Viewpoint: Online Courses as Video Games
By Dr. Rodney P. Riegle, Professor
Illinois State University
Online course offerings are becoming increasingly more common in education.
Nearly three million U.S. students are currently taking university level courses
online and more than half of all higher education institutions see online education
as critical to their long-term strategy. The competition for online students
will continue to escalate as more and more institutions realize that online
education is a fast-growing, multi-billion dollar market.
Clearly, education is becoming a commodity and many educational institutions
are looking to online education to improve their revenue stream. The competition
for online students is bound to become more and more intense. The marketing
of online courses, however, is still in its infancy. Courses designed like video
games are one way to win this competition by appealing to the target demographic
in a way that they embrace. A recent study found that 70 percent of U.S. college
students play video games (32 percent even admit to playing video games during
class without the knowledge of their instructors).
In addition to being one of the most popular video game genres (along with
adventure and sports), RPGs are perhaps the most appropriate video game genre
for educational purposes. RPG stands for Role-Playing Game. A role-playing game
is a game in which each player takes the part of a character and participates
in an adventure. The popularity of online role-playing games is staggering--there
are currently more than 25 million people playing MMORPGs (Massively Multiplayer
Online Role-Playing Games) such as The Sims Online, Runescape, City of Her'es,
Dark Age of Camelot, Ultima Online, Star Wars Galaxies, Final Fantasy, EverQuest,
Lineage, and Ragnarok.
Educational games are nothing new. A quick search of the U.S. Department of
Education’s Education Resources Information Center (ERIC) database yielded
over 15,000 results for the keyword games. Playing video games is also not new;
it has now been more than 20 years since ATARI claimed its first addicts. The
advantages of online educational video games include:
· multi-media sensory stimulation
· person-person (multi-player) and/or person-machine (single player) interaction
· asynchronous (players can play at any time and place) and/or real-time
interaction
· 24-7 availability
· nearly infinite resources (the entire Internet)
· individualization (players can interact with learning materials at their
own pace and in their own style)
· replayability (players can make mistakes and replay poorly understood
situations as often as desired)
· instant and automated record-keeping, feedback, and diagnosis
· format familiarity (today's students are inveterate game players)
Because video games are still in their infancy both technically and conceptually,
most are not educational. Do not be misled by this. Video games constitute a
new and as yet poorly developed instructional form that holds great promise
for both designers and players. The idea of using video games to teach is admittedly
controversial.
Some educators believe that academic content cannot be transmitted
through video games. Others believe video games have no connection to the real
world. Still others believe that video games are violent and encourage antisocial
behavior. However, two bestselling video games, Civilization and SimCity, are
already being used in college classrooms to teach history and urban planning
respectively and the entire field of video gaming is beginning to gain academic
credibility.
Unfortunately, most educators have little understanding of either technology
or gaming while most technologists and gamers have no background in education.
Thus, the conceptual obstacles are at least as profound as the technical ones.
This is a common phenomenon during paradigm shifts. For example, the first movie
makers placed cameras in the pit of a theater and filmed stage plays. Eventually,
they realized that they were allowing the structures of the older art form to
limit their use of the new technology. Then, and only then, were they able to
develop new techniques and an entirely new art form. Predictably, a review of
online courses reveals that almost all can be characterized as electronic versions
of the old instructional paradigm limited primarily by the inability of their
creators to throw off the mental shackles of the Industrial Age classroom.
Humor, mystery, adventure--these are essential characteristics of Information
Age courses. In the not-too-distant future, it will be common practice for courses
to be designed like RPG video games. In a global economy dominated by the video
game generation, edutainment will inevitably supercede both education and entertainment.
Some people believe that the merger of education and entertainment will diminish
education. To the contrary, and perhaps more importantly, it will improve entertainment.
Since typical students spend nearly as much time playing video games (10,000
hours by the time they graduate) as they do in class, this is an exceedingly
important goal.
In the year 2000, I designed the world’s first online course (http://www.c'e.ilstu.edu/rpriegle/eaf228/)
that was an educational RPG video game and since then more than 1,000 students
have taken it. In the past, my course would perhaps be viewed as a mildly amusing
course that had no real application to other settings. However, with the advent
of the global Internet students anywhere in the world can now take my course
and transfer the credit to their university. And you should note that I have
had online students from every continent except Antarctica; all of whom generated
credits for my university.
The moral is that video games are no longer just games. They are an important
tool in the creation of effective learning environments and they are a crucial
weapon in the inevitable online learning marketing war. The first battle for
the future of online courses has already begun at EAF 228. The marketing war
is about to escalate. Designing online courses like video games and utilizing
video game marketing strategies (e.g., movie trailers, screen shots, etc.) would
be a shrewd strategy for those institutions that are looking for ways to mount
an effective marketing campaign.
Rodney P. Riegle, Ph.D. ([email protected])will be presenting on Online RPCs (Role-Playing
Courses): Instructional Design in the Information Age at the July 2005 Syllabus
Conference in Los Angeles.
