Background to games-based learning
Digital natives
The society and culture of young children is awash with technology. Mobile phones, computers, digital interactive TV, the internet, email, instant messaging, webcams, games consoles and digital cameras are just some examples of the range of information and communication technology-based consumables that help to form the fabric of the environment of learners.
Marc Prensky argues that learners who grow up in this environment will naturally accommodate the ‘language and grammar’ of the technology and of its place in their world, and in doing so become native in understanding and using it. He argues that they are comfortable with it because it is, and always has been, part of their reiterated experience. He goes on to suggest that cognitive development is greatly influenced by learners’ interaction with the ‘trigger speed’ nature of their ICT-rich world because as digital natives interact with technology:
- they become used to receiving information at high speed
- they develop the ability to parallel process/multi-task
- they develop a preference for graphics before text
- they prefer random access (such as hypertext)
- they work very well when networked
- they thrive on instant gratification and frequent rewards
- they prefer games to ‘serious’ work.
Digital immigrants
In contrast he argues that adults who ‘arrive on the digital shores’ of society much later are new to this language and as a result he calls them digital immigrants. Generally these immigrants are people like you and me, established professional adults. Even though we, as digital immigrants, develop an awareness of and high level of competency with ICT they still retain what he calls an accent.
Examples of this accent are:
- printing out e-mails
- the 'did you get my e-mail?' phone call
- referring to the manual first.
The implications for education
This concept throws up serious questions for us in teaching and learning such as:
Is it the case that learners coming in to school now and in the future are different from learners of the past?
Is it the case that digital immigrants will need to consider effectiveness of methodologies that were embedded in established learning practices that were ordered and linear?
How do we begin to create and offer curriculum contexts that connect with, engage and motivate digital natives?
One area that Prensky believes is very important here in relation to learning is the significance of the computer games to digital learners. He argues that the designers of these games have a greater appreciation of how to create engaging and motivating learning environments and that the education world would do well to consider how this could be exploited in order to enhance teaching and learning experiences of learners from the ‘Playstation Age’.