After a one year hiatus, I was fortunate enough to return to Madison, Wisconsin for the 7th Annual Games, Learning and Society Conference. One of my favorite conferences, GLS never fails to inspire and stimulate and this year was no exception.
Its also one of the few educational conferences where one can find themselves among like minded individuals who share many common perspectives when it comes to games and learning. Thats not to say that I seek out homogenized perspectives, but it is refreshing to attend a conference where stating that you work with Educational Gaming does not bring you face to face with skeptical cat. More to the point, when a common base is shared, it allows for more advanced levels of conversation - and thats something GLS does exceptional well in the EduGaming space.
What follows are my reflections from a stimulating 3 days at the conference and perhaps a few visions into the future. We'll see. I have many more thoughts than I'll be able to share here, so if you are curious about the conference or my other musings, feel free to get in touch.
The Hall of Failure
GLS added a new session format this year, the "Hall of Failure". As you can probably guess from the title, these sessions were all about the failures and lessons learned from those who have taken a shot at something in the EduGaming space, but come up a little short in some way.
Undoubtably my most frequented session type, the Hall of Failure presentations provided remarkably honest looks inside some extremely well intentioned efforts. The nature of the traditional conference is such that a substancial majority of presentations are given through rose colored lenses. This is to be expected and there is certainly a significant amount of merit to such presentations. But as one presenter very astutely stated, if you are doing anything that pushes the envelope in any way, you are guaranteed to fail sooner. It is intended as a compliment and not an inditement, but everyone at GLS has, I'm sure, failed in some way or another. But thanks to the honesty of a few brave souls and the supportive nature of the conference community, we had the opportunity to learn and engage in some very rich discussions around mistakes.
I was particularly impressed by Carlton Reeve's session "
Simulating Failure: Why Simulations Don't Always Work". Not only was his self reflection on the teacher training simulation game he developed remarkably well thought out, but many of the failures he identified were concerns I've had as we embark upon the development of our econ game. Hearing his story was both cautionary and validating in the design I've envisioned for our game and was invaluable to hear.
Maintaining the delicate balance that is required to make a format such as the Hall of Failure a success is difficult for a number of reasons, But I'd love to give it a shot at an event like the Learning Design Summer camp, and potentially even the TLT Symposium at some point. I'd like to think our own community is strong enough that we could enjoy the incredible benefits associated with coming together around an honest discussion of our failures.
UPDATE: Since I started writing this post, I've actually had the chance to sit down and pitch the idea to members of the LDSC camp team. Excitedly, it was met with a lot of enthusiasm. Because of the political nuances of doing something like this within a singular community as opposed to a more distributed national conference, it sounds like the plan it to tweak things a bit to discuss more mainstream failures as opposed to Penn State project failures. Very curious to see how it will all play out within our community.
Trust Me On Display
EGC partner Will McGill was kind enough to make the trip out to Madison to present on Trust Me, a game we created to help students learn the difficult to grasp concept of calibration - a risk analysis that essentially equates to knowing what you don't know.
Given our relationship with Will, nothing he said was new or surprising, but his presentation was excellent and well received by the community. His presentation did raise some very interesting questions about the portability of games between teachers - something we'll have to explore further.
On Gamification...
As I expected, Gamification was an extremely polarizing theme which ran throughout the entire conference. As a gross overgeneralization, I would say that the purists among the attendees, those who are the most passionate about games tended to regard gamification with emotions ranging from disinterest to vitriolic distain. Though I did not attend Jim Gee's self described "
invective filled tirade" during the conference's final day various paraphrased quotes posted to twitter indicate that he sits firmly in the most spirited camp of the anti-gamification movement.
Those less familiar with the field may be curious why all the hate when it comes to gamification? Its not a simple answer, but as someone who can appreciate the perspective, I'll take a shot.
At its core, gamification is about getting people to do things - about changing behaviors. Whether we're talking about getting people to shop at your grocery store, buy more coffee, use your credit card, or come to class, you as the "facilitator" are trying to change some behavior. To accomplish that, gamification relies on what I'll call alternative motivators (extrinsic is fair too). For example the fact that people like to be on top of leaderboards, the fact that people feel compelled to fill up progress bars, the fact that people are social or competitive, the fact that people like to collect badges, etc. These sorts of mechanics are a part of many games. But creating a good game is both difficult and time consuming, and so gamification strives to abstract out these mechanics to inspire some kind of behavior without the need to actually build a game.
There are two main benefits to gamification, particularly in the education space. The first is one of semantics. Gamification by definition is not the same thing is using or creating a game. And thats an appealing truth when you are trying to reach an audience who, in a general sense, still maintains a stigma around the use of games for learning. For better or worse, when you pitch the idea that "this is not a game" there will be a subsection of closed minds that open up. And thats as true of students as of instructors. The second benefit, which I alluded to above is that it can be layered ontop of pretty much anything without the need to fundamentally change whatever that *anything* was. What I mean by that is if you want to gamify course attendance to offer students badges for showing up, you don't need to change the way you take attendance. You can simply add a badge layer ontop of it. Put another way, gamifying something is much easier than the alternative.
But that ease is also the problem, and part of the reason for the ire of some of the EduGaming community. Gamification is considered a relatively easy, appealing, approachable process because it does not fundamentally address whatever underlying problem was. To refer back to my previous example, offering up badges for showing up to class may increase your attendance because your students care about badges. But it doesnt mean students are going to care about your class anymore than they did before the badges. And perhaps more importantly it does not answer the question of why they were not interested in showing up in the first place.
Does that mean it is inherently wrong or bad to do?
This is where the ranks divide. As a gamer, the answer is yes. Gamification strips out mechanics of games without taking advantage of the deeper benefits of games themselves. But as an educator and just as importantly a professional, that perspective must be tapered with pragmatism.
Gamification might not cure the disease, but it is capable of doing what its advertised to do, and thats motivate. You can argue that gamification is motivating for the wrong reasons or creating an overjustification effect, or lacks the problem solving potential of real games, or that it is failing to address the real problem. But that does not change the fact that part of our job is to help students do well in school - even if we do it by taking advantage of some less than ideal motivating factors. If badges get students to show up for class, at least they are showing up for class.
I think there is also a broader question that has yet to be answered as well. Even if gamification relies on extrinsically motivating factors, does the very effort to try something on the part of the instructor build a relationship with their students? There could be some hidden benefits there beyond just getting students to do what you want them to do.
"Um. What About The Sessions on Gamification Stubbs?" Sean Duncan's Talent Tree
Oh ... right. Got a little caught up there =) So with that little background of gamification in your pocket, there were a handful of sessions that discussed the ideas of gamification in different ways.
Two of the more noteworthy were Sean Duncan's discussion of his talent tree, and RIT's student retention badge system.
In Sean's case, he was attempting to increase course participation by adding a talent tree, a concept core to many role playing games. The idea was pretty ingenious in my opinion. Students earned participation points for doing, well, things you'd earn participation points for doing. But rather than just translating those points into a grade, Sean created a talent tree, upon which students could spend their points in order to unlock course bonuses.
There were three branching "trees", each one corresponding to a different "final talent" should students spend enough of their participation points in that tree.
- Presence - final talent allowed students to unlock unexcused absences for the course
- Redemption - unlocked additional paper write opportunities
- Balance - the most powerful option, allowed students to literally rebalance their own personal grading scale, adjusting point values for different assignments (within reason).
To Duncan's surprise, the complexity of the system was not an issue for the students. In fact, they accepted, understood, and embraced the concept very quickly. But it was about the only part of his plan that worked better than expected (this was, after all, a hall of failure presentation).
Two of the problems with the system were logistical. There was no technology used to support the idea, so keeping track of everything was done by hand. And because the talent tree allowed students to customize their experience up to an including individual point scales, it meant keeping track of a ton of information, even for a relatively small class of ~30 students.
But the much larger issue was that the students embraced the system almost too much. As per my little gamification diatribe earlier, it motivated them to participate, but only to participate in "the game". And thus Duncan observed that students were not participating more, but rather "min-maxing" - offering up the minimal amount of participation to maximize their own rewards. They, as it were, figured out how to game the system.
In the end, Duncan decided to abandon the talent tree idea in favor of a social media based participation system, offering up the quote below.
Though this particular instance was considered a failure, part of the post presentation discussion revealed a key potential revision that could drastically alter the results (and in fact was a key theme throughout the conference). You see, the rewards offered up by Duncan's talent tree did not incentive continued activity in the course. For example, participation was rewarded by completely excusing students from participating. The incentives were all such that they allowed students to do less and succeed in the course. Put less effort into papers, put less effort in certain assignments knowing they could scale down their importance, etc.
Personally I think Duncan's idea still has a ton of merit and I'd like to experiment with how it might work in another course. It, as it the case with most talent trees, just requires a little tweaking to further insure that the rewards continue to incentive desirable behavior. For example, a talent that adds 1 extra point to all successful blog comments. Balancing the course grading system would also be difficult, and begs questions do you want students to need to unlock certain talents in order to succeed?
In a broader sense, I think Duncan's story speaks to a larger message that was articulated throughout GLS: be sure to align your game to the behaviors or objectives you actually want to see. It sounds like an obvious point, but its not so easy in practice. Building interesting games is hard - building interesting games that actually teach you something educational is even harder. What I'm personally seeing is the pendulum swinging back and forth - people designing games to over-entertain or over-educate. As a field, we're getting closer, but there is certainly no magic bullet.
This talent tree idea certainly warrants additional thought - perhaps it could be applied to ETS Faculty Fellow Sherry Robinson's courses?
RIT's Badge System
Some very interesting work coming out of RIT with regard to a student badge system (ie achievements) that they are calling "Just Press Play" set to go live this Fall. In response to some student retention issues, they've spent the last few years developing a highly automated achievement system to help encourage students, give them something of a virtual roadmap to help inspire them, and motivate them with feedback regarding all of their accomplishments. Though it has not yet been released and there will undoubtably be tweaks, it sounds like the system is primarily geared toward non-academic achievements (visit the gym, visit this local eatery, etc), though there will be some scholastic inclusion as well (ex. an achievement for getting straight As).
In speaking with several members of the team afterwards it was clear that developing the system and more importantly, getting buy-in from all of the key stakeholders involved has been no small task, particularly when it comes to student privacy issues. Automation was also core to the idea, as apparently a similar, but far more manual concept had been tried previously, much to the dismay of the facilitators who were quickly overwhelmed.
Part of the key to the success of RIT's plan was picking a very tangible metric like retention as the core of Just Press Play. Because you can tell if students are staying on campus longer, it gave administration a better sense that the success of the initiative could be measured. And selling the plan is half the battle.
Just Press Play is an incredibly ambitious idea but it certainly has potential. I'm still hoping to explore
my own idea for a crazy achievement system at some point, geared specifically toward student reflection. But after hearing RIT's plan, I think part of earning student buy-in may very well be in focussing on the non educational parts of the college experience. I guess we'll find out. Regardless, I'll be very closely watching how things pan out this fall at RIT this fall.
Just Make Good Games
Filed away in both the "that sounds obvious" and "easier said than done" categories is one of my bigger take aways from GLS. For those not involved in the games for learning space it might seem like a subtle different but I think it is one of the most significant distinctions between games that will succeed in the learning space, and those that will not.
We're on the right path in the EGC and I'm tremendously excited about it. I can't wait to get back and get cracking on our Econ game.
Distribution and Sharing
My final standard session at GLS was a panel discussion from 3 game industry folks on distribution and getting your games into the marketplace. It was a very insightful session on the business models of working with groups like Microsoft (Xbox Live), Sony (PSN), Apple (App Store) or Valve (Steam) and the benefits/ drawbacks of using a platform, as well as marketing strategies and sales life cycles.
This might seem like a strange session for someone like me to be sitting in on, but in addition to being very insightful, it raised some interesting questions for me.
For some time I've believed that an obvious next step for Educational Gaming is some kind of centralized repository for games that educators could use. A more robust Educational blade in XBL or EduSteam, for example. But as the panel and its subsequent discussion raised, they may not actually be as beneficial as it sounds.
Additional thought is going to be required on this one - I'm still not quite sure where I stand.
MetaGame
It wouldn't be a gaming conference without a conference game, and this year's option was a doozy. Metagame: The Game Debate Game was created by Local No. 12 and first deployed at the Game Developers Conference before making its way to GLS. Its a card game with fairly simple rules. Every player is given a pack of cards. Each pack contains 2 question cards and 3 game cards. To play, one player selects a question card and a videogame card that they feel would be the best answer to that question. They then randomly challange another player who must select a game card from their own deck which they feel best responds to the question card. If one player is totally outgunned, they can conceed. If not, each player is given up to 2 minutes to argue their case on why their game card is the best answer to the question. Arguments are judged by any random person who happens to be in earshot. The winner then gets to draw a random card from the looser's deck. Rinse and repeat.
There were a few things I really appreciated about Metagame. For starters, it was a great icebreaker that encouraged random people to talk to eachother about a topic of mutual interest. Those conversations, in turn, were both informative and rich, often referencing technological innovations, cultural or industry impact, sales, game mechanics, or other valid points of argumentation. If you wanted to win, you not only had to know your stuff, but you had to put together a coherent argument with potentially no prep time. You were also forced to do a little homework on games you may not have played or played sufficiently to argue for, since the cards in your hand were totally random.
As you'd expect, there were occasional subjective arguments or stalemates but all in all I think it was a fun experience that was incredibly successful at achieving its core goals - getting complete strangers to engage in educated discussions about games.
If you abstract the game out to broader educational uses, a little creativity could lead this game into most classrooms you could imagine. Turn game cards into just about any other tangible, comparable "thing", develop open questions without definitive answers, balance a few card packs and wa-la. Instant mix educated discussion and debate about any topic you want.
Yet another fantastic GLS idea I'd love to repurpose and try out at one of our EdTech events back at Penn State.
Which technology has been more important for collaboration? Adobe Connect or Instant Messenger. Which technology has reshaped project processes more? Google Docs or Basecamp?
Yes... this could be delicious
Full List of Sessions Attended:
I post this partially for its amusement factor (I respect, but very much dislike Farmville as a game). But more importantly because this shirt represents the dark side of what can happen when games infiltrate our real social networks. 
Whenever I talk with people about re-purposing commercial games for educational purposes, it is inevitable that Ubisoft's Assassins Creed will enter the conversation. Despite the fact that the game is based around the often polarizing premise of ... well... assassinating people, it represents one of great examples of the potential for learning to occur when learning is not the primary goal. Fun First, Learning Later if you will. And so despite a recent glut of blockbuster video game releases, I was quite pleased to be able to give a copy of Assassins Creed 2 a happy home earlier this week.
Though somewhat tangential to the game's main story, art plays an interesting side role in AC2. In each of the main cities you frequent, you can choose to purchase paintings to adorn the walls of your family's villa. Though such an addition could have been made haphazardly using gibberish art, the designers chose to use the collection mechanic to expose players to 30 different famous paintings from the Renaissance period in which the game is set - for example, Botticelli's The Birth of Venus or Da Vinci's Lady With Ermine. Again, the game does not force you to purchase these paintings to advance the plot, but they are tied to an in game achievement and make for a nice little educational side dish. While on the subject of art, there is also something to be said for the game's use of historical photographs (not from the Renaissance period obviously), famous sculptures, and of course the masterfully recreated architecture of the time. But I'll discuss those juicy nuggets in my larger post. 
Thankfully (or perhaps not so thankfully, depending on your view of human social evolution) seeing a crowd full of faces illuminated by the radioactive glow of their laptops or smart phones is no longer the symbol of disrespect that it once was. It can be, in many cases, the new look of engagement, which I've discussed in this blog before.
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