Blog Juice for Educational Technology

In a conference presentation on Tuesday billed as a verbal shootout, a well-known computer-game designer faced off against a leading instructional designer over how much of an educator’s input is needed to make an effective instructional game. The session was part of the Serious Games Summit, a two-day event near Washington, D.C., that brought together video-game professionals, military officials, and educators.

The game designer was Marc Prensky, a consultant and the author of Digital Game-Based Learning (Paragon House, 2004). He argued that instructional designers often do more harm then good when they work on educational games. “Whenever you add an instructional designer to a team, they suck the fun out,” he said. And he argued that if players of educational games don’t enjoy the experience, they won’t be engaged in the activity, and therefore will not learn much. “We want to get people to learn,” he said. “Nobody wants to read about pedagogy.”

The instructional designer was Jan Cannon-Bowers, an associate professor at the University of Central Florida’s School of Film and Digital Media. She said that she does not care whether a would-be pilot who uses a flight simulator has fun or not — she only cares whether he learns the necessary skills. And she said there’s a better chance that games will be educational if an instructional designer is involved. “If we don’t incorporate pedagogy, learning effectiveness will be hit-or-miss at best,” she argued. “Does an educational game have to be fun? No. Should we try to make learning fun? Sure.”