Educational Gaming

Gaming in education has become a recent hot topic. Video games in particular have clear education potential as we can see young adults are able to sit down at these video games, learn the interface, rules, and interactions, all in a motivational setting, without the need of formal instruction. However, can the aspects of game design be applied to education in a manner that would benefit a majority of the students, and what kind of students would benefit most? Also, how might these games be implemented?
One of the more popular game styles being explored today is that of the Massive Multiplayer Online (MMO) game. The reason being is that the multi-user environments (MUVEs) provide a way in which people can interact with each other in an environment that might otherwise not be attainable. For example taking your fourth grade class on a trip to explore the surface of the moon may be unrealistic in real life, but achievable in a virtual setting. Students could explore craters and see how there avatars move differently in the low gravity environment. By setting up a storyline, goals and tasks for the students to accomplish with virtual rewards attached to it, it has all the motivational makings of a video game.
In theory a video game such as this would be highly beneficial in a classroom, but there is much more to consider. Young adults often need the motivational aspects of reward whether they are intrinsic or extrinsic. Furthermore a contextual setting helps young adults think about how they would apply what they are learning and as such MMO’s and MUVE’s lend themselves well to accomplishing this. Adult education however, does not necessarily need these aspects to be successful. Adults will often times already have the application of their learning goal in mind and not need extraneous motivation as the furthering of their education is motivation enough. As such some adults may find the use of games as a waste of time. They may feel that their goals could be achieved faster and more efficiently through standard curricular methods, and in some ways they may very well be correct.
This is not to say that MUVE’s can’t benefit adult education. Another implementation for such technologies is to address the issues of safety. Keeping with the theme of space travel, trial and error is not exactly a viable learning method for piloting the space shuttle. As such, a virtual environment is used to train astronauts, and the idea of a flight simulator has been around for a long time successfully teaching adults. This concept of using virtual environments is a far better alternative in teaching adults in high risk situations prior to application in the real world.
The difference in these educational groups and the application of MUVE’s and MMO’s comes down to developmental costs. Most education system are not willing to spend thousands of dollars for software that teaches a single concept, but companies are more than willing to spend the money since in the long run it likely means saving money. Until both software developers and educational systems see the same kind of benefits that industry does in the use of simulations in MUVE’s and MMO’s it will be a very slow process of seeing such technologies implemented in education, and like in most cases in educational technology will only find its way there after it has become outdated.