in your own blog or website will be useful in that it is going to allow teachers to easily play with, and compare a  range of major search engines  [Google, Yahoo, MSN, Ask Jeeves, Exalead], and major blog search engines like Technorati, Google Blog Search, Yahoo! Blog Search, IceRocket, Blogpulse, Feedster, and Del.icio.us.] And I think I might follow up with explorations of The Question.

Comments

[leighblackall]

Art' I am having trouble keeping up with you. I now have a back log of links to read and emails to send, thanks to you. But that's because I'm inspired by you... just wish you'd slow down...

As I read this post, my younger brother in law (13 yrs) is in the lounge room on his xBox playing King Kong. I recently saw the movie and thought is was great (for a Kong movie). (That kiwi director gets some big budget clout behind him doesn't he).

Anyway, I think it might be worth talking about integration of movies and games in the whole experience. And why schools have such a hard time fitting into that prolonged experience with a topic that kids have..

Jurassic Park
Lord of the Rings
Harry Potter

Are just three examples of a big hit movie, not to mention book, captivating the lowest common denominators of fantasy and story telling, and holding that captivation for years!! Movie, books, games, sequels...

Sure! Some progressive schools managed to organise a colouring in competition and put up an exhibition at the local cinema or McDonald's... while the rich kids bought, chipped and burnt copies of the games, younger ones bought toys and costumes and improvised their own theatrical modifications to the themes, older ones organised social groups to watch reruns in costume etc etc.

But where and why are schools playing such a small part in all this? Why aren't schools getting the rights to modding the games - adding their own voice overs, 3d objects, and even scenes as assignments about a particular aspect of the story's themes...?

Basically, I think its time to move on from the discussion that trys to sell the idea that games are worthwhile, and into the discussion of how to set up a classroom so that it can quickly respond to trends, take advantage of the captivation, and deepen the appreciation beyond the common denominations of story line and emotions.

[chris]

Re the kids as researchers point. I think the key is access to expertise, i.e. not to simply do "pretend" or "soft" research that actually can't cut it beyond the classroom. For me the real issue is about the status of the work. If it is "schooled" work then it will be treated the way most schooled work is, with cynicism, disdain etc. If it is work that matters, is serious, other people are relying on then, in my experience, you get professionalism, huge commitment and so on. The challenge is to provide kids with the expertise they need so that their work can "cut it".

[botts]

art, i hear you talking perhaps more about games for games sake. i don't hear modding or programming, but rather that the skills necessary to succeed as a researcher are the same as those i need to succeed as a gamer. as a gamer / researcher i need to immerse myself in the physical rules / culture / environment / language / etc etc of the game or place-thing i am researching.

so why research at all to start with. why not put something like halo or counterstrike on a bunch of networked machines and get the kids to play a fullon shootem up knockem down game on a map they've not seen before.

then get the kids to debrief who succeeded and why. get them to understand the importance of immersion in the environment and the reality of needing to understand everything about a new place before you can exploit it.

then (and only then) lead them to a place where they can research in the same way that they play their games.

i work with kids who draw mindmaps and write directions and instructions to improve their gameplay - there's only a very small step from there to in depth successful research.

i'm using this approach this semester with IT students and will be blogging about it soon over at myplace - feel free to drop on over and have a read what i'm up to.

[marcopolo47]

Innovate Feb-March issue has some articles on gaming and learning, for those interested.