Keeping the Play in Learning Games

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Keeping the Play in Learning Games

• Scot Osterweil
• The Education Arcade/MIT
• September 28, 2006
• scot_o_at_mit.edu

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Play, observable throughout the animal kingdom,
is the fundamental way we learn.
"Now in myth and ritual the great instinctive
forces of civilized life have their origin law
and order, commerce and profit, craft and art,
poetry, wisdom and science. All are rooted in the
primeval soil of play."

• John Huizinga
• Homo Ludens, 1938

An example with rods and clamps
from The Childrens Machine, Seymour Papert, 1993
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A personal example with blocks.
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Through the informal activity of play, we
scaffold the concepts and ideas that we will
engage with formally in school.
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Play has no agenda

• The players motivations are entirely intrinsic
  and personal.

How do we channel play into learning activities
while still allowing for plays fundamentally
open-ended nature?
GAMES
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An example
GAMES
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• In games we willingly submit to arbitrary rules
  and structures in pursuit of mastery, but only if
  we can continue to be playful.

The promise of games is that they can structure
real play with substance that we want the player
to learn.
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One example

• Zoombinis a game about the math of the
  computer age logic, combinatorics, discrete
  mathematics.

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What about game play for learning about Urban
Design?
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Sim City

• A good engrossing game which meets the
  definition of structured play leading to mastery.
• But What Do We Learn?

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Learning/Misconceptions

• The built environment doesnt just grow like
  weeds it is the result of intentional, human
  efforts.

• The process can be managed by a single
  intelligence.

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Learning/Misconceptions

• There is cause and effect in the development of
  cities.

• Cause and effect is either
• one-dimensional
• or
• a black box.

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Learning/Misconceptions

• Good planning makes for a happier, more
  prosperous city.

• This particular model of a happy city is
  somewhat suspect.

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• Instead of it can all be managed from the top
  down
• Why not all good change is negotiated by a
  collective intelligence.
• Computer vs. non-computer games.

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Computer vs. non-computer games

• Computer games are good for computationally
  dense activities simulations, war games, fast
  action, puzzles, or visual complexity.
• Playing against other players introduces
  subtlety, unpredictability.
• We learn cooperation, collaboration,
  negotiation. The skills we need as planners.

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Computer vs. non-computer games

• Thinking about the future blending the best of
  both worlds
• On-line communities negotiation and
  collaboration
• Computer generated challenges and visualizations

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Keeping the Play in Learning Games

• Scot Osterweil
• The Education Arcade/MIT
• September 28, 2006
• scot_o_at_mit.edu