Day 4--5 Dec 08

Day 4, 5 Dec, last day of conference. Perhaps this day is one of the most thought-provoking and interesting day out of the 3 days.

Once again, there have been several new ideas that can be implemented/modified in our local education system. One of which, is the usage of blogs in education. Yes, blogs have become an online revolutionary phenomenon, and schools can introduce blogs in their curriculum to aid students in learning.

By encouraging students to blog and write their online journal, it is an excellent opportunity to brush up their writing skills be it in English or in Chinese. Through constant blogging, students will be further able to express themselves in writing. Furthermore, most importantly, teachers will best be able to comment on the students writings. More often than not in our education system, time is a limiting factor, and if we take a closer look as to why students hardly write essays for their teachers to grade other than in examinations, it is because the teacher has no time to mark them.

Henceforth, introducing the blog writing method will help both sides as students get to write more in their free time on topics they like and are interested on, and teachers on the other hand have enough time to comment on the students essays and need not mark them in great detail. It is hence mutually beneficial for the blog writing system to be introduced.


Another conference talk was on the usage of games in the education system. Game-based learning is gaining momentum in Technology-Enhanced Learning, and why should games be used for learning?

Games are engaging, and hence students learn. Students get to play an active role instead of a normal, boring "sit-and-listen". They get the opportunity to take part in a two side communication with their teacher, not just a one side communication where the teacher is the only one who talks. Furthermore, students cannot pay attention to the teacher as they are bored after sitting down and listen to the teacher for 15 minutes. Hence, playing is a crucial role in learning and education. Afterall, mammal cubs learn through playing, but why aren't we using them in school?

1. Social concerns. The public which includes parents might doubt the overall effectiveness of incorporating games into the education system, whether they will reap more harm than good. The usage of games in education was once a taboo; the current ideology that still persists is that games and education are at two separate ends of the spectrum. Games can never be used for learning and learning can never involve games. But today, the world is different, and games can be indeed used for learning. Games, yes games that are created on a educational platform, not the common commercial games where you just shoot and slaughter and kill mystical creatures. That is the main reason why gaming in education is not widely supported.

2. Difficulty in getting teachers involved in the creation of the content. Teachers often want to control most if not all of the content in the game as they would want the games to be as educational as possible. However, teachers are not programmers, and they do not know how to create the game/game content. If game developers are outsourced, they might not create the game according to the school's requirements, hence initiating quite a bit of trouble. Therefore, teachers are also not in the idea of using games for education.

3. Students perception. When students hear that games are being used in education and learning, they start to get excited. What they are expecting is something like from World of Warcraft of Maplestory, where you kill and shoot and fight other monsters. However, when they know that the games for learning are not what they have in mind, they then switch off completely and the flame in them to learn through games has totally extinguished. E learning was not a foreign idea in the 1900s. In 1970s, e learning was one of the most "in" and cool thing in education. Yet it failed. Why? Because it was too boring and students rejected the idea.

Therefore, there is a need to develop games that meet the certain requirement:
- Cheaper
-Involve teachers
-Engage students
-Deliver the games and supervise the learning experience

There is a university which has a e-learning faculty meted out to develop games that suit the above requirements and differs from the past games. The university in Spain has developed games for several well-known institutions. One of which is the Harvard Medical School. The university's e-learning faculty created a 3D Adventure game which is open source, and has close collaboration with teachers. In Harvard Medical School's game, the game imitates Intensive Care Unit (ICU) facilities and educate the students on how to go about with surgical procedures.

Though pedagogy is still under discussion, yet this might just be the future of our education system, and the Ministry of Education can and should look into collaboration with the Spain university to develop game prototypes.

For now, this is about it, and I personally hope that one day, games can be fully incorporated into our education system.