Junjie Shang

Harnessing computer Games in Education

Besides the ability of making learning more interesting, educators and researchers have been exploring other pedagogical potentials of computer games. How to employ games for constructivist learning and teaching has become an attention in the field of education and game design in recent years. This article gives an introduction to game-based learning. On top of discussing games’ intrinsic educational traits from the motivational, cognitive and socio-cultural perspectives, we also review two recent foci of game-based learning. The first one is “education in games” which is an approach for adopting existing commercial games for educational use. The second is “games in education” in which the games are designed specifically with underlying pedagogy for some curricula.

FARMTASIA: an online game-based learning environment based on the VISOLE pedagogy

Virtual interactive student-oriented learning environment (VISOLE) is a game-based constructivist pedagogical approach that encompasses the creation of an online interactive world modeled upon a set of interdisciplinary domains, in which students participate as “citizens” to take part cooperatively and competitively in shaping the development of the virtual world as a means to construct their knowledge and skills. FARMTASIA is the first online game designed using the VISOLE philosophy, encompassing the subject areas of biology, government, economics, technology, production system and natural environment. The “virtual world” deployed is a farming system covering the domains of cultivation, horticulture and pasturage, situated in a competitive economy governed by good public policies. The design and implementation of FARMTASIA pursue three vital principles. The first one is to make the game as realistic as possible so that students can learn in a near-real life environment; the second one is to inject motivational elements so that students can sustain to learn and acquire various knowledge and skills with the game; and the third one is to make easy for teachers to conduct various VISOLE facilitation tasks. According to our exploratory educational study, we show evidentially that positive perceptions and an advancement of subject-specific and interdisciplinary knowledge appeared among the students who participated in VISOLE learning with FARMTASIA.

Educational Use of Computer Games: Where We Are, and What’s Next

This chapter aims at providing readers with a contextual view on educational use of computer games. Apart from the elaboration on the intrinsic educational traits of games, we introduce two recent initiatives of game-based learning (GBL), namely, “education in games” and “games in education,” and review a number of representative instances among each initiative. Last but not least, we discuss the current challenges of adopting games in education, and the areas worth further research effort so as to gain new insights into the future development of GBL.

VISOLE: A New Game-based Situated Learning Paradigm

VISOLE (Virtual Interactive Student-Oriented Learning Environment) is a new Game-based Situated Learning Paradigm for Web-based teaching and learning, which aims to help students learn from near real-life experiences and social constructions of knowledge. In this paper, we discuss the theoretical foundation, education paradigm, and technological implementation of VISOLE.

A Case Study of a Non-gamer Student's Learning Process in VISOLE

VISOLE (Virtual Interactive Student-Oriented Learning Environment) is a constructivist pedagogical approach to empower game-based learning. With near real-life simulation gaming context and teacher facilitation (scaffolding and debriefing), VISOLE aims at providing students with opportunities to acquire subject-specific knowledge in a multi-disciplinary fashion as well as sharpen their higher-order thinking skills. This paper discusses a case study carried out in Hong Kong for investigating a non-gamer student’s learning process in VISOLE. The study revealed there were a number of impeding phenomena emerged during the course of this non-gamer student’s participation in VISOLE. Nevertheless, it was found that teachers’ facilitation (the designated teacher facilitation tasks specified in VISOLE, and some new teacher interventions) was able to mitigate or overcome these impeding phenomena. The findings provided insight into the enhancement of the existing design and classroom implementation of VISOLE.

Harnessing Computer Games in Education

Besides the ability of making learning more interesting, educators and researchers have been exploring other pedagogical potentials of computer games. How to employ games for constructivist learning and teaching has become an attention in the field of education and game design in recent years. This article gives an introduction to game-based learning. On top of discussing games’ intrinsic educational traits from the motivational, cognitive and socio-cultural perspectives, we also review two recent foci of game-based learning. The first one is “education in games†which is an approach for adopting existing commercial games for educational use. The second is “games in education†in which the games are designed specifically with underlying pedagogy for some curricula.

A Case Study of an Academic Achievement-oriented Student in Game-based Learning

VISOLE (Virtual Interactive Student-Oriented Learning Environment) is a teacher-facilitated constructivist pedagogical approach to empower game-based learning. In combination with scaffolding, situated cognition, reflection, and debriefing, VISOLE aims at providing students with opportunities to acquire subject specific knowledge in a multi-disciplinary fashion and sharpen their higher-order thinking skills for problem solving. Farmtasia is the first online game designed to facilitate the VISOLE approach. We conducted a qualitative case study, in the setting of formal curricular teaching in a secondary school, to look into the course of students¡¦ learning in VISOLE. This paper discusses a part of the entire study, focusing on delineating an impeding phenomenon, arbitrary gaming, which emerged in an academic achievement-oriented student¡¦s learning process. The findings provided insights into the issue of implementing VISOLE and game-based learning in general in school education.