Event wrap-up: It’s all just fun and games — until somebody learns something

Watch scenes from Playing Games with a Purpose »

“Video games require the player to develop and utilize skills vital to success in the 21st century,” said Alan Gershenfeld, founder of ASU’s Center for Games and Impact at the Sept. 27 PEP event. Titled “Playing Games with a Purpose: The Power of Play in Learning, Health and Social Impact,” this unique offering was designed to prove that, properly employed, today’s video games can be more professor than Pac Man.

The serious side of the topic wasn’t necessarily evident from the crowd of 130 in the Arizona Science Center, as they jumped, jogged and gyrated through “embodied games” such as the Wii, or sat tapping at keyboards and two-handed controllers in single and multiplayer games. “Playing Games with a Purpose” was certainly one of the most energetic PEP events in recent memory.

Encouraging that energy and focusing it on learning is exactly the purpose of the Center for Games and Impact, and the reason it is part of ASU’s Mary Lou Fulton Teachers College, says Sasha Barab, the center’s executive director. “As an educator I can create within a video game an entire world in which learners become active protagonists who have to take up academic content and apply it in order to advance the world forward.”

That forward motion is essential, according to Arizona Supreme Court Chief Justice Rebecca Berch, one of the guest speakers for the group session of the event. “This way of speaking to our students and reaching out to them is clearly the wave of the future,” Berch said. “This is the way kids are going to learn, and be most self-motivated to learn.”

Rebecca Hoffman is proof of those words. She says, “I remember playing my first game, ‘The Incredible Machine,’ in kindergarten and continuing to play primarily educational games while I was in elementary school. I grew up with games and consoles of all kinds and continue to be an active gamer to this day.”

Today, Rebecca finds time for gaming between her studies; she’s an ASU senior, graduating with a B.A. in English this December. She’ll stay at ASU for a master's degree in rhetoric and composition, but with a very specific emphasis: video game rhetoric and digital literacies. She says her student job at the Center for Games and Impact allows her to explore and promote the academic uses of video games at all levels.

“Video games are easily one of the most amazing tools we have as we move into the digital age,” enthuses Rebecca. “Stepping into any game, regardless of the mechanics or subject matter, players take on roles and act in specific scenarios, tasked with decision-making and creative problem-solving in a space where failure is merely an opportunity to learn from mistakes and try again. When a player is able to consciously and actively engage in a game through this type of experimentation, basic play becomes a means of synthesizing important topics in significant and meaningful ways.”