Venturing Into Games

Active, Critical Learning Principle

All aspects of the learning environment (including the ways in which the domain is designed and presented) are set up to encourage active and critical, not passive, learning.

Semiotic Domains Principle

Learning involves mastering, at some level, semiotic domains and being able to participate, at some level, in the affinity group or groups connected to them.

“Psychosocial Moratorium” Principle

Learners can take risks in a space where real-world consequences are lowered.

Committed Learning Principle

Learners participate in an extended engagement (lots of effort and practice) as extensions of their real-world identities in relation to a virtual identity to which they feel some commitment and a virtual world that they find compelling.

Identity Principle

Learning involves taking on and playing with identities in such a way that the learner has real choices (in developing the virtual identity) and ample opportunity to meditate on the relationship between new identities and old ones. There is a tripartite play of identities as learners relate to and reflect on their multiple real-world identities, a virtual identity, and a projective identity.

Practice Principle

Learners get lots and lots of practice in a context where the practice is not boring (i.e., in a virtual world that is compelling to learners on their own terms and where the learners experience ongoing success). They spend lots of time on task.

Probing Principle

Learning is a cycle of probing the world (doing something); reflecting in and on this action and, on this basis, forming a hypothesis; reprobing the world to test this hypothesis; and then accepting or rethinking the hypothesis.

Situated Meaning Principle

The meanings of signs (e.g., words, actions, objects, artifacts, symbols, and texts) are situated in embodied experience. Meanings are not general or decontextualized. Whatever generality meanings come to have is discovered from the bottom up through embodied experiences.

Multimodal Principle

Meaning and knowledge are built up through various modalities (e.g., images, texts, symbols, interactions, abstract design, and sound), not just words.

Discovery Principle

Overt telling is kept to a well-thought-out minimum, allowing ample opportunity for the learner to experiment and make discoveries.

Not all computerized games represent these principles. Many games expose students to competition over an uninteresting task that may also engage only recall or memorization. These are good for filling classroom time, and it is likely that the students will even enjoy them. As with any technology-based activity, you must examine the nature of the task that you are engaging students in.