Professional Documents
Culture Documents
Game Playing as a Platform for Creative and Collaborative
Learning
Lisa Gjedde
Dept. for Learning and Philosophy, Faculty of Humanities, Aalborg University Copenhagen
Denmark
lg@learning.aau.dk
Abstract: Game‐based learning may present a way of creating immersion and engagement for the learner through
simulated experiences in a narrative environment, and may support the development of 21st. century skills of
communication, collaboration, creativity and critical thinking. Role playing games have had a long history of usage in
language learning and as a multidisciplinary activity in schools during theme weeks. Through the concept of serious digital
games, which offers learning through digital simulations and immersion in virtual worlds, game‐based learning has been
deployed increasingly in education where games have been used for specific subjects. The use of live role‐game playing in
schools offers novel and innovative ways to work with the game genre, with the teachers contributing as game authors and
game masters. A current project on live action role‐game playing looks at how role‐game playing can be used to present
an entire curriculum within a narrative framework in order to enhance the learners’ motivation and zest for learning while
developing 21st century learning skills. The exploration of how live action role‐game playing can function as an
overarching framework for learning may offer fresh insights into game‐based learning in terms of multimodality, flexibility
in the design of games and the role and interactivity of the learner and teacher. A unique residential school dedicated to
teaching all subjects in grades 9‐10 through live role‐game play was studied for a year. The study employed qualitative and
processual methodologies in order to capture the interactions between students' learning experiences and the role‐game
based learning designs as well as the way they constitute a creative and collaborative learning environment. This paper
presents the preliminary results of the project and discusses its implications for design and redesign of learning
environments in the schools along with the roles of learners and teachers in the development of game‐based learning as a
framework for creative, inclusive and collaborative learning.
Keywords: role game play, game‐based learning ,creative learning through role game play, situated and contextual
learning using role game play, role game play as a framework for the curriculum
1. Introduction
Game‐based learning offers the learner the potential of creating immersion and engagement through
simulated experiences in a narrative environment in support of the development of 21st. Century skills of
communication, collaboration, creativity and critical thinking. By means of the concept of serious digital games
‐ which offer learning through digital simulations and immersion in virtual worlds (Dede 2009) – game‐based
learning has been used increasingly in educational settings (Spires,Turner et al 2008).
The use of Live Action Role‐game Playing (LARP) in schools, with teachers contributing as game authors and
game masters, offers novel and innovative ways to work with the game genre. A current study of narrative
game‐based learning at a residential school in Denmark, Østerskov Efterskole, examines how LARP, in
combination with other game‐based approaches, can be deployed to present an entire curriculum nested
within a narrative framework. Among the issues being explored here is how LARP may enhance the learners’
motivation and zest for learning and to develop 21st. century skills (Bellance 2010).
The low‐tech analogue approach to games makes it possible to experiment with many different ways of
integrating games into the curriculum. It offers accessible ways of testing the workings of games, and the
embedding of the curriculum in a narrative framework as it is driven both by the dynamics of the unfolding
participatory scenario and the dynamics of the game with its rule‐based environment. LARP as a genre also
brings forward design considerations for narrative game‐based learning that may prove relevant to the
development of designs for digital games and their pedagogical framing for their application in public schools.
The research project is designed in three phases, exploring the pedagogical potential of educational LARPs
(edu‐LARP) and how they can afford a creative, engaging and inclusive learning environment. Phase one
involved observation of the implementation of a series of edu‐LARPS at Østerskov Efterskole that served as the
narrative and game‐based frame for the curriculum of an entire school year. Phase two explored the
implementation of two edu‐LARP learning designs framing the entire curriculum in a municipal school for a
period of six weeks, involving grades six, eight and nine. In the third phase, the models of game‐based learning
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