“Play is not a break from learning. It is endless, delightful, deep, engaging, practical learning. It’s the doorway into the child’s heart!” ~ Vince Gowmon
“…deficiency becomes identity, and inevitably learning is transformed from that early free play and exploration of the world to an habitualized task.” Papert, Mindstorms
One of the key ideas that emerged during research for last night’s webinar was that students need a return (or, for the fortunate ones), a continuation of exploration and play. Papert’s quote from Mindstorms still resonates. Here’s hoping that this weekend brings opportunity for all of us to play and explore and have fun.
Hung 2011) chronicles the political and historic trajectory of play and gameful experiences. So glad to read about the serious treatment of play. I learned a lot from Alice Kolb and David Kolb’s research in “Learning to play, playing to learn: A case study of a ludic learning space.”
After listening to Jane McGonigal’s youtube video and seeing the prehistoric picture of dice, I was stunned that games went as far back as prehistoric fire!!
Exogenous and Endogenous are words that popped out as I read. I noticed them in an earlier article and I am glad to see them again. I think they are part of symbiotic vocabulary of economics being applied now to games. (At least I first learned about them in Eco class so that is their origin for me.)
I think the game Oscar devised that we were fortunate enough to be included on his team, is an example of an “endogenous game” because players must know about coding terminology and absorb basic facts before and during play. This is why I love “Knowledge Tree” so much, because there is a direct application for the time spent in Level 1 learning.
I think Hung would agree!
Hung, A. C. (2011). Serious Games and Education. The work of play: meaning-making in videogames (pp. 10-30). New York: Peter Lang.
Alice Y. Kolb, D. A. K. (2010). “Learning to play, playing to learn: A case study of a ludic learning space.” Journal of Organizational Change Management 23(1): 26-50.