I read the article, Educational Games Don’t Have to Stink! and wanted to speak to some of his comments.
The author makes claims that “They [computers assisted instruction] generally teach in a linear, inflexible way. They cannot think up new analogies to help convey an idea to a student.” What he is describing here could be challenged by looking at Artificial Intelligence and adaptive learning software. This alternative allows a learning solution to compare a learners progression in the game/software to a student/expert model. Although it may be a challenge to calibrate your model correctly, it is far from a linear inflexible solution.
As for his statement that technology does not offer charisma. I would refute this by stating that not “all” teachers are charismatic, nor is all instructional media engaging, which to me makes this a generalization. As for technology not offering “attention”, that would really depend on how the technology is programmed. Computers do sit and wait for input as he stated, but then they could “process that input” and compare that input with an expert/student knowledge base, or the learner’s prior history with similar problems. Once the application identifies a discrepancy, then it could “output” specific scaffolding (hinting), feedback, etc. to speak to the learners difficulties, or offer an alternative method of displaying the problem through the use of multiple modalities.
The author also states that trial and error is a bad thing. Good thing he isn’t a scientist, failure is the backbone of innovation. Not allowing children to fail is robbing them of their creativity. Games and simulations create a safe non threatening place to try, fail and explore new solutions to problems. The issue I think the author is trying to uncover is one that i also agree with, education game designers should really look to designing games around the content that is to be learned, not designing the content around the game play.
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I have a love- hate relationship with this article – the title is great, and some of his points are good, but i really feel that his lack of understanding of teaching and learning derail some of the things he says-
He does make a few good comments and suggestions, which i'm sure you caught- As I said in class, I don't agree with every article, and every article is not the final word- This one has some good things to push back on and pick up on, which you do……fm