A New Design Approach to game or play based learning

Abstract: The present paper proposes a new design perspective for game based learning. The general idea is to abandon the long and sought after dream of designing a closed learning system, where students from elementary school to high school without teachers’ interference could learn whatever subject they wanted sitting in front of a computer. This dream is a caricature I know, but it still lurks in the background whenever we speak, read or write about learning with computer games. The entire field of learning with games is called serious games since they profoundly find themselves on collision course with of-the-shelf-commercial entertainment games. This paper wants to promote two different yet interconnected ideas. The first aims at describing a different design perspective for game based learning which in many ways will provoke not only the above mentioned latent dream of a closed game based learning system, but also confront aspects of modern learning theory especially the notion of reference between content of an assignment and the reality with which it should or could be connected (situated learning). The second idea promotes a way to tackle the common experience of the average learner from elementary to high school. He or she is often unable to fully grasp, understand or comprehend the learning progress in which he or she is embedded. Portfolios and especially e-portfolios can be used to promote reflections on the both the development and the learning process in order to ground the students sense of meaning. This paper proposes another approach: using visualization in immersive 3D-worlds as documentation of learning progress while at the same time constituting a reward system which motivate further learning. The overall design idea is to build a game based learning system from three or more different yet interconnected parts consisting of a teacher, a web-based platform and an immersive game or play world