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MMORPGs as a School / Educational device
GlowingMoon
Member Posts: 44
I believe, one possibility of the future is that technology will become so excellently refined that you can do all your school courses online through the computer with not only high efficiency but an excellent level of learning through utilizing technology of the future.
( Some of this may already exist or could exist, but merely I'm proposing that the future will enable these devices to a level of quality for learning that is beyond excellent.
For instance, you could have a chat program where an actual teacher of the subject your trying to learn to help guide you through the content and help you to understand it and learn it.
Now here's where MMORPGs could come in, not in the regular sense of hack'n'slash mob grinding or gear hunting but in regards to the virtual world aspect while doing something with multiple people in a concurrent environment. And utilize this build of a world and unique design elements which enable one to do actions to external objects within the virtual world.
Brilliant Future.
Comments
Many Universities already have digital campuses on Secondlife... they hold courses there, seminars, labs etc. It is already being done.
The problem with the educational software genre is that it rarely captures the "interest" level of mainstream games because they focus too much on delivering content (i.e. a form of digital lecture) and not enough on engaging the player in an educational experience. There are a lot of stereotypes about what "education" is... particularly in the U.S. with its focus on standardized testing and "content" delivery... content equaling factoids.
If your education system is more focused on skills (reading, writing, problem solving, analyzing, communicating, experimenting, and using skill sets [like the scientific process for example] then it lends itself much more to an mmo-game format. This is especially true now that graphics and physics engines are becoming very sophisticated. The main drawbacks are development money and predisposed ideas as to what "education" is.
My masters program was all about using technology in education... particularly in innovating and revolutionizing the concept of education itself.
I have put a lot of thought into it (I am a high school Social Studies teacher and the things you could do with governmental systems (foreign and domestic), history (actual historical events could be participated in... this would be an awesome place to do a sand box mmo), economics... this list goes on for SS. The thing is, you could integrate all of the "subjects" we currently teach into a single mmo and do some REALLY cool stuff.
Skaroth
See the violence inherent in the system!
first off it's already being done. My local tech institute does roughly 25% of their courses online and it has prooved useful (they pride themselveson flexibility).
That being said Humans learn much quicker from face to face stuff and ultimatelly it is much easier to learn when dealing with the teacher face to face than it is to type out stuff on a computer. That and the fact that we crave social contact and school/uni is one of the best forms of said contact.
Tech will be more widely used in schools now and into the future but it wont ever replace face to face learning.
MMO wish list:
-Changeable worlds
-Solid non level based game
-Sharks with lasers attached to their heads
As others have said, it's already been done. I suggest looking up Sarah Robbins (Intellagirl)--she's a professor at Indiana University who has gotten a lot of media coverage for teaching composition classes in Second Life. She's an awesome person and an inspiration to me, as I plan on pursuing a Ph.D. in composition and would like to focus my studies on gaming and technology.
Yep, it's already being done. I have a professor who is right now working on a simulator for networking classes in Second Life. He is building games to teach about wired and wireless topology's, etc.
Also, Foreign language classes are taking a look at doing things in Second Life, because there are people on frmo all over the world and willing to interact with you in the different languages.
Some parts of the English military use WoW dungeons and PvP as a team building exercise.
Naturally some crafts and skills lend themselves more easily to such an approach then others. However, too much of the human experience, of learning is passed on not through mere words nor actions alone, but rather the complex whole of a live human presence, subtle things that we don't even consciously register contribute to interaction. Things passed unnoticed, taken for granted, the subliminal level. Jumping head-first into such a teaching environment can cause a dangerous dissociation between simulation and reality, the differences are too great, at least for the foreseeable future.
- Shijeer
I am aware that there are already aspects of this being done ( As I mentioned in my original post. ) but what I'm proposing is that the quality of implementation of using MMORPG's as a educational device in regards to the future has not only a lot of potential but could prove to be highly dynamically useful and productive.
Yes, there will always be people who want face to face learning and constant face to face external world ego interaction but I'm sure there's quite a few people out there who wouldn't mind a balance between the two, or people on either side of the fence.
Some ( Maybe a lot, maybe a little, all depends and is relative ) people may want to go to school two or three days a week and do the other 2 or 3 days at home, doing certain aspects of their school work / learn etc through their homes using advanced technology.
I think it would also be cool if in the future there is a certain cyber cafe element to school, where you do have a physical teacher in the room but pretty much all of your work is being done through the computer. but you will still have a physical teacher there if you want too. Which also opens up the option to coming into school from wherever and logging onto the school server educational program system and learning with the class, even though your not there physically.
Actually implementing this into schools is not a huge difficulty, what is difficult about the situation is that many people involved with the infrastructure of Academics are use to the ''olden ways'' and are attached to ways of the past and have a hard time embracing the changes of the future.
Being in an MMORPG is already like being back in elementary school, so it could work lol. But seriously the majority of internet gamers are far too petty and immature for anything to ever be educational. It'd be like sitting in a class room while a sub-teacher tries to teach for a day, no one paying attention and just fooling around.
The words MMORPG and Educational just can't exist together, but I see what you're getting at, some sort of an online course with a digital campus world. It could be done, but I don't think it would be very effective for actually learning anything.
The stumbling block and problem to living in a more technologically advanced world, where school is also harmonized correctly and efficiently with technology is not the actual process of creating more advanced technology, sophisticated programs or a completely perfect User Interface for technology but the resistance of the older generations acceptance and attitude towards technology and the subjugation of having technology become the prime star of the academic learning system as well as the tool for learning / doing things.
And so people being attached to the past and not embracing changes of the future is normal, I suppose only time will truly tell where we go from here.
Just to note, I'm not necessarily implying that MMORPGs need to be stripped down of their fantasy feel and need to be like the game Second Life in regards to it's design and graphics style for it to be educational. I'm saying that maybe even with cool fantasy games you could implement gameplay design that ''can'' be educational, not ''is or have to be'' but ''can'' be educational. Just another idea to make it more attractive and less academically bland.
Regardless of MMORPG's I think it would be very cool if the future of the educational system become more embracing of computer oriented learning and academics, as well as artistic endeavors done on the computer.
One of the big hurdles is that "education" is not a monolithic market that can be easily tapped. Every jurisdiction has different requirements for every grade and every subject. This makes it very difficult for a developer to design anything that would fit all. On top of that, curriculum requirements change every 5-10 years which means if you were developing a system to meet the current curricular standards of a jurisdiction by the time you released it could very well be that the standards had changed or were about to change.
Again, I think there is some very serious potential to integrate this genre into education. I have been thinking about this for the past 5 or so years. It is interesting that the kids who play Warcraft, for example, will analyze numbers, ratios, tables and perform calculations far above their grade level but will still do poorly in math class. The same is true for a language arts class, they read the quests, comprehend the reading (because they have to in order to complete the quest) and act upon their comprehension, but can do poorly in a formal learning environment.
To re-iterate my above post, curriculum needs to evolve away from content based (facts) towards skills based in order for an mmo type educational structure to be functional. That and a lot of attitudes would have to shift. If something like this were to be implemented you can be sure that absenteism would be non-existant
Skaroth
See the violence inherent in the system!
I also enjoy a lot of adventure/simulator/Indie titles that let players build worlds and see them already supporting digital, design & artistic education. Rift, Landmark, Trove & Wildstar have/had this potential also.
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