Making visible: Using simulation and game environments across disciplines - Melinda Jackson

Introduction

Computer games demonstrate effective pedagogical techniques that can be used in learning across academic disciplines. Simulation and game environments are capable of illustrating interconnected processes within complex multi-component systems, of enabling nano-visualization and manipulation of the microscopic, of embodying experiences and new identities that cultivate cultural empathy, and of making the unseen tangible.

Computer simulations historically have been used in specific scientific disciplines (engineering, bio-sciences) and for high-risk occupational training (military, aviation, medicine).

Military use of simulations and “war game” environments dates as far back as the 1950s. Today, the JANUS simulator controls enemy movements and other combat conditions within virtual training exercises for U.S. Army battle staff (1) (http://www.educause.edu/ir/library/pdf/ffpiu018.pdf). Flight simulators are still used to train commercial pilots and NASA astronauts (http://www.simlabs.arc.nasa.gov/) (2). Visualizations and modeling are standard curricula content within science and engineering (http://www.sciencemag.org/feature/data/vis2003/ssintro.html) (3).

These organizations and disciplines know simulation accelerates learning, enables knowledge transfer, allows extraction of meaning from myriad complexities, and provides manipulative experiences unavailable in the normal physical space of a classroom environment.

Imagine if such learning environments were available for students of business, architecture, history, geography, sociology, psychology, literature, law, etc. Simulation and game environments focus learning not simply on the knowing of facts and ideas, but on the USING of facts and ideas.

What Video Games Have to Teach Us About Learning and Literacy

The U.S. digital entertainment games industry generates $6.9 billion annually (http://www.theesa.com/) (4) in sales of microworlds and embodied character experiences that allow players to build businesses and cities, visit historical scenarios, voyage foreign terrains, interact with differing cultures, design narratives and social spaces, and solve complex problems. Game developers also know how to design engaging and intuitive interfaces and to create logic systems that provide realism and rapid response to user inputs.

There are many popular entertainment games that teach players about complex systems through cause-and-effect realizations. For example, a game such as Rollercoaster Tycoon™ (http://www.rollercoastertycoon.com/) (5) reveals intricacies of business management and marketing. SimCity™ (http://simcity.ea.com/) (6) provides real insights into the complexities of urban planning and development. Large, complex systems can be modeled and interacted with in ways previously unavailable. In computer simulation and game environments, “if-then-else” becomes a much more powerful and visible logic string.

Furthermore, games exemplify good pedagogical practices and salient aspects of how people learn: Human learning occurs in context, is active, is social, and is reflective (http://www.ericdigests.org/2003-3/learn.htm) (7).

James Paul Gee in his book What Video Games Have to Teach Us About Learning and Literacy (2003) notes the ability of game environments to “situate meaning in multimodal space through embodied experiences to solve problems and reflect…” (Gee, pg 48). Players adopt character identities of ‘scientist,’ ‘historian,’ ‘architect,’ etc. (for online discussion of book, see http://www.iaete.org/soapbox/summary.cfm?&tid=What3080) (8).

The digital game industry also knows its consumers and markets specifically to a user group who prefer interactive, non-linear, and dynamic entertainment experiences. This market segment represents a large slice of students enrolled today in U.S. schools and higher education.

According to a July 2003 Pew Internet and American Life Project survey of American college students, 65% reported being regular or occasional game players with 32% reporting playing games during classes – games that were not part of the instructional activities (http://www.pewinternet.org/pdfs/PIP_College_Gaming_Reporta.pdf) (9).

In a keynote address at the New Media Conference, John Seely Brown characterized today’s “digital generation:” as multiprocessing, multimedia literate, knowledge navigators, preferring discovery-based learning, and biased toward action. (http://journalism.berkeley.edu/conf/conference2003/present/brown.pdf) (10).

Not only do effective interactive simulations and games naturally use good pedagogical principles, but they also cater to the natural preferences of the digital generation of learners.

Simulation and game environments enable new forms of knowledge interaction previously unavailable within the normal curricula. A radical swing from passive to active learning occurs and the learner perspective shifts from third to first person, or even from singular to plural.

Problem structures and solution processes can be investigated, experimented, interpreted and applied. The student is literally “immersed” within concepts, principles, systems and variables.

Time and place can be manipulated. Slow processes can be sped up to view longitudinal outcomes; fast processes can be slowed to view incremental progression. Hazards can be manipulated safely. Inaccessible regions can be traversed. The macro or micro can be zoomed in or out for differing viewpoints and details.

Nuances and subtleties, critical ideas and misconceptions can be uncovered. Engaged within relationships and interdependencies, causal factors, quantitative and qualitative variables, students develop deeper meaning and lasting understanding.

For example, the game Civilization™ provides contextual game play in the art of cross-cultural communications (http://www.civ3.com/faq5.cfm) (11). Albeit the goal of the Civ series games is to command and conquer, along the way the player learns about History, geography, political and military strategies, and negotiation through multiple cultural encounters.

Simulation and game environments enable transformative learning experiences. Powerful “aha” moments are realized when students subsume the learning experience into the thread of the story of the subject, the mechanics of the subject domain’s system (whether physics or psychology, law or linguistics).

Edward Tufte’s seminal work on the design of visual information describes how to make “good thinking visible” (http://www.edwardtufte.com/tufte/)(12) by answering questions such as “compared to what?” “why the change?” “in relationship to what?” and “to what end?” Visualization enables multivariate comparisons, shows causality and allows movement from particular to general and back to particular.

An elegant example is the Visual Thesaurus from PlumbDesign (http://www.visualthesaurus.com/)(13); click the online version to bring this interactive thesaurus to the desktop. Words are clustered, bolded and sized in relation to one another. The connections can be explored and realigned by mouse click. “Aha."

Beyond traditional visualization displays of words, numbers, symbols and graphs, within simulation and game environments visualization becomes a dynamic and active process of experimentation and experience. The ability to provide such provocative learning experiences deserves serious consideration across academic disciplines.

Sampling Some “Serious” Games

The rapid diffusion of digital media technologies – including commercial game engines –means production toolsets are available and cost levels are affordable for wider adoption by academia. A number of universities, research centers and businesses are creating examples of the usefulness of simulations and game environments across disciplines.

The Serious Games initiative at the Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars seeks to extend traditional simulations and modeling to affect public education and debate of public policies. Serious Games co-founder Ben Sawyer identifies three categorical advantages of game-based models and simulations:
1. Design advantages encourage wider and repeated use, and amplify strategic thinking and learning opportunities among users;
2. Technology advantages include off-the-shelf consumer hardware and software, high-end visuals, audio and 3D graphics, artificial intelligence and intuitive human-computer interfaces;
3. Development advantages include background in creating both non-fiction and fiction-based models with incomplete or empirically-derived data sets
(http://www.seriousgames.org/images/seriousarticle.pdf) (14).

Sawyer suggests that academics utilize game development industry design principles, processes and techniques of “world-building” to create powerful learning environments for analysis and predication modeling, evaluations, and education.

Interestingly, one of the first demonstration projects of Serious Games is an interactive game called Virtual U (http://www.virtual-u.org/) (15) designed to foster better understanding of the finances and management practices of U.S. colleges and universities (perhaps as the old business adage goes, it’s best to “start with what you know”).

At MIT, the Education Arcade initiative (http://www.educationarcade.org/) (16) is developing and studying conceptual prototypes to illustrate the social, cultural and educational value of digital interactive game technologies.

The Digital Media Collaboratory (http://dmc.ic2.org) (17) at the University of Texas at Austin is engaged in several projects that aim to elucidate the invisible and unknown through sim/game learning environments. A nanovisualization project allows students to arrange and build molecules in 3D space; a career exploration project for low socio-economic status (SES) kids provides experience and exchange of social and cultural artifacts to children who otherwise might not be exposed to high-SES occupations and career pathways.

An excellent source for exploring entertaining games that are meant to educate is Marc Prensky’s catalog at Social Impact Games (http://www.socialimpactgames.com/) (18). While many of the games listed are intended for public education, there are also several special interest groups games meant for political and religious persuasion (which some may consider propaganda).

So, religious and political factions know that interactive games provide potent platforms for indoctrination, as does the U.S. Army recruiting branch. The online game America’s Army “provides players with the most authentic military experience available, from exploring the development of Soldiers in individual and collective training to their deployment in simulated missions in the War on Terror” (http://www.americasarmy.com/) (19).

Business also understands the value of simulations for training.

Enspire Learning has created a team-based multiplayer business simulation called Executive Challenge to develop leadership skills and business acumen (http://www.enspire.com/simulations/executivechallenge) (20). SimuLearn has created a Virtual Leader training environment that teaches communication, project management, and team building skills (http://www.simulearn.net/) (21). Access Technologies Group provides a product called Simentor™ (http://www.simentor.com/) (22) that allows businesses to customize sales staff training for their specific product lines and markets.

The MSNBC online news channel regularly incorporates interactive games to further story coverage, such as their infamous “Baggage Screener” simulation that allows the player to empathize with the difficulties of weapon detection by acting the role of an airport security worker (http://www.msnbc.com/modules/airport_security/screener/FLASH.htm) (23).

Simulation and game environments are potent instructional tools. From illustrating physics principles to practicing medicine on a virtual patient, it is easy to understand the importance of providing such learning environments to science and engineering students. But the examples provided herein are meant to pique interest in – to make visible – the potential of game applications for other knowledge domains, such as literature, psychology and sociology, history, law and ethics, anthropology and cultural studies, communications, social work and social policies.

(1) Games, Simulation, and the Military Education Dilemna
http://www.educause.edu/ir/library/pdf/ffpiu018.pdf

(2) NASA Ames Simulation Laboratories
http://www.simlabs.arc.nasa.gov/

(3) Science Magazine’s Science and Engineering Visualization Challenge
http://www.sciencemag.org/feature/data/vis2003/ssintro.html

(4) Entertainment Software Association
http://www.theesa.com/

(5) Rollercoaster Tycoon
http://www.theesa.com/

(6) SimCity
http://simcity.ea.com/

(7) ERIC Digest: How People Learn (and What Technology Might Have to Do with It)
http://www.ericdigests.org/2003-3/learn.htm

(8) What Can Education Learn from the Video Game Industry?
http://www.iaete.org/soapbox/summary.cfm?&tid=What3080

(9) Pew Internet and American Life Project: Gaming Technology and Entertainment Among College Students
http://www.pewinternet.org/pdfs/PIP_College_Gaming_Reporta.pdf

(10) Growing Up Digital: How the Web Changes Work, Education and the Ways People Learn
http://journalism.berkeley.edu/conf/conference2003/present/brown.pdf

(11) Civilization Fan Site
http://www.civ3.com/faq5.cfm

(12) The Work of Edward Tufte and Graphic Press
http://www.edwardtufte.com/tufte/

(13) Plumb Design’s Visual Thesaurus
http://www.visualthesaurus.com

(14) Serious Games: Improving Public Policy through Game-based Learning and Simulation
http://www.seriousgames.org/images/seriousarticle.pdf

(15) Virtual U
http://www.virtual-u.org

(16) Game to Teach Project & Education Arcade
http://www.educationarcade.org

(17) Digital Media Collaboratory
http://dmc.ic2.org

(18) Social Impact Games
http://www.socialimpactgames.com

(19) America’s Army Game
http://www.americasarmy.com

(20) Executive Challenge
http://www.enspire.com/simulations/executivechallenge

(21) SimuLearn Virtual Leader
http://www.simulearn.net