作者：Jeannie Novak

2003年，当我在南加利福尼亚大学的“教学，学习和技术”大会上演讲时明显察觉到了观众席上有不少不耐烦的教育家。最近我以几款多人在线游戏作为在线远程学习应用而完成了自己的硕士论文，并且我还列出了一些发现总结。大多数人都很难去理解游戏作为一种学习管理系统（LMS）的理念，但是对于那些并不精通MMO的人来说就会更加费解了。这一理念包含了简单的经济原理：使用一种解决方法去处理以下问题：

1）在线远程学习工具相当繁琐——甚至还相当笨拙。尽管被当成一种“互动式”体验，但是这些LMS平台却不能提供给那些拒绝在课堂教学中进行面对面互动的学生们带来沉浸式体验。

2）MMO吸引了那些想要牺牲更多私生活而确保自己能够全天候致力于任务中，管理角色的属性，并应对游戏中各种“破坏”的玩家。这也呈现出一个明显的问题：当一款游戏（如《魔兽世界》）吸引了大量玩家的注意后，又有多少MMO能够在市场中赢得竞争呢？

south park & the guild（from gamasutra）

动画《南方公园》赢得艾美奖的《Make Love, Not Warcraft》（左图）以及大受欢迎的网页系列；《The Guild》（右图》让我们能够目睹传统MMO玩家的生活方式。

解决方法？

将在线课堂变成MMO能让学生在登录LMS后体验到游戏般的感受，随后更多游戏开发者便能够针对特定课程，项目和教育机构创造不同的MMO，从而进一步扩展MMO市场。

在那之后几年，我尝试着在一个项目（涉及《第二人生》的创造并拥有一个由教育家，学生与产业志愿者组成的团队）中解决这些问题。当时的理念是创造一个能让学生选择的课程般虚拟环境。在这一环境中，学生将变成玩家，专注于解决与游戏系统（游戏邦注：非常复杂，特别是杯整合到多用户虚拟环境MUVE，如SL中时）紧密联系在一起的故事秘密。可以说我们团队在努力挑战着极限——不管是图像还是脚本。因为在当时，这一项目也是走在时代的前列，所以这种基于游戏环境中的学习理念也很难杯理解——尽管我们技术团队通过编写代码而提供了一个“连接线”，让我们能将SL的结果转移到LMS中。

直到现在，上面列出的2个问题都未得到解决（从极大程度上来看）。尽管我不再积极地进行在线教授，但是我却听到世界各地许多学生对在线远程学习过程抱怨连连。他们所抱怨的内容与10年前是一样的：屏幕上呈现出过多文字内容，文件与问题难以兼容，不必要的“课间自习”所带来的参与分数。如此有些学生便会想尽办法“欺骗”该系统，如在必要时间里登录系统，等待其他人给自己做出评论，并配合双方协定中一些陈词滥调的要求。

不过也有好消息，即许多开发者和教育家都认同了游戏化这个术语——即将与游戏相关的工具整合到onground教室中。我希望这种心态能够刺激着人们的思考方式向在线远程学习解决方法上转移。

以下是关于教育家该如何将游戏作为一种教学工具带到各种类型的课堂中的3个过程：

第一步.从游戏到教学：教育家们应该玩各种类型的游戏——去挖掘最吸引人的游戏元素。考虑这些问题：是什么原因促使你不断发射这些小鸟去攻击敌人？是什么吸引你同时玩多款文字类游戏——与好友或陌生人一起？为什么你会向往成为半兽人和战斗中的微型军人？现在考虑这点：假设每一款游戏都是一种教学工具，即使只是巧合。着眼于任何游戏。你在每个回合中能够学到什么（即使是非常隐蔽的内容）？如果你能够想清楚这些问题，你便拥有正确的心态。

Angry Birds & Advance Wars 2（from gamasutra）

《愤怒的小鸟》：朝着目的地翱翔（左图）；为什么我梦想着成为微型军人？（《高级战争2：黑洞的升起》右图）

第二步.学习游戏：教育家必须像游戏设计师那样思考。事实上，所有学科的教育家必须在讲授游戏设计课程时特别专注于游戏玩法和游戏机制。（故事也是这些内容的一部分。）如果工具有限的话，教育家也必须探索一些包含游戏设计原则的替代方法。

第三步.创造体验：教育家应该考虑为学生创造严肃的游戏。他们应该在一开始就推动课堂的游戏化——许多教育家能在提到这一术语前便成功完成这一点；这包含了一个奖励系统和团队竞争（包括团队内部的合作——定义一个赢家需要相互依赖与合作）。工具不仅包含收集，馈赠，奖励和资源管理，同时还包含更高级别的挑战（领导技能和问题解决方法）。在最后的步骤中，教育家们应该创造一款具有创造性的定制严肃游戏（基于学生的需求和相关主题）。在2011年和2012年夏天，我分别与利海卡本社区学院和南加利福尼亚大学（USC）的信息科学协会成员致力于帮助教育家们做到这点。教育家们应该将这些选择当成他们持续专业发展的组成部分。有些教育家们已经采取了这一步骤，并将严肃游戏开发项目分配给了他们的学生。

brainstorm（from gamasutra）

PedGames Workshop与USC的信息科学协会：头脑风暴（左图）和“执行制作人”聚在一起议事（R Talwani, J Novak, J Kim, E Shaw）。

尽管“严肃”算是指代那些基于非娱乐性目的（游戏邦注：如出于教育，市场营销，健康或招聘目的）的游戏的标准术语，但是我们需要牢记，所有成功的游戏都必须是有趣的，否则它们便会遭遇失败。我同意严肃游戏必须比传统的商业游戏更有趣且更加吸引人：它们不仅需要努力在商业市场上获得竞争优势，同时还拥有更复杂的终极目标（包括特定的学习结果）——这便意味着失去任何一名玩家都会带来最惨痛的“失败”。确保严肃游戏的学习元素能够深入其中而不只是存在于表面，否则别人会认为你创造出了一款“肤浅的游戏”。

（本文为游戏邦/gamerboom.com编译，拒绝任何不保留版权的转载，如需转载请联系：游戏邦）

Playing to Learn: Tales from the Trenches

by Jeannie Novak

In 2003, while speaking at the University of Southern California’s Teaching, Learning & Technology conference, I noticed more than a few visibly uncomfortable educators in the audience. I had recently completed my Master’s thesis on using massively multiplayer online games (MMOs) as online distance learning applications—and I was providing a summary of my findings. The notion of any game posing as a learning management system (LMS) was difficult enough for most to parse—especially at the time—but those who weren’t well versed in the workings of MMOs were even more bewildered. The idea involved simple economics: using one solution to address the following two problems:

1)Online distance learning tools were cumbersome at best—and clunky at worst. Although billed as “interactive,” these LMS platforms weren’t living up to the promise of providing immersive, experiential learning to students who had foregone the face-to-face interaction associated with onground classroom instruction.

2)MMOs attracted players who were willing to sacrifice much of their personal lives to ensure their availability 24/7 to complete quests, manage character stats, and confront “griefers.” This also posed an obvious problem: How many MMOs could possibly compete in the marketplace after just one (e.g., World of Warcraft) attracted the majority of players?

South Park’s Emmy award-winning “Make Love, Not Warcraft” (left) and popular web series
The Guild (right) provide a glimpse into the traditional MMO gamer lifestyle.

The solution?

Turning the online classroom into an MMO would allow students to log onto an LMS that behaved like a game—and in turn, more game developers would have the opportunity to develop various MMOs for specific courses, programs, and educational institutions—thereby widening the MMO market.

A few years later, I attempted to address these issues in a project that involved Second Life (SL) and a team of educators, students, and industry volunteers. The idea was to create a virtual environment that could be accessed by students as a course. In that environment, students would become players—focusing on solving narrative mysteries tied to gameplay systems that were quite sophisticated at the time . . . especially when embedded in a multi-user virtual environment (MUVE) such as SL. Our team pushed the envelope—from the art to the scripting. The project was ahead of its time; again, the notion of learning within a game environment was beyond comprehension—even though our tech team provided a “bridge” by writing code that allowed results from SL to feed into the LMS.

Our Second Life project (exterior of building during construction, left; interior portion of one floor during polish, right) pushed the MUVE envelope in 2007.

To this day, the two problems outlined above have not been resolved—for the most part. Even though I’m no longer actively directing or teaching online programs, I hear complaints from students worldwide on their extreme disappointment with the online distance learning process. These concerns are the same as they were 10 years ago: copious onscreen text, arcane file incompatibility issues, and unnecessary “busy work” leading to participation points. Some students will “cheat” the system by simply logging on for the required length of time, waiting for others to make comments, and chiming in with brief platitudes of mutual agreement.

The good news is that many developers and educators alike have embraced in the alternately lauded and derided term, gamification—incorporating its associated toolset into the onground classroom. My hope is that this state of mind will fuel a paradigm shift to online distance learning solutions as well.

Here are some thoughts on how educators can use games as instructional tools in all types of classrooms:

Level 1: Playing to Teach: Educators should play games in a variety of genres—becoming sleuths as they uncover engaging elements of play. Consider these questions: What keeps you relentlessly and repeatedly launching those birds toward their snorting foes? What compels you to play several word games simultaneously—with friends or total strangers? What makes you dream of orcs and miniature army men in combat? Now consider this: Assume that every game is a teaching tool . . . even if by accident. Take a look at any game. What are you learning at every turn—even if it’s “stealthy” or covert? If you can figure this out, you’re in the right mindset.

Angry Birds: soaring toward a destination?(Black Panther 55, aka Albert Junior Joliffe)

Why do I dream of miniature army men?(Advance Wars 2: Black Hole Rising)

Level 2: Learning to Game: Educators must think like game designers. In fact, educators in all disciplines should take game design classes focusing specifically on gameplay and game mechanics. (Narrative is part of all this, but that’s an entirely separate blog post!) Even when limited by the tools at their disposal, educators should explore engaging alternatives involving game design principles.

Level 3: Creating the Experience: Educators should consider creating serious games for their students. At the risk of bringing up the term again, an initial step might involve gamifying the classroom—which has actually been accomplished by many successful educators long before the word was coined; this might involve a reward system and team competition (including coopetition within teams—where interdependency and cooperation are required to define a single winner). Tools might include anything from collecting, gifting, prizes, and resource management to higher-level challenges involving leadership skills and problem solving. The final step would involve creating an original, customized serious game—taking into account the needs associated with the students and subject matter. In the Summer of 2011 and 2012, I worked with groups at Lehigh Carbon Community College and the University of Southern California’s Information Sciences Institute, respectively (both of which received National Science Foundation grants for these activities and related research), to help educators (primarily in mathematics) do just this. There is keen interest in this area—and educators should explore these options as part of their ongoing professional development. Some educators have taken this a step further and have assigned serious game development projects to their own students.

PedGames Workshop (Summer 2012) with USC’s Information Sciences Institute: brainstorming (left) and “executive producers” huddle (R Talwani, J Novak, J Kim, E Shaw).

Although “serious” is the accepted standard term to denote games that are intentionally created for non-entertainment purposes (e.g., education, marketing, health, recruitment), keep in mind that all successful games must be fun—or they’ll fail. I would argue that serious games have the burden of being even more enjoyable and engaging than traditional, commercial games: Not only do they sometimes compete in the commercial marketplace, but they have more sophisticated end goals (involving specific learning outcomes)—which means that losing even one player translates into a much more painful “fail.” Make sure that learning components of a serious game are embedded rather than inserted so that you don’t end up with a “Franken-game” reminiscent of the unsuccessful edutainment era.

“Puzzle me not!”

I’m now in the midst of writing the newest installment in the Game Development Essential series: Serious Game Development—and I’m developing an original mobile “serious” game. I can only hope that players will have fun while learning something new in the process!(source:gamasutra)