I’m a sucker for MUD.
If you’re not up on the acronyms, MUD is a “Multi User Dungeon” or a “Multi User Domain.” It has its roots firmly in the old “Adventure in the Colossal Cave” .. one of the very first computer games in the genre (c. 1975). It’s a text based adventure game where words paint the scene and control the action. MUDs are the precursors to the whole MMORPG movement. They’re the Neanderthals of the multi-player world, but unlike Neaderthals, they’re far from extinct.
There’s a unit in this course where you’ll be playing in the MUD and we’ll talk more about it later, but I wanted to bring it up now because one of this week’s readings is Gredler’s “Games and Simulations and Their Relationships to Learning” wherein she lays out five criteria for “educational games.”
- Winning should be based on knowledge or skills, not random factors
- The game should address important content, not trivia.
- The dynamics of the game should be easy to understand and interesting for the players but not obstruct or distort learning.
- Students should not lose points for wrong answers.
- Games should not be zero sum exercises.
These factors go a long way to explaining why “educational games” suck. By sucking the “fun” and the “game” out of “educational games” the value of games as instructional tools is greatly reduced.
Winning based on skill and knowledge is ok, but without random factors, some of which might be “game ending” there’s no risk. No risk means no emotional investment. No emotional investment means the game means nothing to the player. There’s no incentive to keep playing.
Games should address important concepts. I’m not convinced that a useful game needs to present useful content. There’s an exercise we use in our teacher prep programs at UNCo that uses the game Oregon Trail as an example of anchored instruction to teach the use of basic computer tools — word processing, spreadsheets, and presentations. The students play the game and then use those tools to do specific tasks based on what happened in the game. The *game* — a simulation of a passage to Oregon — has nothing to do with how to make a header in a Word document, but has everything to do with providing grist for the instructional mill. It adds interest, and flavor to what would be another “how I spent my summer vacation” assignment otherwise. I believe that MUDs would be terrific for remedial reading. But that doesn’t mean that the MUD has to be an adventure about how to break down phonemes and construct meaning.
As for the dynamics of the game, I’m sorry but with the exception of a very few games I can think of (Othello, Chess) the “simple games” are the “stupid games.” They’re the games you teach people to get them used to *real* games. I understand that time constraints in classrooms make complex games problematic for instructional purposes. That’s a classroom problem and not a game problem.
Students should not lose points for wrong answers?? Why not? Shouldn’t that depend, maybe, on the game? Is your score on game is your grade for the class? Is there no “let’s play again” button? This is just silly. No risk, no reward. And *maybe* there’s a reason in the game for the student not to lose points but — really — if it’s an instructional game, we’re bound by some arbitrary PC ruleset?
The last qualification rules out every instance of jeopardy and quiz games. Spelling bees, not allowed. You can’t have zero sum — every student has to be able to win the game at the same time. I’m sorry. There are very few games that have this stipulation or function. It’s the nature of the game. While it’s possible for the student to play solitare — giving everybody the opportunity to ‘win’ their own game (or not) — the ability to play in a social environment is just so much more powerful that they seem to be natural for educational applications.
There’s some interesting ideas in this article, but I’m reading it with a very critical eye. It only takes one counter-example to derail a theoretical foundation, and this foundation is pretty shaky. I think there are plenty of games that can be used for educational purposes that are not, themselves, instructional.
Which brings me back to MUDs.
Just my opinion.
Posted in 688, Games | 7 Comments »
