I personally love games for both learning and teaching. When I was a child I remember using diagrams, drawings, hangman and a game we called ‘STOP’ to recall vocabulary and content I needed for different subjects. In my leisure time I loved to play ‘Atari’ which was the newest technological advance concerning video games at that time. I still use some of those strategies to review and teach topics to my own children. For my English classes, I always try to include a game (traditional or invented) each time I introduce a new topic. Learners seem to enjoy this kind of teaching, because they have fun making gestures, imitating movements, creating their own, proposing new alternatives, and the content is taught and learned in a faster and meaningful way. Now, turning to DGBL, the task is more complex but it is indeed a great and interesting challenge. According to Prensky (2009), there are some positive as well as negative aspects to take into account.
| Positive aspects of DGBL | Negative aspects of DGBL |
| -Learner-centered, based on likes and enjoyment. -Motivating. -Engages many audiences. -Fast learning. -Addresses various types of intelligences. -Less expensive than other types of media (e.g. T.V. programs, movies). -Develops critical thinking and problem solving skills when games are well-designed, properly approached, challenging, and provide rules. -Promotes scaffolding (from simpler tasks to more complex ones). -Tools for games’ creation are available, reusable, repurposed. -Promotes teamwork and social groups development (for players, designers, sellers). -It has short-term and long-term positive effects. -Infrastructure for DGBL is being feasible thanks to broadband connections that will progressively allow users have access to more games each time. -Enhances human needs such as self-motivation, ego-gratification, power, self-actualization, winning, pleasure and fun (Maslow’s hierarchy of needs (1954), cited by Prensky, 2009, pp. 100-104). | -It can be addictive. -Reading and writing skills as not been practiced can cause literacy rates diminish considerably. -It can cause anxiety, fear or frustration when not succeeding (Maslow’s hierarchy of needs (1954), cited by Prensky, 2009, pp. 100-104). |
| ADVANTAGES OF GAMES FOR LANGUAGE LEARNING: -Train and teach people on what they want and need to do. - Develop physical and cerebral/thinking skills. - Offer players different options to approach content according to own learning styles. - Players learn implicitly by having fun. - Provide spaces of reflection (change of strategies) for trying different ways until succeeding. | |
Definitely, using digital games in education demand lots of creativity first, -and here I will use analogies- to engage the ‘player’, in our case client (student), to use the game for a long time, feeling that she/he is learning each time, facing even more challenges in each phase, making the time, money and effort worthwhile. Secondly, for us teachers to become the ‘designers’, requires us being innovative and keeping our clients satisfied, engaged, motivated, by giving them the chance to decide and interact with the game as they wish, but including ‘stealth learning’ (Prensky, 2009, pg. 96), or implicit learning. Thirdly, as ‘seller(s)’, we as innovative tutors need a broader view, as to open new markets in which to offer the product. The audience’s needs and desire to experience new challenges, people who dare to take different risks, are finally the ones who accept or reject the learning that is embedded in the game. Therefore, a learner-focused approach characterizes DGBL. There are many variables to keep in mind, but these are worth thinking and repaid.
Of course, there is a long and difficult way to go if we decide to create games. In the meantime we can train ourselves and explore the already existing ones to see if they match our learners’ population needs and likes, and adapt them. Our decision must be based in reliable sites, the games must include meaningful content taught through enjoyable activities that really engage students in trying, maintaining focus and explore beyond accomplishment. Detailed evaluation must be made concerning all the benefits and also disadvantages of games for our learners. Training to carry out this evaluation and be able to choose the best options is a serious and committed task.
References
Prensky, M. (2009). Digital Game-Based Learning. Paragon House.
Coping with emerging technologies
Coping with emerging technologies and keeping up-to-date with them implies, as a first step to take, to get rid off fear of technological tools, devices, software, internet sites such as blogs, wikis, social and community building tools, augmented reality, networking, podcasting, etc, which are here to stay, to be increased and improved.
Instead of being afraid, teachers must accompany digital learners in the process of making the most of technology for educational purposes and positive personal enjoyment, at the same time. As discussed in previous units, ‘informal learning’ has imposed its features over ‘formal learning’, and this is the battle teachers must fight to meet students’ current needs, and to be respected, admired, and understood as well as to understand learners in their new language and behaviors. This change requires constant updating with technological issues that will never end. This is all about an ongoing process resulting from the proper nature of humankind: Being connected, as social entities, although we are not F2F.
Our digital natives feel more comfortable, self-confident with emerging technologies, firstly, because they are used to master them even before most of their parents and teachers. Secondly, because these learners know that the future is based on technology. Here again, meaning and usefulness converge in NLE.
Mastering NLE for us, as adults, teachers, or parents that belong to another generation is not just to learn how to manage certain tools perfectly. It is a matter of passion, involvement, commitment, eagerness to learn from learners as well, because everything seems to be easy for them; nowadays, their profiles and rapid learning speed is different from ours. And we must not feel ashamed that they do want us to master tech tools as they do. On the contrary, we must feel proud they want us to know about the topic and include us as part of their learning process.
One thing is true: unless we devote much of our time to update with emerging technologies we are far beyond to reach our students’ mastering. What is recommended for teachers (Prensky, 2007) is to evaluate how students use these technologies, for what purposes, and how they learn through using them. There is no need to achieve expertise in each tool’s usage. Based on these premises, I would say that these technologies are the medium for students to access knowledge, select what they really need (relevant information), and apply it as tasks or assignments require. And here is where the teachers play the most important roles: being facilitators, monitors of progress, questioners (to raise critical thinking and problem solving skills), promoters of how to get real, factual, quality, meaningful, and reliable information responsibly, defenders of intellectual property, and promoters of creation, communication, reflection and self-evaluation.
When exploring some of the existing and upcoming web tools, which include more sites for the creation of blogs, podcasting, creation of hard drives online, photo editing, feeds, wikis, and video conferencing through SightSpeed, for example, I found out an interesting site related to BECTA, http://www.nwlg.org/digitalliteracy/ in which learners, including us, can get started or evaluate on Internet usage, and how digital literate they are. Some quizzes are provided to check up to what extent one knows how to use the different options, and very interactive and appealing just to know about tech skills.
The following diagram shows the components of Digital Literacy, according to Hague, & Payton (2010), which I think summarizes the topics I have talked about.
Retrieved on June 5th, 2010 from
http://www.futurelab.org.uk/resources/documents/handbooks/digital_literacy.pdf
Finally, the best recommendation is ‘let students do, create the practical and ‘physical’ part (product) with the corresponding analysis,’ using the emerging technologies at hand. The how -meaning the methods, strategies, procedures- can be suggested by us, especially if we decide to belong to a social collaborative network, in which we can exchange ideas and propose new learning/teaching approaches. Keeping up-to-date also implies understanding learners’ new ways of communication, collaboration, expression and learning acquisition, as I said above. We add value to what they know about this ongoing world.
References
BECTA, (2008). Emerging technologies for learning. Retrieved June 5th, 2010 from http://partners.becta.org.uk/upload-dir/downloads/page_documents/research/emerging_technologies08-2.pdf
Hague, C. & Payton, S. (2010). Digital Literacy across the Curriculum: a Futurelab handbook. United Kingdom: Futurelab. Retrieved June 5th, 2010 from http://www.futurelab.org.uk/resources/documents/handbooks/digital_literacy.pdf
Prensky, M. (2008). The role of technology. Retrieved June 5th, 2010 from http://www.marcprensky.com/writing/Prensky-The_Role_of_Technology-ET-11-12-08.pdf
