Blog 18: Answer 2

1.  What is your EQ?
How can we maximize player learning experience in educational video games with minimal expense to the entertainment? 

2.  What is your first answer? 
One of the most crucial methods to ensure an educational game has an enjoyable learning environment is by designing it to have intergenerational gameplay wherein multiple age groups can interact with one another in a positive manner.

3.  What is your second answer?
For the player to gain the most out of their playing experience, a game designer should program their games with an adaptative system so that that the player be able to change  variables and learn by observing the consequences of their manipulations.

4.  List three reasons your answer is true with a real-world application for each.

-  Oregon Trail would hardly be compelling if it didn’t matter whether you had more doctors than farmers on board, or began with 50 or 30 pounds of food. Part of what makes the game entertaining is that players get to observe what happens if they tinker with the variables. Not only is this fun (because you get to make decisions), but it also encourages systemic thinking, which is at the heart of productive cognitive work.

- In my most recent interview with my mentor, I had gotten this answer: In terms of the actual gameplay of a game for learning, an educational game is better when there is no obvious right and wrong answer as there might be on something in a quiz. Rather, the game gives a range of variables the player can mess with and, through the consequences and changes that they experience, understand the system through that.

- In Feed the Fox, a game prototype developed by Muzzy Lane and Knewton, students construct food webs in various biomes to learn about species classification, the environmental pressures different biomes present, and how organisms are related in an ecosystem. Each student action in the game gives Knewton a hint about one, or perhaps several, of her conceptual understandings (or misunderstandings).

5.  What printed source best supports your answer?

http://venturebeat.com/2015/06/24/making-educational-games-is-tough-especially-if-you-want-to-make-money/

6.  What other source supports your answer?

http://public.psych.iastate.edu/caa/abstracts/2005-2009/08SA.pdf 
http://www.teachingliterature.org/teachingliterature/pdf/media/video_games_metaphor_dubbels.pdf
https://www.knewton.com/resources/blog/ed-tech/educational-game-1/

http://edepositireland.ie/bitstream/handle/2262/39164/Adaptive%20Educational%20Games%20-%20Providing%20Non-invasive%20Personalised%20Learning%20Experiences.pdf?sequence=1&isAllowed=y

https://www.knewton.com/resources/blog/adaptive-learning/adaptive-learning-and-game-content-bridging-gaps-to-engage-students-2/

7.  Tie this together with a concluding thought.

We learn best not by getting things correct, but by making mistakes. Video games allow free range of possibilities that would be harder to achieve in real life. We can learn more with video games by taking advantage of the idea that video games can act as a "sandbox" and we can learn the consequences without experiencing the consequences of things.