row when you're playing again there's is natural inclination is become better just are engaging
in the world and you know part of that is simply to recruit other people
to game right so you're playing something i civilisation is a way to which you
need to have other players the kind of push understanding sure strategy same thing in
gilder multiple
what i'm most interested in those this idea that when you play through again world
let's say that you're playing is a role playing game in your character whose shape
this entire were we are starting to see some evidence of players after playing games
like this will start to kinda put on a computer look outside several wire things
the way they are
why is the economic system of the local system the way it is if you
dumplings so what we want to do with educational games are designed games that try
to do that but really build them around critical kind of current issues
and then the kids to be motivated have the scales to allow to start to
solve these problems present results have a i o
i study video games and learning and i'm particularly interested in how video games function
is learning environments how game cultures around them function and then can we design learning
environments based on the side so partly what we try to do is design
james for learning but then also designed cultural organisations around so a lot of this
is more than just taken games are trying to stick "'em" saying the schools really
the fundamentally rethink how we do education
and one thing about things that really good they're really good at taking a complex
sort of subject area and then and then giving you put into it so that
you find intriguing may be seen also
and then it the really good at drawing people in so they become engaged in
involve right they're very much and are the to the next the games do that's
really interesting is that the actually build scale like
like you have to be good at people who play games develop a pattern detection
skills they develop problem solving skills you don't get very far and again if you
just think about doing one sort of solution you gotta kinda step back when you
reach problems
look at what is the most ideal kind of solution and then given what your
skills are what is the best way
in online spaces are really having the opportunity to take on at all kinds of
rules in into a lot of complex sort of information management you know if you
haven't ever tried organiser a try to get hundred people from all over the world
to show about the same time on time to be prepare
to have all the things they need to not mess up the group just a
discipline it's a really complex kind of it
and there are thirteen fourteen your kids around the world for doing that right means
you have the capacity to do all these kind
these kinds of things right so you can get involved this the old and help
write the charter and kind of you know develop the rules and schools unfortunately we
still have almost all of that on either the teacher or increasingly the federal government
right
we don't say that is kids like our let's build their own constitution let's build
a charter let's come up with their rules you know kids generally aren't running the
school board you know it's a then that's of to happen games right kids are
literally they're getting to participate shaping our own source of features six shaping the social
feature of the organisation and are having a chance to do
i think the mean most interesting is when you see spaces that are cross generational
right so if you actually see guilds where you have kids doing that but then
there's also run upstairs and our society is really bad about interpretation right now we
think we have to say you know all the ninth graders and you know we're
not even ninth and tenth graders
we unfortunately for learning physics there's one physics teacher and you know thirty kids what's
great about games is that they're all these matching of people different abilities different interests
all working together and it's kinda ad hoc way without learning happens everywhere except for
school that's how learning is always happened for nineteen hundred it's how learning will probably
happened you know from here on out
one possible thing what games and civic engagement they think it's
thus two things have left and i think it have less to do with one
another in video games it's of engagement what actually there seems to be a small
but important relationship between a and i think it's educators we can leverage what games
do end really foster civic engagement
we've again for example to distance i
and this is a game where your role playing is an average citizen takes place
here in madison and what you do in the games that you come to learn
that the lakes in this area are very endangered which and in fact they are
they may become you traffic in a few years the point you can swim minimal
in so what you do in the game is that you're a kid who goes
through a series of quests understand what's happening to like in and
if you go through a right you actually change the way can change the feature
now our hope is that you played again you put it down you say
well why don't we do something about it so we basically taught you how to
do everything you're gonna need to do to change the like without you what the
root causes are how the science works we have to talk to get legislation passed
and so what we're hoping is that by d and will have a massive students
who are interest in the topic they feel empowered they have the skills and then
are actually motivated go do something
something that we can see happening here that's really interesting is that a lot of
the media messaging and the organisation is being taken up of course you know by
kids and are using media to do it things like twitter and because the social
events in protest and row is that are happening here have largely been driven by
grassroots it's a large been drivers between media
the mainstream media is not covering it so we have the largest rally in history
was constant last weekend hand best fox news had one can see in and how
to wave about ten seconds right and ask people are realising that okay the corporate
own mass media is not going to get a message out we need other ways
to do it
see i
have to see something to say
most importantly i
these are your
we see things like mobilisation in using to what i'm you see people sharing have
producing videos in sharing the is to get their message out that sort of instinct
to do that i think comes apart from growing up with participatory media like games
but now a generation of kids actually has many these skills and so they're starting
to do it they're starting to kind of
fill that void where other media aren't stepping up
a group of our students watched a website because i realise that information was really
hearts again and it was not freely available in the capital so they large the
website overnight that let you know where the process were happening what was needed anyone
could pose to it
it was feature nonseen and by the next day and of course think that capital
had restricted access to it because it was deemed to be perhaps a controversial and
this is something that as a gamer people can actually do they look in a
see well what where are the weak spots what we need to fix and they
are inclined to kind of jump in and of either skills to try to get
something
well let's goes or really related to design really good players the planks i really
have to form teams for example right so we have to design their own team
that designer kind of team rules are that they killed at the right a charter
to build a website they have to recruit people so they're designing their own sort
of social system
now the skills that don't win so that involve a lot of thing so one
is information gathering information management so when you're doing this kind of gaining you're having
to model a lot of information streams choose which ones you think are relevant and
then make decisions suited to manage your own information flow coming in so if you're
playing something what warcraft
having to customise your interface to get the information that you need to do better
is a fundamental scale happens or something like starcraft as well it's very similar to
doing so that participation the sense of what kind of information my getting where can
i get more why don't i know what or other if you're have a strong
feeling on one side of an issue
do you know enough about what the other side is doing do you know enough
about kind of what's happening from different information source
that's part of i think what games are a subject she piece of what we
call participants were in the idea that you are actually shaping the content shaping experience
helping shape the world