Before this week, I had a blurry image of what educational technology is. Based on my last 18 months, the one that came straight to my mind was an image of a Zoom screen, a replicate of an old classroom environment with video calls. And perhaps there are more sophisticated technologies with the use of AI, such as Intelligent Tutoring system. Yet, I realised that there is more than these and that I need to find something specific as a research topic.
So I started to think about what is most important in learning that technology could improve. Once I was in primary school, I used to find mathematics boring because it was just too hard. Even when solving a problem, I answered it without serious thinking and was merely disappointed when I got it wrong. However, as I practised more, I could see my progress and could solve some more challenging questions. Although it was still hard to solve tricky questions, I started to enjoy the process of learning and the sensation when I got the correct answer. So, from my experience, the most crucial element in studying was the enjoyment of learning new things and the sense of accomplishment. Yet, based on the criteria for a good research question, the question remained too broad and unclear.
So I decided to research what could make learning enjoyable and found that many learning activities could support learning. Especially use of the games intrigued me because I could feel a similar sense of achievement when I played difficult games. This ‘hard fun’, as Papert said, comes after when people successfully resolve the challenging task (Harel, 2016). Indeed, everyone has different personalities and abilities. So it would be crucial to carefully design activities that would be right for the person and to the time of culture.
Additionally, making learning ‘fun’ should not be a priority, but students must learn something valuable from fun activities. The learning activity, regardless of how entertaining it is, would be meaningless if students do not learn. Even if both teachers and students find the use of fun activities beneficial, there are practical difficulties when schools are bound by the time limit and curriculum (Gros, 2007).
Overall, by using the criteria for a good research question, my question changed from ‘what is most important in learning that technology could improve?’ to ‘How students learn from playing games, and what would make a useful game for both students and teachers?’. Of course, this is still too broad and perhaps unoriginal. Therefore, more literature review and critical thinking are required to develop the question further.
Reference
Gros, B., 2007. Digital Games in Education. Journal of Research on Technology in Education, 40(1), pp.23-38.
Harel, I., 2016. A Glimpse Into the Playful World of Seymour Papert – EdSurge News. [online] EdSurge. Available at: <https://www.edsurge.com/news/2016-08-03-a-glimpse-into-the-playful-world-of-seymour-papert> [Accessed 12 October 2021].