Multiplayer relevant

This is what I think I was thinking about when I was finishing up the last post and when I was walking out to the next meeting. But, as it happens with ideas, the original idea seemed perfect and then I went through the meeting, I lost the idea almost completely and now this is what I think I was thinking… anyway, here it is.

One of the ideas that keeps coming around with how we should be looking at learning and what we are teaching our next generation is to make the content matter to the student. The content must matter and the amount of time that is required to assimilate the material must also be reasonable (if not, we’ll hear about it from the students). What we are teaching, has to “fit”with that the student “actually needs” to learn for their short term (1-5 year) needs. It seems that gaming is going through this type of shift now as well.

As in the Escapist article, gaming has to fit the “family” it finds itself (and here is where I think I’ve hit on exactly what I was thinking just after the last post). It has to wedge between the diaper changes, the soccer practice and the morning commute. But on top of all of that, gaming and learning/teaching are now being forced in some manner to look at ways of not only fitting in with the time demands of others, but also to connect with others.

Multiplayer gaming has been popular for quite some time, but what about multiplayer learning? Many call the latter cheating, even though it is much more like what is happening in the world right now.

Back to the idea of fit and pulling in the idea of multiplayer, games should now start to consider the “IRL” multiplayer environment – kids rocking out beside Mom and Dad playing Guitar Hero. Lessons must now start to consider how to connect with others within the teaching environment, having understood that there will often be an “IRL” multiplayer environment already – whether it’s wanted or not.

Both these pursuits must, in my mind, are moving toward the same goal. Gaming and learning must emerge from being solitary pursuits and being assessed and celebrated in that manner alone (I’m thinking that “in game” multiplayer counts, for the moment, as single player). Both must realize that there are connections to be made “in front” and “behind” the content that we are interacting with and these connections are what should, in the end, decide the investment and intensity that the game or the lesson requires.