游戏设计对学校教育的意义编辑本段回目录
Institute of Play执行总监Katie Salen表示：“现在有许多孩子撤学了，因为他们无法融入学习环境，沉浸感是教学设计领域的一个难题。”
在上周的FETC 2013大会上，Salen发表了一场主题演讲。作为开场，她展示了一张图片：小男孩拿着一块塑料方块，咧嘴而笑。“这是我们学校的一个学生，他刚画好他的第一个3D物品。”
Salen解释这个练习是课堂的一部分，即让学生用电子游戏《我的世界》中的3D编辑器设计一个物品，然后用MakerBot 3D打印机打印出来。“有些作品的想象力真是太丰富了，你可以在数字空间里模拟，然后输出到现实世界中。”
minecraft(from divergeuk.co.uk)
她认为，这种学习确实拓展了“我们的未来视野”，我们必须用这种方式吸引这一代的学生。“我们要问自己的是，‘需要什么支持’才能创造这种新的学习环境？
Salen的意见是：
你必须创造一种空间，能激发学生的兴趣，让他们有机会采用对自己有意义的方式学习；
你必须有一些专业人士，指导学生把他们学到的东西转化为现实概念；
你必须具备支持这种课程的资源；
你必须保证这种实验设计本身是吸引人的。
据Salen所言，这种学习环境是由Quest to Learn（一所位于布鲁克林的公立学校）根据Institute of Play的方法创建的。这所学校的教学法就是：根据游戏如何运用、玩游戏有什么作用和游戏如何促进学生融入学习过程。
Salen表示，有些非常特殊的环境可以影响学生的在学习中的沉浸感：
越来越多地以社交方式学习。学生越来越依赖学习同伴，无论是在课堂内还是课堂外，他们以团队的形式合作、研究和解决问题。
成人的作用通常是将孩子的兴趣转化为关键的学习概念。父母和教师日益将数字空间与孩子的物质现实联系起来，比如帮助学生使用网络用于研究或相关的游戏活动、解决问题、决策和消除矛盾。
新技术平台和环境创造了大量学习机会。从越来越强大的电脑到3D打印机再到游戏系统和放映设备，教育者设计更具沉浸感的学习环境，将继续从科技进步中找到机遇。
作为21世纪的教育者，Salen主张，我们必须“重新思考教室只是一个让学生有地方坐的空间，切实考虑设计一个与校外环境和在线环境相通的学习空间。”
Salen谈论了游戏以及其自然融入沉浸式学习环境的6条指导性原则：
1、人人都可参与。游戏创造了合作交流的机会，每个人都有这样的机会参与到具有沉浸感的学习环境中。
2、挑战是持续的。在游戏中，参与者会不断面临挑战，并且挑战的难度越来越大。
3、反馈是即时且实时的。无论他们是通关了还是被某个难题困住了，游戏都会提供一个实时的反馈循环，使玩家知道自己的处境。
4、在实践中学习。我们更倾向于通过完成任务学习，而不是简单地阅读概念或理论。
5、积累失败。随着玩家的游戏进展，为了得到足够的知识和技能，玩家总会遇到不得不在一任务上失败好几次的情况。“失败不一定是坏事，我们必须当自己的批评者，问自己‘在我们的课程中，我们如何让学生积累失败。”
6、解决问题助长专门知识。与积累失败类似，学生解决的问题越多，他们得到的专门知识就越多，这样就有更多东西与同龄人分享。
Salen补充道：“我们的目标是使学习对学生产生不可抗拒的吸引力，孩子能够一边学习一边玩乐，这就是最理想的结果。”（本文为游戏邦/gamerboom.com编译，作者：Chris Riedel）
Game Design: The Key to Education?
By Chris Riedel
“There’s a class of kids dropping out of school today because they’re not engaged,” said Katie Salen, executive director for the Institute of Play. “Designing for engagement,” she insisted, “belongs to the problem space of designing for learning.”
Salen, who delivered a keynote address at the FETC 2013 conference in Orlando last week, began her talk by showing an image of a young boy holding a small plastic cube a few shades darker than the long wisp of pink hair hanging over his eyes. He was grinning from ear to ear. “This is a student at one of our schools that has just printed his first 3D object.”
The exercise, said Salen, was part of a lesson where students designed an object using the 3D editor available in the videogame Minecraft, and then printed their design using a MakerBot 3D printer. “There is something deeply magical,” she said, “about the idea that you could model something in the digital space and then output it in the physical word.”
This kind of learning, she said, is really about “our vision for the future,” and the types of things we need to do to engage this generation of learners. “The question we have to ask ourselves,” she added, “is, ‘what supports are required’” to create this new kind of learning environment?
In Salen’s view:
You have to create a space that is open to a student’s interests and gives them the choice to learn in a way that’s meaningful to them;
You need to have supportive adults that can help students translate what they’re learning into real-world concepts;
You need to have access to resources that can support the curriculum; and
You need to ensure the design of the experience itself is engaging.
According to Salen, this is the type of environment that has been created at Quest to Learn, a Brooklyn-based public school designed from the ground up by the Institute of Play. The school, she said, looks at pedagogy through the lens of how games work, how play works, and the way these things can be used to engage students in the process of learning.
What we know, she said, is that some very specific conditions exist that can be leveraged to engage students in meaningful ways:
People increasingly learn in a social way. More and more, said Salen, students rely on one another–both inside the classroom and out–to collaborate, iterate, research, and solve problems as a group.
Adults often play the role of translator between a child’s interests and key learning concepts. Parents and teachers, she said, increasingly provide connections between the digital space and a child’s physical reality, whether they’re helping a student use the Internet for research or relating gameplay to problem solving, decision-making, and conflict resolution.
New technology platforms and environments create incredible opportunities for learning. From increasingly powerful computers to 3D printers to game systems and projection devices, in Salen’s view, technology advances will continue to afford educators new opportunities to design more engaging learning environments for their students.
As 21st century educators, said Salen, we need to “rethink the classroom as less of an environment that’s just about content and really think about designing communities that have connections to other communities outside the school and through online environments.”
Understanding these conditions as levers, Salen spoke of the importance of the 6 guiding principals of gameplay and their natural integration with engaging learning environments:
Everyone can participate. Games, said Salen, create opportunities for collaboration and community, where everyone has the chance to participate and contribute to the outcome.
Challenge is constant. Games provide a context where participants are continually challenged and confronted with increasingly difficult problems as they progress.
Feedback is immediate and ongoing. Whether they are progressing through a level or stuck on a specific problem, games provide a continuous feedback loop that lets players know where they stand.
Learning happens by doing. According the Salen, we are more likely to learn by actually completing a task than simply reading about a concept or theory.
There are many opportunities to fail up. As players progress through a game, said Salen, there are many situations where they fail at a task multiple times in order to gain enough knowledge and skill to actually succeed. “Failure does not need to be a negative thing,” she insisted. As educators, we should be asking ourselves, “How do we create opportunities in our curriculum for students to fail up?”
Solving problems builds expertise. Similar to failing up, the more problems students solve, said Salen, the more expertise they gain and, in turn, are able to share with their peers.
“The goal,” she said, “is to make learning irresistible.” It’s most rewarding, she added, when “you know learning is going on at the same time the kids are having fun.”
Closing her talk, Salen shared resources that can help educators integrate gameplay into their own curriculum, including Playforce, an online community for students, teachers, and parents to share learning experiences in games. Other resources included GameKit, Playmakers, and Simcity edu (coming in March).(source:thejournal)
