G4LI Cornelia Brunner; Center for Children and Technology

Considerations at CCT–Pedagogy, domain, school, medium, and age
Designs for ordinary schools and teachers and reluctant learners
Working on 7th grade science and literacy games
Focused on educational need–what will help teachers in a classroom? In this case, popular misconceptions–the research will focus on can the game dispel a particular misconception?
Initial game designs for photosynthesis game permitted (accidentally) the player to succeed without ever learning abut photosynthesis
Next game idea focused on metaphors, moved away from reality, instead focused just on chemical change
All this is fodder for PFL, game produces a visualization and experience of a phenomenon that can be unpacked by a teacher

The role of the instructional designer is to take all these different interests and foci, see the affordances of the medium (in this case DS games) and decide how it can support current educational practices.

Study: Media Usage Among Kids Almost a Full Time Job

While I know technology has a ton of educational potential, and kids can really benefit from spending some time every day on the computer, eight hours a day is a tragedy bordering on child abuse. That’s just a toxic amount of screen time and parents really need to reign that in. That said, from the finite amount of babysitting I’ve done, I understand the temptation of exhausted parents to just park their kids in front of the TV.

via: Game Politics

A new study shows that media usage among today’s 8-18 year olds has increased to an average of seven hours and thirty-eight minutes per day.

That figure is dramatically from 2004 results, which showed an average total of six hours and twenty-one minutes, reports the Kaiser Family Foundation.

Generation M2: Media in the Lives of 8-18 Year Olds (PDF) still showed TV as the dominant form of media, with four hours and twenty-nine minutes consumed daily on average, with videogames weighing in at one hour and thirteen minutes of daily usage. Boys were also more likely to spend longer periods playing console games than girls, averaging fifty-six minutes a day versus fourteen for girls. PC game usage showed similar results, with boys averaging twenty-five minutes a day and girls a paltry eight minutes.

Only 30% of kids surveyed indicated that their household has rules in place for what videogames they can play, versus a 46.0% figure when it came to limiting television shows.

The study also showed at least a bit of a link between heavy media usage and poor grades, as 47.0% of “heavy” media users reported receiving “fair or poor” grades, versus 23.0% of “light” media users.

71.0% of the youngsters polled said they had a TV in their bedroom and 50.0% had their own videogame console.

Drew Altman, Ph.D., President and CEO of the Kaiser Family Foundation added, “The amount of time young people spend with media has grown to where it’s even more than a full-time work week.”

56.0% of those polled indicated they had played an entry in the Grand Theft Auto series, versus 71.0% for Guitar Hero/Rock Band and 47.0% for Halo and Madden.

The Challenges of Teaching About Games

“Game Studies” has an interesting article about teaching university-level game studies classes. While my work is mostly with middle school through high schoolers, this article raises a number of interesting points applicable to any game design education program.

Novices, Gamers, and Scholars: Exploring the Challenges of Teaching About Games

by José P. Zagal, Amy Bruckman

Abstract

Teaching about games should be easy. After all, students enjoy engaging with course content and have extensive personal experience with videogames. In reality, games education is surprisingly complex. We report on the results of a study that explored the challenges faced by instructors of games studies classes. Our results indicate that learning about games can be challenging for multiple reasons. For example, prior videogame experience often interferes with students’ abilities to reason critically and analytically about games. Students also have difficulties articulating their experiences and observations. We describe some solutions that instructors are adopting to overcome these challenges. We also describe common misconceptions about the knowledge of expert players and provide a characterization of what it means to have a naïve understanding of videogames. Finally, we draw attention to the issue that current game studies courses run the risk of limiting the diversity of people who could become game scholars.

Recent Study Examines Violent Games/Violent Behavior Correlation

Game Politics has an article up discussing a recent study by researchers at Massachusetts General Hospital. Researchers surveyed seventh and eighth graders about which videogames they play most often and asked the young people to describe any bullying or delinquint behavior they’d engaged in. In brief, the researchers found that, for boys, there was no significant connection between violent video games and bullying, and there was a mild connection between playing violent games and fighting. For girls, there was a correlation between playing violent games and bullying behavior and fighting.

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