UND Discovery - The University of North Dakota's Research Magazine

By Juan Miguel Pedraza
In the globalized, multitasking electronic world of today’s digital natives, there’s nothing like the jolt of learning one gets by clinching the record shot.

Okay, electronic games are fun, and that’s the point. But they also teach a host of useful skills, asserts Dr. Richard Van Eck, a nationally recognized expert in the use of computer-based games in the classroom. He an associate professor of instructional design and technology in the UND College of Education and Human Development’s Department of Teaching and Learning.

Van Eck’s research is serious stuff; he is widely published, and his older colleagues are tuning in. Van Eck’s research on these innovative learning technologies is so hot that his article on digital game-based learning was featured recently on the cover of Educause Review. He also has a book chapter on building intelligent learning games due out this year.

For kids, the gadget-saturated world is their reality, an almost seamless and ever-evolving electronically mediated transition from virtual to real, from cell-phone-to-the-ear-and-drive-to-the-mall to instant tax filing. They live life in the electron lane, “they’re digital natives,” Van Eck says.

Two areas are of particular concern to Van Eck.
“The first problem is that we do very little to engage children in learning throughout much of their formal education. This problem arises from the Industrial Revolution and what I call the ‘widgetizing’ of education,” he asserts. “America embraced the idea of mass production and economies of scale that arose out of the Industrial Revolution.” And presto, we figured we could also mass-produce education.

But, Van Eck points out, there’s a serious problem with that approach: each student has different prior knowledge, different skills and abilities, and different strategies for learning.

The second major problem facing American education is technology.

Changing media, notes Richard Van Eck, have created learners whose brains are literally and figuratively different from preceding generations.

“Changing media and technology practices since 1980 have created learners whose brains are literally and figuratively different than the generations who preceded them,” Van Eck notes. “At the same time, research into brain development and what is now being called brain plasticity shows that, contrary to what we once believed, the brain continues to develop throughout our lives.” The brain is highly influenced by the ways in which people use it and the things they put into it.

“Given this exponential rate of change in technology and media, and the ability of technology and media to change, or ‘re-wire,’ the brain, we now find that many kids today are radically different kinds of thinkers and consumers of information,” he said.

Van Eck’s research points to digital game-based learning (DGBL) as a key technology in tomorrow’s classroom: “DGBL is about the ability of the technologies to engage the minds of the young digital natives in ways that reflect how they process information and to embody the sound educational theories and approaches that have been around for hundreds of years.”

“With games, today’s digital natives learn how to interact and solve the often extremely complex problems in a game without recourse to direct instruction,” Van Eck observed. “They do not read books or watch movies to learn how to do this; they learn through interacting with the game in a constant cycle of input, feedback, hypothesis formulation and testing, etc.”

With today’s digital natives, Van Eck is encouraged to see the sense of empowerment they get from gaining expertise.
“For me, it’s about making learning engaging and rewarding, and games are one way this can be done,” he said. “DGBL is not about fun, although I see no reason that learning cannot be fun. It’s more about what a game player once put as ‘hard fun.’”

Van Eck says that at its core, the challenge of teaching — and that includes DGBL and today’s digital natives — is relatively straightforward: “Good education means that you’re willing to work very, very hard because it has value for you. DGBL is one way we can engage the current generation of digital natives.”

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