Games and Learning: a third video by me (and James Portnow!)

[sephfire]

The topic: the potential for games to teach without sacrificing entertainment value.

After my last video "lecture" (the one about sex in games) got such a surprising amount of attention, Activision game designer James Portnow approached me about collaboration. And collaborate we have. Of course, we were kind of indirectly collaborating anyway ... I quoted him in my last video at least four times. The guy writes some really interesting articles on game design. I highly recommend looking him up.

edit:

And, an extra special THANK YOU to CarboHydroM and housethegrate for unwittingly providing my intro and outro music!

[Overflow]

These are great...You're really quite good, and I'm glad you're getting some attention.

Another example of a way your idea could be exploited is in Metroid Prime. The story is only told through the scanning of things and reading up on them, and like you said, sneaking in references to actual events or objects in this fashion could really get some people thinking.

[Geoffrey Taucer]

Brilliant, as always.

[JCvgluvr]

Seph, why can't you be one of my college teachers?!

You have a genuine talent with these things. I was completely engaged into your topic! I also like how you emulate Yahtzee's style to a degree, yet your own influences shine thru. (Note that I'm unsure exactly how much of this was yours and how much of this was Portnow's.)

[sephfire]

Most of the actual ideas and writing here is Portnow's doing. He sent some drafts of his article to me which I rewrote to fit my format better. You can see his source article at the link above. I suppose you can think of him as the original author, and I am the guy who wrote and directed the film adaptation.

I did write the previous two videos, though.

[zircon]

Very good stuff... tangential learning is certainly powerful, I've experienced it many, many times myself.

However, one problem is that many topics simply cannot work with this method, and you even cited one perhaps without realizing it: Math Blaster. Once you get past simple arithmetic, do you really think there is any non-standard educational method of helping the player learn about, say, Calculus? Trigonometry? Accounting? Engineering? At best, you can encourage the player to look up a few things when they're done playing (or link from directly within the game, as you suggested) but to meaningfully teach most topics, video games with the philosophy of "fun first" can't really work, IMO.

[Overflow]

Very good stuff... tangential learning is certainly powerful, I've experienced it many, many times myself.

However, one problem is that many topics simply cannot work with this method, and you even cited one perhaps without realizing it: Math Blaster. Once you get past simple arithmetic, do you really think there is any non-standard educational method of helping the player learn about, say, Calculus? Trigonometry? Accounting? Engineering? At best, you can encourage the player to look up a few things when they're done playing (or link from directly within the game, as you suggested) but to meaningfully teach most topics, video games with the philosophy of "fun first" can't really work, IMO.

The computer games Cluefinders, grades 3 through 6 are actually quite good for this, while difficult. However, they aren't "fun" so much as an obstacle to overcome so you can find out what happens next.

[sephfire]

Very good stuff... tangential learning is certainly powerful, I've experienced it many, many times myself.

However, one problem is that many topics simply cannot work with this method, and you even cited one perhaps without realizing it: Math Blaster. Once you get past simple arithmetic, do you really think there is any non-standard educational method of helping the player learn about, say, Calculus? Trigonometry? Accounting? Engineering? At best, you can encourage the player to look up a few things when they're done playing (or link from directly within the game, as you suggested) but to meaningfully teach most topics, video games with the philosophy of "fun first" can't really work, IMO.

Definitely true. Tangential learning is a great way to get people engaged in a topic and start them down the path of learning, but you can only teach so much that way before you have to resort to more traditional education. But real interest in a topic can significantly help the learning process, and that's what tangential learning can be great for. It won't take someone all the way down the long "path of knowledge", but it will make sure they hit the ground running (so to speak).

[Malaki-LEGEND.sys]

Tangential learning is what garnered A LOT of my interest in history, music, art, poetry, etc.

All of this provided by video games.

Tangential learning in action: Looking up the Sephiroth.

[The Pezman]

Oh man oh man oh man. This was my research this summer. When I get all my work done, I'm going to write a detailed response to all this, starting with the educational game I developed.

[TheSnowStorm]

Don't show this video to any "educator". They would put you down for not being one. They have many degrees from top schools and know what they know.

For the rest of us who actually spend time in the real world and talking with people outside of the education and research field instead of having our arrogant noses in the books, we're nothing but mindless, uneducated sons-of-bitches.

This video was wonderful. I never thought about video games in this way.

[Dhsu]

I think in the end I preferred the article over the video. There's a lot of filler (e.g. just you behind a lectern) and stock/Googled images, some of which fit the context only loosely (a jumping cat to illustrate "subtle"?). Some of them are actually pretty distracting, to the point I have to actually pause the video just to figure out how what I just saw is connected to what I just heard (e.g. charts and xkcd strips). If you really wanna be like Yahtzee, I'd suggest less "lol" pictures and more original art/animation. And one way to keep the images relevant is to imagine you're playing a game of Pictionary...without the words, are people still going to know what you're talking about?

More importantly though, not every noun has to have a corresponding picture. It doesn't surprise me that these videos are exhausting to make, because they're exhausting to *watch* too. One thing I noticed is that you use several images over a short period of time for words that just synonyms for a single concept (e.g. "interested," "engaged," "care about"). Slow down, bro! One image per concept is usually sufficient. Although sometimes using a lot of similar words is a clue that you're actually repeating yourself, so in those cases you could just cut the fat and move on. Less words, less pictures.

By the way, I resent your using Number Munchers as an example of "sucking all the fun out" of games. That game was AWESOME.

[Ramaniscence]

I think better examples are...

...well ALL of the FF7. That thing has so many references to Norse mythology it's ridiculous.

And well, the summons are a dead give-away.

Also: Tyr's Hand in WoW....but other than that and Teldrassil I don't think WoW has anything substantial =P

Oh...and Okami.

I actually took a whole class about this stuff and games. The color symbolism used in Kingdom Hearts, I think is the most interesting, but...that's something I NEVER would've noticed had not been for that class. So it's really not tangential

[JCvgluvr]

Dhsu, how about throwing in some positives with all that negative? Ignoring the pros and just going for all the cons makes you seem rather trollish (regardless of your intention). I'm not saying your criticisms aren't true (yet I don't agree with them), but you could afford to be a little more appreciative.

[Dhsu]

Um...chill? You didn't even make the video dude. But since you asked, for positives I'll say the original art that wasn't filler was well-done, and it does its job as an adaptation of the article for the tl;dr people.

I actually took a whole class about this stuff and games. The color symbolism used in Kingdom Hearts, I think is the most interesting, but...that's something I NEVER would've noticed had not been for that class. So it's really not tangential

Dude you can't say something like that and not elaborate on it for at least three paragraphs.

[sephfire]

I think in the end I preferred the article over the video. There's a lot of filler (e.g. just you behind a lectern) and stock/Googled images, some of which fit the context only loosely (a jumping cat to illustrate "subtle"?). Some of them are actually pretty distracting, to the point I have to actually pause the video just to figure out how what I just saw is connected to what I just heard (e.g. charts and xkcd strips). If you really wanna be like Yahtzee, I'd suggest less "lol" pictures and more original art/animation. And one way to keep the images relevant is to imagine you're playing a game of Pictionary...without the words, are people still going to know what you're talking about?

More importantly though, not every noun has to have a corresponding picture. It doesn't surprise me that these videos are exhausting to make, because they're exhausting to *watch* too. One thing I noticed is that you use several images over a short period of time for words that just synonyms for a single concept (e.g. "interested," "engaged," "care about"). Slow down, bro! One image per concept is usually sufficient. Although sometimes using a lot of similar words is a clue that you're actually repeating yourself, so in those cases you could just cut the fat and move on. Less words, less pictures.

By the way, I resent your using Number Munchers as an example of "sucking all the fun out" of games. That game was AWESOME.

This is actually very helpful feedback. I was a bit concerned about some of these issues myself. I'll see if I can improve in some of these areas next time around.

[Sindra]

Seph....you're awesome. Truly.

Watching your video, I couldn't help but think back to a handful of times I'd be playing a Castlevania game (ie. Symphony or Aria), and ended up spending hours looking up all the weapons references. You have stuff from religion to Tolkien thrown in there, which I always found to be interesting.

[JCvgluvr]

The only reason I focused on you, Dhsu, is that you seem to be negative in 99% of the time in every topic. A little praise can go a long way, you know. But like I said, that didn't make your criticisms any less true. So you're still a good boy in my eyes. ;D

[The Damned]

KOTAKU'ed!

[bjmyers]

Excellent video - thoroughly enjoyed. I look foward to watching your previous two videos and all your future works.

[Ramaniscence]

Dude you can't say something like that and not elaborate on it for at least three paragraphs.

Shit, I was actually going to reply to this, but I forgot. I had to redownload the whole lecture on Japanese color sympolism, but I COMPLETELY forgot...

Japanese:

Red & White: Joyous occasions

Pink: Kindness

Black & White: Death and mourning

Black: Completeness

Yellow: child-like, immature, impetuous

Blue: Dependability

Navy Blue: Responsibility

Green: Youth, life, tranquility

So essentially how they taught it to us is...in KH1 Sora is really child-like, and whimsical, but he was at least a little responsible and dependable and was at least a little mournful, but when KH2 came along he was a lot more mournful because of all the Riku crud. As a result he was a lot less child-like, and a lot more dependable and complete...there was a ton of more detail than that, but honestly that class was like over half a year ago and I didn't play enough Kingdom Hearts to absorb enough information.

They taught everything like that, though. EVERYTHING was a Star Wars, Advent Children, or LotR reference to make it easier to understand. I wish all classes were like that

Our final was actually identifying the "Stages of Heroism" or something within Aladdin.

[Liontamer]

Where was the Eternal Sonata mention? That was like passing on a layup. Good work again, Dan. The Lady and I enjoyed!

[The Author]

Also: Tyr's Hand in WoW....but other than that and Teldrassil I don't think WoW has anything substantial =P

Except maybe pop culture...

They refer and infer to multiple elements of pop culture, like Gadgetzan and mad max, or Linken with Zelda. It's not "culture" but hell, once, a long time ago, Mozart was pop.