http://www.smh.com.au/national/education/studys-the-name-of-the-game-20111016-1lrfy.html
Today’s students or ‘digital natives’ as described by Prensky (2001) are in desperate need of education that caters for their 21st century learning needs, not those of students ten or even fifteen years ago. According to the article’s author, Johnston (2011) advocates of gamification say that it could “radically transform education” for the 21st century digital native (n.p).
According to the article, gamification turns the classroom from the conventional into something resembling a game of Warcraft. Students work through the various game levels of increasing difficulty until they reach their goal. Extrinsic motivation helps keep students engaged and motivated to complete levels.
It is hard to ague or find faults with the positive learning effects of gamification in classrooms and thus, it certainly appeals to the educator in me. However, I must hold scepticism against gamification as Johnston (2011) states that there have been only a few studies to investigate if the practice actually improves students’ learning outcomes. Although Johnston (2011) writes that gamification meets the learning needs of digital natives, without conclusive evidence showing positive student outcome, it will be hard to gain the support of many school educators and I feel very few will be inclined to include gamification in their classrooms without knowing if it will be beneficial to students’ learning outcomes.
Through gamification could we eventually see teachers moving away from education to become technical support aids? Gamification cannot completely replace classroom teachers, unless a virtual teacher is created, as students cannot learn all they need through computer and video games. Although there is the assumption that gaming will automatically make students learn, many games lack relevant educational content (Johnston, 2011). I believe that teachers will continue to be an important part of students’ education despite the growing sophistic nature of computer and video games as nothing is more sophisticated than a teacher.
(Jacqui Long)
References:
Johnston, M. (2011). Study’s the name of the game. Retrieved October 26, 2011 from http://www.smh.com.au/national/education/studys-the-name-of-the-game-20111016-1lrfy.html
Prensky, M. (2001). Digital Natives, Digital Immigrants. On the Horizon (9)5, 1-6.
I wholeheartedly agree with your comments that gamification will not, and cannot, replace the teacher in classrooms. Technological developments have provided some fantastic tools to assist teaching and learning. Students of today are often quite familiar with technology, earning them the label of ‘digital natives’ (Johnson, 2011. Prensky, 2001. & Humrickhouse, 2011), however I think we need to be careful not to assume that our students do not need guidance in using ICT and developing information literacy. Humrickhouse (2011, p.5) echoes this by revealing that although students may have ‘picked up [some information literacy skills] along the way’ (Humrickhouse, 2011 p.5) through their interaction with technology when they are required to perform tasks they are unfamiliar with they often struggle (Humrickhouse, 2011 p.5). The teacher and teacher-librarian are therefore needed to guide students towards the complete development of information literacy which will allow students to use their skills across a range of mediums and in any context. This ability is referred as ‘information fluency’ by Callison (2006 p.15). Careful selection and use of video games in the classroom form a valuable part of the information literacy curriculum. Combined with other activities and discussions I believe video games have great potential to assist students in developing the information literacy skills they will need throughout their lives.
ReplyDeleteCallison, Daniel. (2006). Chapter 1 : Information Inquiry : Concepts and Elements in Callison, Daniel and Preddy, Leslie, The blue book on information age inquiry, instruction and literacy, Westport, Conn: Libraries Unlimited, pp.3-16.
Humrickhouse, E. (2011). Information Literacy Instruction in the Web 2.0 Library. Accessed from
http://eric.ed.gov/ERICWebPortal/search/detailmini.jsp?_nfpb=true&_&ERICExtSearch_SearchValue_0=ED520720&ERICExtSearch_SearchType_0=no&accno=ED520720