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The Work of Play

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[Sample Chapter]

Certain educational researchers have claimed that videogames can energize learning in both traditional and non-traditional contexts, cultivate skills more useful to a changing economy, and present information in ways more appealing to students. The notion of “serious games” dates back as early as the 1950s, but so far has failed to make a significant lasting impact on what goes on in education. One component missing then—and is still scarce even now—is empirical evidence showing how videogames promote learning, and what hinders or enhances it.

The Work of Play is an attempt to describe such learning on the micro-level, capturing the moment-by-moment interactions between players and showing how meanings are shaped over time. It builds on anthropological methods, including ethnography and conversation analysis, to re-construct how situated learning occurs and how players’ perception of the game evolves as their experiences with the game change.

 

Entries in JIT (1)

Monday
May232011

My problem with "just-in-time" learning

"Just-in-time (JIT) learning" is the newish buzzword you hear often in association with video games and learning. It's a deceptively simple idea suggesting that learning is better when it is "on-demand." You encounter a problem, you're given the information to solve it, and you solve it then and there. No need to memorize a set of facts ahead of time that you may or may not use in the future, no need for abstract concepts that have no bearing on the immediate demands of the situation, no need for decontextualized facts and figures. As far as I know, this concept is assumed to be right and I have never seen the concept criticized before, but I'm going to go ahead and say: I have a problem with JIT learning on two levels: 1) It's overly vague and 2) It often doesn't work.

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