Summer 2006

Innovation in education

Are you game?

Felicia Brown explores the use of gaming and other technologies in the Australian classroom and finds an award-winning teacher who is bridging an age-borne digital divide.

In a Tasmanian classroom, one woman is quietly revolutionising how students are learning and interacting.

Margaret Meijers, head of information and communication technology (ICT) at New Town High School in Hobart, is using computer games and simulation technology to deliver the curriculum in an engaging and individually relevant way.

Meijers’ enthusiasm for ICT was first sparked by one of her teachers. Now she tutors students in years 9 and 10 in how to create their own computer games—everything from puzzles to adventure games—and collaborative tools to enable them to share their learnings.

Beyond New Town High, Meijers has also taught games programming as part of a transdisciplinary unit on games at neighbouring primary schools, down to grade 4 level. She also co-founded a group that promotes game-making in schools and teaches skills online for the Australian Schools Innovation in Science, Technology and Mathematics group, which has received significant federal funding and support from commercial organisations including Melbourne’s Australian Centre for the Moving Image.

While students playing computer games is probably not a sight you’d expect to encounter on a visit to your local school, Meijers has had some amazing successes in engaging her students and helping them cross the bridge between basic recognition and competence and, for some, even beyond that.

‘I found a way of creating a unit of work that will fit into the new curriculum framework and addresses its requirements,’ says Meijers. ‘And once I’d started in this direction, it was the kids themselves who drove the program through the school with their enthusiasm.’

International acclaim

In recognition of her efforts, Meijers was named the national winner of the 2005 ‘Innovative Teachers Award’, a commendation run by Microsoft, which recognises exemplary and innovative teaching using technology.

On the back of this accolade, Meijers’ methods have attracted international attention as a best-practice example of how to engage students in today’s technology-driven world. Last year, she travelled to South Korea to share her lessons at Microsoft’s Asia–Pacific Innovative Teachers’ Conference. Recognising the importance of her work, Microsoft’s Vincent Quah, head of the company’s Partners in Learning (PiL) initiative in the Asia–Pacific, came to Hobart from Singapore to experience Meijers’ innovative classroom first-hand.

‘Some people might think games are a little out of place in the classroom, but Margaret has other ideas about the application and her use of games is helping to develop research, numeracy, literacy and problem-solving skills in her students—and it’s fun. She is one of Australia’s education leaders, so it’s important for me to gain a deeper understanding of Margaret’s work so that I can share her techniques with other teachers across the Asia–Pacific,’ Mr Quah said.

Breaching the digital divide

The Internet revolution in the 90s gave rise to many challenges. Included among these is how to deal with the fact that many teachers, themselves taught in a traditional environment and have struggled to find a way to connect with modern children, who are more inclined towards using the Internet, games and mobile phones for learning and leisure.

The new generation has been aptly labelled ‘digital natives’. Born into a widespread proliferation of technology, they have a natural affinity for ICT. They co-exist happily with it. Conversely, the rest of us have been labelled ‘digital immigrants’, highlighting our newness and relative unfamiliarity with this territory.

Margaret Meijers represents of a new breed of teachers who are bridging an age-borne digital divide in Australian classrooms.

The Net generation

Today’s young people use technology in every aspect of life—social and recreational, in learning and work. Far from considering ICT merely a facilitator for sifting through information, they consider it a way of connecting, interacting and having fun.

Students of the Net generation expect these technologies to be as integrated into the classroom as they are into their daily digital lifestyles. Furthermore, they expect teachers to be tech-literate to the point that they will help them develop and extend their use of ICT.

Using games in the classroom matches with modern culture and the lifestyles of today’s students. That is what makes it successful. This can be viewed against a recent Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) study, which found that school students who are established computer-users tend to perform better in key school subjects than those with limited experience or a lack of confidence in performing basic computer functions.

Bilingual learners

Using games and other new forms of technology also has important relevance for teaching the Net generation in a format that mirrors the way they learn.

Diana Oblinger, a leading education consultant with EDUCAUSE (www.educause.edu), tells us that the Internet has led to the development of a new type of multimedia or information literacy. The modern student’s understanding is no longer based entirely on text; many students combine an intuitive understanding of text with imagery in the learning process. The highly pictorial nature of games stimulates and enriches the learning experience for students; audio adds even more.

This information literacy parallels other shifts in how we approach learning, from authority-based learning where students are told, to one of discovery or experiential learning, for example. While older generations, such as the baby boomers, commonly problem-solve and reason using logic, the Net generation prefers to experiment, to link and try things for themselves.

Oblinger discusses how games have several attributes associated with how people learn:

• Social environments. Students play in groups; they play with and against others. Online games also have the additional benefit of facilitating collaboration beyond the classroom walls. Students can discuss games in online communities, as they do in Margaret Meijer’s classes where students share their work with others.
• Lateral thinking and experiential learning. Through their changing scenarios, games require students to immediately assess situations and decide which learnings to apply to new scenarios. If that learning is incorrect or inaccurate, the player must address the resulting problem. The problem-solving nature of being able to see a connection and transfer existing learning to a unique situation is part of gameplay.
• Active learning. By nature of their complexity and change, games provide an environment which forces students into continual discovery and construction of new knowledge. Learnings are also frequently repeated and reinforced, such as in geography-oriented games, where students repeatedly revisit facts about countries and places.
• Performance-based. Being competitive, goal-oriented environments, games are inherently performance-based, which provides context and continual feedback to students.

Engagement

Of course, one of the main successes Meijers and her contemporaries have had in using gaming technology is in hooking students into the learning process. Fun, the age-old motivator, is being injected into the syllabus through the use of these techniques.

‘Students were so focused and engaged,’ said Meijers. ‘There was even one student who told me, “I just can’t get enough of this”. And a time when a group of sixth graders spontaneously clapped at the end of class. You have no idea how rare it is to get this kind of feedback as a teacher.’

Delivering the curriculum in a modern and contemporary way

Digital technologies such as gaming are now an integral part of the social and cultural fabric of Australia. Compared with the accelerated adoption of new forms of technology into modern life, adapting established education systems has been a measured process.

Although the immediate appeal of games to students is fun, deeper elements can provide new tools for educators. As teachers ultimately use the curriculum to prepare students for the responsibilities of adulthood, including the workforce—where technology is also embraced as the norm—new technologically driven teaching vehicles such as gaming offer much promise.

References

Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development (2006). ‘Are students ready for a technology-rich world?’ available at www.oecd.org

Oblinger, D (August 2003). ‘Unlocking the Potential of Gaming Technology’, pre-conference paper available at www.educause.edu/NewLearners/5515

Prensky, M (2001). ‘Digital Natives, Digital Immigrants’, available at www.marcprensky.com/writing

Felicia Brown is the national academic programs manager at Microsoft Australia.

The author owns the copyright in this article. For information related to the reuse of this work in any form please contact the publisher denise.quinn@curriculum.edu.au