Mission to Learn

When Janet Clarey pointed out that Zaid’s list of 25 Edublogs Not To Be Missed was male dominated (22-3, to be exact), Zaid took action. Below is the result (or click through if you do not see it). It contains some of my favorites, like Michele Martin, Cathy Moore, and…er, Karl Kapp?

Jeff Cobb
Mission to Learn

P.S. If you enjoy what you read here on Mission to Learn, I encourage you to subscribe to the RSS feed or use the e-mail subscription form at the top right side of this page.

Heifer Village Nepal Start Sceen

In an article I wrote recently for WE magazine, Play for Change, I used one of my favorite nonprofits, Heifer International, to help illustrate how serious games might create a higher level of engagement with an organization than some of the more typical communication practices. Ironically, Heifer must have been at work on its own game for change at the time I was writing the article, as I learned today via Future-Making Serious Games that a beta version of a new Heifer game, Heifer Village: Nepal, is now available. Here’s the game set-up:

In this village a few are prosperous, but most struggle with hunger and poverty. You are Esha, a young girl who belongs to a poor family. Your mother Sabitri’s dearest wish is to somehow acquire a goat. A goat would provide your family with milk and the means of making money, which would allow you to go to school.

For those not familiar with Heifer, the organization’s approach is to donate a goat, cow, chickens, or other domestic farm animals to families living in poverty. The animals become a source of income and nutrition to the family and the the recipients are also required to Pass on the Gift by donating offspring to other families. The Heifer game is apparently based on the experiences of Heifer’s real-life partners in Nepal, like Chanamati Thapa, a woman who used the income from her Heifer goats to start a flour mill and buy a water buffalo.

The game was developed by ForgeFX in collaboration with Beaconfire Consulting. ForgeFX is currently seeking input on the beta version (e-mail them). Some specific questions the company is asking for input on are:

• Did you have any problems getting into the game (i.e. plugin installation)?
• Did you know what to do when the game started?
• Is the user interface intuitive?
• What do you think of the level of the difficulty, navigation, usability?
• Were you able to complete the first lesson node (gathering wood for the fire)?
• Overall, how can we better reach the goals we’ve stated?

Personally, I found the game reminiscent of a combination of 3rd World Farmer, which I discuss in the Play for Change article, and Darfur is Dying. I found the game action less intuitive than in the former, and the ability to move around not as easy as in the latter. I’ll be submitting this feedback, and I encourage you to try the game and submit your own.

Jeff Cobb
Mission to Learn

Two recent bits of news about the use of computer games in primary education are of a variety either to make you applaud or make you cringe, depending on your views about games and education. I tend more towards the applaud camp, as other postings about serious games here on Mission to Learn suggest, but there is little doubt that we have some complex issues with which to wrestle as the popularity and ubiquity of video games continues its rapid rise.

Improved Math Scores

First, BBC News (via Serious Games Portal) reports on a study by Learning and Teaching Scotland involving the use of Nintendo’s Brain Training from Dr Kawashima game. The study encompassed more than 600 math students in 32 schools across Scotland. One group of students played the game for 20 minutes at the start of their class for nine weeks while a control group continued their studies in the usual manner. All students were tested at the beginning and end of the study. Scores for the group that played the game improved 50% more than scores for the group that had not. The BBC article also reports that:

Less able children were found to be more likely to improve than the highest attainers and almost all pupils had an increased perception of their own ability.

The study also found that it made no difference if the children had the game at home and noted no difference in ability between girls or boys.

It found improvements in absence and lateness in some classes.

Access the full BBC article >>

World of Warcraft as Learning Tool

On other fronts, Live Science reports on a study by University of Wisconsin-Madison researcher Constance Steinkuehler that involves using War of Warcraft, the highly popular massively multiplayer online role-playing game (MMPORG), as a tool for engaging and teaching boys in an after school group.

The article is a little light on actual data from the study (I’m still searching for more), but it does note that members of the group, which consisted of eighth grade and freshman boys, have gone from “barely stringing together two sentences to writing lengthy posts in their group’s Web site forum, where they discuss detailed strategies for gearing up their virtual characters and figuring out tough quests.”

Additionally, the article mentions earlier work by Steinkuehler and colleague Sean Duncan based on analyzing discussion threads in the forums on the World of Warcraft site. The team found, among other things that “Eighty-six percent of the forum discussions were posts engaged in “social knowledge construction” rather than social banter.”  (See Scientific Habits of Mind in Virtual Worlds - PDF)

Finally, Live Science doesn’t seem to offer a way for me to embed the video that accompanies their piece, but I encourage you to check it out: Entering the World of Warcraft

What do you think? Are games at this level of education a good thing or a bad thing?

Jeff Cobb
Mission to Learn

P.S. If you enjoy what you read here on Mission to Learn, I encourage you to subscribe to the RSS feed or use the e-mail subscription form at the top right side of this page.