Freedom in Technology and Software

Feb

16

talks at freed.in/2008 - All Work and No Play

Filed Under Talks

Name of Speaker: Samiah Sultana

Organisation / Affiliation Educomp Pvt. Ltd.
Title of Talk All Work and No Play
Talk Abstract So far, traditional forms of pedagogy have more or less failed to acknowledge the importance of engagement for learning. The current forms of pedagogy work with the teacher acting as a knowledge-broker, and the student as a knowledge-receiver. This form of pedagogy is usually lacking in a social context (that can generate tacit knowledge within itself), and also ignores skills that children acquire from their engagement with other texts and media in their environment.One of the tools that may be used to enable a more critical approach to learning is the use of games. Although by no means a novel approach, the use of games for learning and teaching continues to be an area that very little practical experimentation has happened. There is a considerable amount of research and literature, but only nascent application.The discussion of games for education would imply the inclusion of both digital and non-digital games for learning. The talk will, however, limit the discussion to digital games for education. Another distinction, albeit not as clearly demarcated as the previous, is one that requires for games to be categorized in to commercial vs. educational. A brief discussion will address the blurring of these lines (between commercial and educational games) for the purposes of education, and how learning and playing need not be mutually exclusive processes.The value of using games for education has been long contended. Apprehensions about the social contexts that learning is placed in (for e.g. students learning about concepts in physics through simulated warfare), and issues like the lack of social learning (with digital game based learning) prevail. Although convincing theoretical arguments have been proposed for a majority of the issues, there is a continued lack of consensus in application. Another major issue (that has found some resolution in extended academic activity) is the abstraction and conversion of the tacit knowledge in games to meet the learning objectives of the curriculum. Some possibilities for addressing these issues can be discussed, while the rest may be left open for deliberation and thought.

A brief section may cover the use of advanced options (like hand-held devices) for education, with a specific attention to the possibilities, and advantages and disadvantages.
Relevance to freed.in/2008 New forms of pedagogy:
Change from imparting factual knowledge to facilitating learning
Game Based Learning

Comments

One Response to “talks at freed.in/2008 - All Work and No Play”

  1. Niyam Bhushan on February 19th, 2008 2:12

    oh this is cool! look forward to this talk. i wonder if you will demo some games as well, and whether these games are muft and mukt. would you also have games for different age-groups?