TQ#3 and Class 3 assignments

Freeciv













After playing some of the online games, I have to admit that any person playing any of the games listed in the Class 3 assignments page, has to dedicate time to acquire the knowledge and philosophy behind these ludic activities According to Gee, this is referred to as the "practice principle" in the design of modern games. It is extremely difficult to play these games without reading the instructions. For this reason, I don't think they are very intuitive and simple to play. There is a degree of complexity that unfolds little by little as you gain experience in solving the tasks that is set by the computer. Indeed, Gee refers to this as the "discovery principle" in game designing.

Before I even started playing Freeciv, I was instructed to make some changes in the game options. Had I not done this, it would have had problems finding my way through. I also found that being an inexperienced player may result in struggling with making your civilization. To my surprise, you can modify the amount of gold, tech level and even the research speed. Now, believe me, making these quantities greater is not going to assure any success at all.

It's truly a strategy game that requires you to make constant changes and decision making. Even when fighting, you need to make clever decisions. It is better to be aggressive and go for a strong offense than pretend to withstand all the attack. This is something that Gee identified as "probing principle" in game designing. In addition, the game gives you the opportunity to experiment in a virtual world with things that would be impossible to control in real life. This has been identified by Gee as the "psychosocial moratorium principle" for the design of games.

Although, Freeciv is still a simple version of the real Civilization III, for example, by no means, it remains to be a very challenging game due to its complexity. So in order to take control of the situation, you need to learn where the loopholes are in the game and grab on to that.

In the case of the students, I think they develop a series of skills. For instance, students have the opportunity to play different roles, such as a farmer, a colonist, or even a king. These types of games that we have seen can also give them a sense of power and control. So, they may be able to live what a superhero can do, such as save a city from disaster. It occurs to me that these games also work at the feelings level. They can use a game to ease their anxieties and tensions. Finally, I completely agree that games allow you to develop your creativity and imagination. This is something that Gee refers to as "discovery principle" in the design of modern games.

Nevertheless, according to Thompson (2009) in a study by Madrid's Complutense University (UCM), researcher's admit that games are an imperfect learning tool right now. They argue that it isn't currently possible to actually keep track of all the different actions taken by students as they play educational games. Furthermore, meeting the different educational needs of each individual student is another challenge.

I think that video games are still not fully used due to their close relationship to leisure. Teachers see it more like a distraction rather than an aid in their courses. The other issue is that games are costly and demand huge processing power and memory resources that are still unavailable to the huge population of students. Let's see what happens in the coming years.


Reference

Jonassen, D., Howland, J., Marra, R. M., Crismond, D. (2008). Meaningful learning with technology (3rd ed.). Columbus, OH: Pearson Merrill Prentice Hall.

Thompson, M. (2009). Games used to teach, although they present unique challenges. Retrieved February 12, 2009, from http://arstechnica.com/news/2009/02/games-can-be-used-as-educational-tools.ars