MMORPGs in education - jury’s still out?
I was at NECC 08 recently and bumped into some interesting people. One of whom was Mark Wagner who presented on his PhD research into the use of massively multi-player online role playing games (MMORPGs) in education.
According to the literature review for his thesis, MMORPGs offer significant possibilities for rich social interactions and learning. They include:
- Engagement and motivation
- Context-embedded learning
- Inquiry-driven learning
- Socially negotiated learning
- Reflection and metacognition
- Social change
Mark set about testing these via the Delphi method and, from his discussions with a number of experts in the field of education, learning and gaming, he concluded that these benefits were possible but that a good body of evidence needed to be further developed.
He does, though, have a number of recommendations for educators and these are as follows:
- Use existing commercial MMORPGs with students, particularly in relation to developing 21st Century Learning Skills.
- Support MMORPG play with dedicated, structured and frequent debriefing.
- Use MMORPGs to motivate and engage students.
- Use MMORPGs as a context for student learning, including social learning.
- But beware infrastructure needs and logistical challenges.
We went through a few examples that he recommends, which I have diigo-ed. You can find them here. Please take a look when you can.
