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Writer's pictureMelanie Rowton

Week 14 Blog – Learning and Games


Gee, J. (2008). Learning and Games. The Ecology of Games: Connecting Youth, Games, and Learning. Edited by Katie Salen. The John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation Series on Digital Media and Learning. Cambridge, MA: The MIT Press, 21–40.


This article poses an argument that people learn from their experiences and linked these experiences to deep learning when specific conditions are met. The pose that video games designers should consider certain conditions that need to be met in order to enhance deep learning. These include participation in social groups, meaning, purpose, goals, interpretations, practice, explanations, debriefing, and feedback. Each of these are crucial for good game design and good learning design, (Gee, 2008).


The author offers the Situated Learning Matrix which illustrates one way good games work out learning based on the conditions necessary for experiences as stated in paragraph one. This is illustrated using the game SWAT4. The matrix illustrates how learning moves away from identity to goals and norms, to tools and technologies, and only then to content, (Gee, 2008). He also discusses models and modeling and how they are tied to eLearning and exploration and should be rendered more abstract and generalized.


The article mentions things games do well to enhance learning which include recruiting disturbed intelligence, collaboration, cross-functional teams for problem solving, offering empathy for a system, marrying emotion and cognition, being challenging while keeping frustration below the level of the affective filter, providing a sense of production and ownership, and situating the meanings of words and symbols in terms of actions, images, experiences, and dialogue, not just as definitions.


Ultimately, the message from this article is that learning theory and game design should enhance one another. Using games as way to hone into the affective, cognitive, and psychomotor domains all at once is a way to initiate memorable learning. Although the article uses specific games made for entertainment, we could consider these lessons applicable to learning games in order to gain the same benefits as mentioned within these games.

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