Epistemic Games at Games Learning and Society Conference

A 1.5 hour session at the 2006 Games Learning and Society conference was devoted to research on epistemic games:

In his recent bestseller “The World is Flat,” Thomas Friedman (2005) argues that industrialized countries can no longer compete in the global economy on the basis of making and selling commodities. Their competitive edge increasingly comes from how well they produce products, services, and technologies that are new, special, and non-standard, and thus are not easily produced across the globe by competitors.

But how and when should children learn the kind of innovative thinking they will need for success in the new, interconnected, high-tech, work-anywhere, just-on-time, on-demand, world of global competition?

The answer is that the problem is also part of the solution. The computer technologies that make global competitors a mouse-click away also make it possible for young people to experience–and thus learn to think about–problems and situations that will prepare them for life in the digital age.

Computer and video games–though games of a very particular sort, called “epistemic games”–can help young people learn the ways of innovation they need to thrive in the digital age.

In this symposium, we present a collection of epistemic games that show the way towards a new view of education–one that moves beyond traditional academic disciplines and classroom practices to a new model of learning. Epistemic games are about learning through meaningful activity in virtual worlds as preparation for meaningful activity in a post-industrial, technology-rich society.

The session was webcast.