2020 #VWEDU: #DTA: The learning game and the conquest of the Lims.. The generic education game. What can the Digital Teaching Assistant manage?

The learning game and the conquest of the Lims.. 
The generic education game.  
What can the Digital Teaching Assistant (DTA) manage? 

The case for the education game.  Why education is already a game, though many educators are reluctant to accept the view. And how the fully managed environment of the digital world can support gamification. This article is explicitly licensed Public Domain (CC0).

People like games

• Why do so few like education?
• They don't see it as a game.
• The education system does not present it as a game.
• Some are trying:
• Gamification in education (search)

The generic education game

• The student is in perpetual conflict with the Lims (limitations).
• The Lims hold territory in Skilland that the student wants to rule over.
• Some territories, such as the skill set of driving a car, the student wants to use.
• Other territories, such as the skill set of doing math, the student is told to want.   
• For children the teling is by the educational system: Courses they have to pass.
• They must get the skills to  to win the game and get out of school:  Student thinking.  
• Adolescents and young adults will (we hope) transition to breadwinner thinking.
• Either view favors growth mindset.  
• Breadwinner thinking goes beyond passing courses to using the skill.
• The education game is a serious game.  

After the break

• How is education a game?
• Why view education as a game?
• What is the use of the generic education game?

• Update 1307/2020 OpenSim Fest 2020 Falling OpenSim numbers. OSCC videos are up. SceneGate improvements.

***************************

How is education a game?  

• It has the typical structure and elements of an elaborate game.  
• Challenges that the player must overcome to advance. 
• The main challenges are tests or class assignments. 
• Levels to mark steps of progress.
• Common levels are K-12, college years, BA, MA, Ph.D.
• Tokens to represent minor challenges met.
• Common tokens are grades on the teacher's records.
• Other elements of gamification,are present in varying degrees and frequency.
• One might take a reverse view: games are constructed as a simplification of life.
• In either case, education has all the characteristics of games except the user interest.

Why view education as a game?

• If education is a game, why does it lack the interest of games?
• One possible answer it that it is not play. 
• It is deadly serious.  You lose at this game, there are terrible consequences.
• You flunk one semester of a course, you may be out of that game.
• It does not have to work that way.  A computer-based game can let you keep trying.
• It does not have to stop at the end of the semester.  
• It does not have to accept a 70% achievement as adequate.
• It can be designed on the premise: Failure is part of learning.  Failure is not fatal.
• That would be an extra lesson.  And one that is regularly taught in games.
• Another possible answer is that the game structure provides immediate motivation.
• Scholarly articles for gamification in education

What is the use of the generic education game?

• The generic game does not look as interesting as a "real" game.  
• A "real" game has concrete challenges: dragons, guards, moats, etc.
• A game version might demand that you answer 20 questions to get the weapon you need to slay the dragon.  
• It would not be a test, because you could make multiple attempts.
• Note the difference.  You don't fail in disaster; you just do not pass yet.
• That yet means growth mindset.  
• Okay, now we've got dragons.  So do we still need a generic version?
• Of course.  Not everyone wants to fight dragons.  
• Maybe you just need a password to get past the starguards.
• Maybe you need a magic potion. Maybe the formula for becoming invisible.  
• A game needs a scenario to give value to any of these things.  
• And the generic game is the template for all the versions.   
• These stories don't fit in a classroom. They can be done in a digital world.
• And the digital world can be a scene programmed to work only for the Wise Ones.
• You must show that you are a Wise One to win the game. 
• Actually that is just as in education.  But the students don't have to know that.
• Adaptive learning (Search)
• Adaptive learning (Wikipedia)

*********************************

Visit me on the web

• Drop by my web offices Weekdays: 12:-12:30 pm Central time (US)
• I am available for free consulting on any topic in this blog.
• Cybalounge and 3DWebWorldz (Orientation room)
• I will be in both places, so you may need to speak to get my attention.
• Web-worlds, 3D virtual worlds running in a browser. Summary
• And we can visit the Writer's Workshop on the Web
• Don't register -- enter as guest.  

************************

License

• Original text in this blog is CC By: unless specified public domain.
• Use as you please with attribution: link to the original.
• All images without attribution in this blog are CC0: public domain.
• Second Life, Linden, SLurl, and SL are trademarks of Linden Research Inc.
• Annotated screenshots made with Jing
• This blog is not affiliated with anything.   Ads are from Google.
• Selby Evans in Kitely and hypergrid, Thinkerer Melville in Second Life.