Sivasailam "Thiagi" Thiagarajan
Marie Jasinski

The Playhouse

The Alcazar

Sister Marie’s Approach to Solving all Problems

Anthology of Poems

Internet-based games: a seriously fun way to learn online.

Interactivity is touted as one of the most valuable features of online learning. However, a cursory examination of most instructional offerings on the web, reveals that much of the provided interactivity is of the variety that only connects the learner with the content.

The web offers much more than people-to-computer interaction. Communications technologies like email, discussion forums, and chat, offer unique opportunities for instructional strategies that encourage learner-to-learner and learner-to-facilitator interaction.

Through the use of open-ended questions and people-to-people interaction, web-based games can be used to create content, check participant understanding, and for roleplay and simulations to solve problems collaboratively. In web-based games, the facilitator and players communicate with each other by sending email notes and using the forum and chat to contribute, synthesise and debrief. Web-based games are serious fun and offer a challenging way to process open-ended, divergent questions that require application, analysis and synthesis.

Playing games with Thiagi

Marie Jasinski paired up with Sivasailam "Thiagi" Thiagarajan to co-facilitate the Playhouse games. Thiagi was based in Indiana, USA. For the past 30 years, Thiagi has been designing and facilitating training games for corporate employees that encourage meaningful people-to-people interaction through the use of open-ended questions. He has used these types of questions and interactions not only to check participants' understanding but also help them create content. For the past few years,Thiagi has been applying the same principles to the design of web-based training games.

Marie met Thiagi last year at a games and simulations conference in Atlanta, Georgia. They started playing games in the LearnScope Virtual Learning Community and have had a delightful time as facilitators of the Village Playhouse.

Framegames

In the Playhouse, framegames were played. Framegames provide templates for instant creation of games for learning. The generic frameworks are deliberately designed to permit easy replacement of old content with new. In other words, the content changes, but the process stays the same. Framegames are quite versatile and transferable to different contexts. Playhouse players can easily modify the games for use in their own context.

The Playhouse games

Twenty five players participated in two role play games using email and the forum. In the early rounds of both games, the facilitators communicate with each player via email. Players generate and process the content without interacting with each other. In later rounds, players comment on the synthesised content and debrief together in the online discussion forum.

Game 1: Depolariser - Do teachers want to give up centre stage?
Depolariser is a role play game using email and the forum. It explored the question:Do teachers want to give up centre stage? Through a six round series lasting about a week, players explore this issue from both a personal perspective and also from a designated role.

Depolariser is based on the philosophy that many issues that we treat as problems to be solved are actually polarities to be managed. The game begins by having players think about their opinions regarding a selected polarising issue (in this case, teachers' willingness to give up the centre stage). By informing the players about the average and range of positions, we increase their awareness of the spread of opinions around the issue. By having players randomly role-play, we encourage them to think about different points of view. By reviewing extremely polarised comments, we help players make more informed decisions. The game seems to encourage players at extremes to get closer to the average. We may not change anyone's opinion, but we increase their level of awareness about alternative points of view by playing the Depolariser game.

Game 2: Galactic Wormhole - The Future of Online Learning in VET
In this roleplay game, players participated in a time-travel scenario to explore the status of online learning in VET in the year 2004. They were given either a Utopian or a Dystopian scenario based on a newspaper headline either:

Utopia is here: Australian VET sector leads the world in online learning

or

Dystopia is here: Australian VET sector lags behind the world in online learning

Players were randomly assigned a scenario and a stakeholder role of either teacher, learner, manager, ANTA decision maker or industry client. Each player was then asked to submit a 150 word story outlining how their stakeholder contributed to either this utopian or dystopian future for online learning in VET.

These scenarios were submitted anonymously to the facilitator who collated and posted them in the Playhouse forum. After reviewing all the scenarios for both positions, players submitted their five top ideas for ensuring a utopian future for online learning in VET. From the list of 45 ideas submitted, players then voted on the five top issues that needed to be addressed to ensure a utopian future for online learning in VET.

How to ensure a Utopian future for online learning in VET

1. Valuing the role of the teacher in the process of online learning and recognising what it takes to do really good work in this area. This naturally has resourcing implications.
   
2. Reward your innovators and support their risk taking. They keep us dynamic. Otherwise you'll lose them and we'll die.
   
3. Review the ANTA funding models to support and encourage flexible learning and delivery. Support the rhetoric with reality and facilitate the preaching.
   
4. Consult with user groups at every stage of the process so they use the products of our labour. Don't stab in the dark. No other business does!
   
5. Telecommunications infrastructure that enable the internet to be available at reasonable bandwidth and cost for all Australians (tomorrow the world).

What the players said about the process

I understand the use of email and lack of contact with other players being useful in terms of not being 'influenced' by each other until the next step and making it 'safe' to be extreme. It reduced the pressure of responding,or having to keep one eye on the playhouse so as not to miss vital clues.

Depolariser I thought showed how the same aims of opening out perspectives on a subject could/should be achieved in new ways with new technologies. It was also pleasant to see someone actually use technology in a new way, rather than theorize about it, so cheers too for Thiagi and Marie, from me. This was an inventive and effective experience.

The anonymity did not worry me. The role playing helped make things more objective. It is more difficult to take offense to an anonymous statement without a real person behind it. The role playing also allowed for extreme statements without the protective social barriers that might otherwise be raised.

Many thanks I finally managed to get involved but your "games" were fantastic and gave plenty of food for thought. Congratulations on a job well done

Why play games online?

Games permit interaction among participants from different locations. Geographically dispersed players can arrange their participation to suit their personal schedule. We can achieve this powerful any-time, any-place advantage at little or no cost using communications technologies like email, discussion forums, and chat. We can tap into and pool the expertise of a range of people who may never meet, but face similar issues, wherever they are in the world. In fact, three of the players were from overseas.

However, the games also have challenges. People have different learning preferences and this can be a big challenge for some. To permit widespread participation, you have to allot sufficient time for each round. Some get irritated by the lack of real-time action. The extra time may encourage some to procrastinate and miss the deadline. Some free spirits get irritated by the contrived and artificial rules of the games. They'd prefer an uncontrolled discussion.

Web-based games provide an opportunity to stretch your repertoire of strategies for effectively facilitating online learning.

Like to play web-based games?

If you would like to experience a web-based game, contact Marie Jasinski at mariejas@bigpond.com