Check out Kathleen Offenholley's article on intrinsic games and more...

[Maria Droujkova]

http://journals.tc-library.org/index.php/matheducation/issue/view/39/showToc 

I need to understand the part about "epistemic games" better. I am afraid I've been bundling them into some giant "miscellaneous" category, like abstraction or formalism! Also, I think going this route has its dangers (similar to being abstract rather than situated), but yes, it's worthwhile.

Several schemas have been used to examine how 

structure interacts with learning in a game. These include 

whether the learning is extrinsic or intrinsic to the game, 

whether the learning is an integral part of a storyline, or 

fantasy, and whether the game is epistemic. We shall see 

that these schemas are intertwined, each attempting to get 

at something similar within the game.

...

Another schema for examining the intersection 

between gaming and learning is whether the video game 

recreates what Shaffer (2006) calls the epistemic frame of 

a discipline: the unique technical language and symbols of 

the discipline and the way that an expert of that discipline 

sees the world. An  epistemic game is one which requires 

the player to think using the rules and problem solving 

strategies of that frame. Both Shaffer (2006) and Devlin 

(2011) posit that epistemic games offer better vehicles for 

deeper learning.

Colleen, you will get a kick out of that - remember that McLeod thread from 2009? Someone wrote a phenomenological analysis of it! I learned about it from Kathleen's article.

http://etec.hawaii.edu/proceedings/2011/Ackerman.pdf 

Cheers,
Maria Droujkova
919-388-1721

Make math your own, to make your own math

 

[Kathleen Offenholley]

Thanks for the plug for my article!

It is pretty funny that someone wrote an article about the thread on
"“Do Most Educational Games S***k?”

The thing about writing an academic paper is that referring people to
threads and websites is frowned on, whereas referring them to an
academic paper written about a thread is okay. So I was happy to find
that article to cite. Academia is very silly sometimes. :-)

A bunch of us from my group, the CUNY (City University of New York)
Games Network, are meeting with people who do games research at NYU. I
am hoping we will find a way to create a good math game for my
community college students.

[Colleen King]

Ahhhh...the blog post that wouldn't die! I have to say I enjoyed Kathleen's academic paper far more than the sensationalism of Scott's provocative title and post. 

I had read David Shaffer's book on epistemic learning games several years ago and it's a book I return to over and over again. Actually, the idea for Math Apprentice was inspired by what I had read there. I think games that ask students to take on the role of mathematicians, scientists, etc. have tremendous value and are the way to go.

Welcome to the group, Kathleen!

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