It was the first time I played World of Warcraft, it was fun to play with 3D environment. These games are so fascinating and addictive that any one who gets involved spends hours in front of the computer devising strategies to break a formation and so on. There is no formal learning imparted for these games though the player can definitely access the help box to maneuver. Many of these games are learnt only by trial and error and hence there is no school which teaches you how to play. The cognitive aspect of these games is on the very high side as self understanding makes a player successful. The tutorial suggests that such games do impart lot of cognitive skills to the players and bring out abilities in them.
Learning can be facilitated in the form of easy to difficult strategies, understanding and exploring unknown paths and trying to drop new ideas .this may lead to failures initially and strategies may be overcome but persistent tries would definitely prove successful. The plans and topography studies used here if learner would make study of geography easy and the same concepts are taught in school.
Learning could be impeded here by lack of downloading this game which is kind of difficult that encounters users and players. The paradigm of learning that best suits this system would be the assimilation of cooperative and consistent team work. This learning emphasizes that self learning and team work are the best ways to achieve progress. Individual outcomes are no doubt stressed but the group efforts and team work in building up a module of action is definitely more rewarding that individual efforts. In WoW the fact finding is self tutored. This is a very important concept of learning. This is called the self assessment where one has to create his own skill sets. This is best taught through the WoW.
There is no planned curriculum and every action is event driven. The better aspect of the game has to be self intended and through moral science books. Code of player conduct, ethical play and the others values have to self generated so values automatically get imbibed. There is a code of conduct for every game. This in practice is the study of values. The societal values in the form of code of conduct are imbibed and social conversations are intellectually designed so as to further progress. if a person needs to get interested in learning the best way would be to introduce him to the WoW .He would be prompted to make his own game with help from others and then would get along to designing his own structure and path of the characters. This would help him in making his own area if interest and his game would show case his natural capabilities. But the questions are still rise in my mind, how we can create a suitable formal learning in this 3D environment? Do you see the gap between designer of this game and educator in order to design World of Warcraft to be formal learning?
April 23, 2008 at 12:58 am |
I liked the event or narrative driven aspect of the game. I found that in many instances, the code of player conduct was reflected by the apparent age of the participant. I found myself challenged to combat by the players who acted the most immature.
I found the social aspect of the game interesting, but not that engaging. The more I was invited into a group, the more I saw people who employed little strategy in defeating the problem. I didn’t run across anyone who wanted to at least get a plan together. They just wanted the numbers to overpower the monsters. I suppose that’s a strategy as well, but I was a little unimpressed.
I don’t see much of an application for formal learning in this game. Informally, I noticed my own thinking did gravitate to trying to figure out what I did wrong when I died and plotting out a possible adjustment to my strategy. Did this help my problem-solving? Well, yes, when I’m trying to hunt down and kill Murkdeep. Does help me transfer that skill? I’m not convinced yet.
Great comments Said