Gamifying Education

So the big word, of course, is "tangential," the concept that exposing gamers to new information in subtle ways might prompt them to self-educate. This method of generating inquiry takes advantage of two critical components that are often missing in traditional education: curiosity and fun. If someone is exposed to something while they are having fun, they are already engaged, and more likely to connect with the information. People are naturally curious, so if, as the video suggests, the information is presented in a subtle way, an individual's natural curiosity could prompt them to pursue the topic on their own.

The other keyword that stuck with me was "edutainment." This is at the heart of many of the failures in so-called :serious games," and the video describes the problem very well. When we are told that we are going to play a game, we are immediately excited. When that game blatantly becomes a lesson, we are resentful. Too many edutainment games are merely a loose layer of game mechanics stretched over a traditional lesson. Games are entertainment. Traditional education focuses on teaching facts. Facts are not entertaining, unless they can be presented tangentially.

Another perfect example is the old board game Trivial Pursuit. I personally tend to accumulate trivia by osmosis, but Trivial Pursuit was for all practical purposes an encyclopedia that had been chopped up into index cards and connected to a game board. Most games are not so lucky.

I mentioned another example in a different post, but it is relevant here as well. Call of Duty used the area around Chernobyl as a game map, and the map was extremely detailed. When students who had played the game watched a documentary about Chernobyl, they were completely engaged by their familiarity with the environment. Did Call of Duty teach them about the Chernobyl disaster? No, but it made them familiar with the area, and they were more open to receive the information about the disaster when it was presented to them.

The big takeaway for me when it comes to designing educational games is to focus on making learning happen beyond the game. Use the game to spark interest in a topic. Make the knowledge more of a journey of discovery. It will mean that different people will find their way to the learning via different paths, but they will be much more likely to retain the knowledge if they ome to it on their own.