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EnglishJulian Alvarez ? Studying the game, a good idea! Matthieu Tassetti et Julian Alvarez - 2020
Informations
Support : MédiasAuthor(s) : Matthieu Tassetti et Julian Alvarez
Editor : Homo Ludens : Libérer le potentiel du jeu
Date : 2020
Lang :
Description
For Julian Alvarez, there's no doubt that studying games is a good idea. In fact, he is a teacher-researcher at the Polytechnic University of Hauts-de-France and at the Ecole Supérieure du Professorat et de l'Education in Lille. There, he studies games and their use in fields such as training, healthcare and marketing.
However, his interest in games is probably rooted in his childhood. Julian Alvarez experienced three different approaches to teaching:
In Spain, under Franco's regime, he remembers only long naps and toys locked in cupboards. There was no focus on child development.
In Sweden in the 1970s, children were looked after in a house in which each room corresponded to a place of learning. Children were trusted and offered a variety of activities, including play.
In France, he discovered a highly structured system with many prohibitions. However, unlike his years in Sweden, he had to acquire specific skills. The stakes are therefore a little different.
The origins of interest in play
On the one hand, the early 20th century saw the development of a number of different cultural trends. First came superheroes in the 1930s, followed by science fiction and comic books in the 1950s. The Second World War also contributed to the spread of American culture in Europe. In the 1970s, video games arrived in Europe with consoles and games from the USA. Japanese productions arrived on the European market in the late 1970s. All this popular culture is conveyed by films, comic strips and video games.
At the same time, society is becoming increasingly difficult to interpret. Globalization, global warming and economic difficulties are making us less carefree. That's why we're seeking refuge in the values of the past, and in particular in the pleasure of play.
On the other hand, learners are changing. In particular, they want to understand why things are the way they are. What's more, digital technology makes them accustomed to interactivity, which they don't necessarily find in traditional teaching approaches. Yet gaming is an activity that enables social interaction, and can be a pleasant situation for certain learner profiles.
It is in this context that the “DIU - Learning through play” aims to respond to a demand for training. The aim is to explore the possibilities of using games for purposes other than entertainment. We can add three utilitarian purposes to the game;
- To convey a message
- Training
- Collecting data
However, it's important to consider the place of play in our project. Will the game be used as a carrot or as a real learning device?
Some game-related research topics
The Blue-Bot project aims to study 3 different approaches to using games to learn coding in kindergarten. There is the use of a robot, the body or a tablet. The aim is to analyze the influences of the different approaches on learning performance. Results are highly dependent on context, child and activity. Nevertheless, the combination of robot and tablet performed very well. On the other hand, the tablet alone had the worst results. More detailed results are available in a Blue Bot Project Experiment publication.
Julian Alvarez starts from the observation that teachers don't like turnkey devices. It's more interesting to adapt existing games. That's why a library of video and board games from the 70s to the present day will be available at INSPE Lille. This will give teachers access to a wide choice of games for edutainment activities. What's more, it will be easier to study the evolution of teachers' gaming practices.
Finally, there's the use of virtual reality. The question here is whether this modality offers added value, and in what context.
A few tips
Julian Alvarez's first piece of advice is to use existing games. In fact, there are so many of them out there, there's bound to be one that fits the use case. What's more, the game's base is good, since it's already been published.
The second tip is to be familiar with Nicole Tremblay's three pedagogical steps:
- Briefing, establishing the rules and the didactic contract you're trying to achieve with the game.
- During game time, the facilitator should not be too intrusive, but should help the game to run as smoothly as possible.
- During the debriefing, the players should be aware of what they have just learned, capitalizing on the game experience.
Episode references
LudoScience, the site on which Julian Alvarez, Damien Djaouti and Olivier Rampnoux share news and information on the latest developments in the field of gaming.
Keywords : Teaching, Training, Game, Board game, Video game