To that extent, I strongly believe in project-based learning. Yes, I use technology to do so, and I see great benefit to games but only insofar as they are “real-world relevant”; a game that simulates the type of real-world application of knowledge and problem solving students will come across in a variety of careers would be both engaging and beneficial. A game that is merely a game and involves the same old mental math or rote recall of trivial knowledge is no better than what we currently have.

I think “simulation-based learning” may be a much more apropos term than “game based learning” for what we should actually be doing with our students if we want them to continue to thrive once they are no longer in our classrooms.

One of my concerns is that life is not a game and I have the worry that we are creating a situation where learners may only engage in learning if life imitates a game. Fuelling space shapes, visiting planets and trading are all challenges and the virtual game world exciting and engaging but will it translate to life based applications. Not all learners engage or enjoy game based activities, we keep getting told they do but my experience is some don’t. Some have their learning needs met in other ways and do not get involved in game based anything and that is the issue.

I think we should be asking the question how do we create an education system that meets the learners needs. The evidence may be that when needs are being met then we have engaged learners. What we are doing I think is seeing learners engaged in something and then wanting to jump on the back of that to deliver learning. I have no doubt that we learn through need and that creating that need is one way of stimulating learning. I have no doubt either that their will be a thousand cases of where a parent will say ” my child learnt to read so they could play their computer game”, but how far did this drive to learn to read take them, did they then explore the classic texts, did they write poetry, did they begin to explore and contrast views and opinions which were written down or did they stop when they had learnt enough to play the game? This is the big question, will learning through game play lead students to explore the world around them with the tools they have developed?

One definition of intelligence I recall is the ability to engage with and make sense of our environment in order to meet our needs. Our environment being everything we come into contact with or comes into contact with us, people and relationships included. Will the abstract, virtual game based environment allow us to develop our intelligence or just learn – enough to play the game?

The digital age has promised much and we have achieved much but how much of it continues, how much have real lives improved? When did we last visit the moon, has the billions spent on computers in schools made that much difference, is there such a thing as a paperless office, do we communicate better with each other or just more often, is there a balance between work and life?

I am not anti game based learning, I am just cautious about its claims and legacy.

Kevin Hewitson

Russell Dubberly

State Director of Education of Juvenile Justice Prevention Programs in Florida

Games might work for basic economic savvy, for learning a foreign language, and for basic arithmetic concepts. They won’t do for more advanced thinking because the ROI is very poor. Students playing games will spend too much time “gaming” and not enough learning.

There are only so many hours in student’s day. The issue here is making learning more effective (better learning results), more efficient (taking less time to learn the same stuff), and less expensive — all at the same time. And, it has to be scalable.

I can show you one example that does all of these, but it’s a rather narrow case of online hands-on science labs. There’s no gaming involved. Outside of elementary school, I know of no game that succeeds in the simple list above.

Many of the benefits being touted for games exist for other online activities. Why go for games? Because kids like to play games online. Games have been around for centuries and have persisted. These games are relaxing, social activities. Will learning games be those?

I wish Gates would stop jumping into these grandiose ideas and start investing where he can make a real difference. Have him call me. Just search for “online science labs” and you find me.