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NEW YORK-Microsoft announced the formation of a gaming research alliance to promote the use of games as learning tools for students, particularly for learning math and science among middle school students.
Craig Mundie, Microsoft’s chief research and strategy officer, announced the first-of-its-kind, multidisciplinary, multi-institutional gaming research alliance during a speech to New York University faculty and students here.
Mundie said the G4LI (Games for Learning Institute) is a joint research endeavor of Microsoft Research, New York University and a consortium of universities, including Columbia University, CUNY (City University of New York), Dartmouth College, Parsons, Polytechnic Institute of NYU, the Rochester Institute of Technology and Teachers College. According to a Microsoft news release, “The G4LI will identify which qualities of computer games engage students and develop relevant, personalized teaching strategies that can be applied to the learning process.”
“Technology has the potential to help reinvent the education process and excite and inspire young learners to embrace science, math and technology,” Mundie said. “The Games for Learning Institute is a great example of how technology can change how students learn, making it far more natural and intuitive.”
Microsoft has invested before in projects aimed at reaching young people and students, such as the Popfly Game Creator. According to Microsoft:
“Through its Gaming Initiative, since 2004 Microsoft Research has invested more than $3 million in gaming kits, assessment studies, academic funding and an academic sponsored event, the Academic Games and Computer Science Game Cruise. Last year, six academic researchers received funding and had access to game-related resources available from Microsoft including Visual Studio, XNA Game Studio and Microsoft “Flight Simulator” ESP. The G4LI will build on these efforts to help improve middle-school math and science skills.“
Microsoft also said:
“Microsoft Research is providing $1.5 million to the Institute. NYU and its consortium of partners are matching Microsoft’s investment, for a combined $3 million. Funding covers the first three years of the G4LI’s research, which will focus on evaluating computer games as potential learning tools for science, technology, engineering and mathematics (STEM) subjects at the middle-school years (grades 6-8). The institute will work with a range of student populations, yet focus on underrepresented middle-school students, such as girls and minorities.“
“Middle school is a critical stage for students, a time when many are introduced to advanced math and science concepts,” said Ken Perlin, professor of computer science in NYU’s Courant Institute of Mathematical Sciences and director of the Media Research Laboratory at NYU. Perlin will co-direct the G4LI, to be located at NYU. “Many students become discouraged or uninterested and pour their time at home into gaming. Ironically, we think gaming is our starting point to draw them into math, science and technology-based programs.”
The G4LIs 3-Phase Approach to Educational Games
John Nordlinger, senior research manager for Microsoft Research’s gaming efforts, said Microsoft started off a few years ago “with the intention to improve computer science education because we had seen a drop in interest” from students.
“We weren’t getting enough kids, especially females and minorities. So we decided we needed to do something, but we didn’t have any expertise working with high schools or middle schools,” Nordlinger said.
The G4LI project is taking a three-year, three-phase approach, Nordlinger said. The first phase will be to look at all the existing games for learning and assess what works and publish the results of that study. The second phase will involve prototyping the results of the study. The third phase will use the results and design factors available to game makers.
Microsoft will not be building the games, but will be working with them, Nordlinger said. The Microsoft usability group that does testing for games like “Halo” and others “will be working with these guys to make sure the games are compelling,” he said.
Nordlinger said he thinks incorporating math education into games will be easiest, “but we also see the games being applied to science, and languages and helping with literacy overall.”
To target female students, Nordlinger said the games aimed at girls will not feature “first-person shooters. These games do not apply well to females. They tend to prefer puzzle games and multiplayer role playing games.”
Also according to the Microsoft release:
“Jan Plass, associate professor of educational communication and technology at NYU’s Steinhardt School of Culture, Education and Human Development, will co-direct the G4LI with Perlin. While NYU will serve as the hub of the G4LI in its Computer Science Media Research Laboratory at the Courant Institute of Mathematical Sciences, the multi-institutional institute will have a myriad of partner spokes.The G4LI also will evaluate game prototypes and introduce them, along with accompanying curricula, to an existing network of 19 New York City area schools; results in the classroom will be tracked. Based on the findings, the institute’s goal would be to expand its research and game development to all K-12 grades. Resulting scientific evidence will be shared broadly with researchers, game developers and educators.“
“There has been a growing interest in games, but what had been lacking is a scientific study about how to transfer knowledge from games,” Plass said. He said part of what he is bringing to the project is “an understanding of how we learn, how learning is a social process and a lot of research expertise.”
Perlin said the G4LI alliance’s job is “not to make the game, but to do the underlying science to understand what makes existing games work and to analyze the ‘funology’ of them.”
During his speech at NYU, Mundie demonstrated how different technologies could be used for education, including how tablet PCs could eventually take the place of textbooks.