4. The activity should provide concrete feedback to the actor, so that he can tell how well he is meeting the criteria of performance.

5. The activity ought to have a broad range of challenges, and possibly several qualitatively different ranges of challenge, so that the actor may obtain increasingly complex information about different aspects of himself. (p14)

Importantly, Csikszentmihalyi characterises 'flow' as isolated from other stimuli, which links the pleasures of games play, the experience of flow, with another key important factor - 'play'. 'Play' has been described as 'optimal generic learning by experimentation in a relaxed field'. The separation out of action from 'real world' risk is seen as a central feature of play, and, also, as one of the characteristics that games hold that might best support learning (although this is contentious). The central point is the view that 'flow', perhaps 'play', allows someone to achieve things that they might not be able to achieve in another frame of mind.

Games, then, are seen to generate motivation, through rule-based, goal-directed challenging play. Importantly, these are seen to generate 'fun', or what the MIT group would describe as 'hard fun'.

Much of this research, however, does not recognise the social contexts in which games, fun and learning take place. They focus on the characteristics of the activity itself, on design issues, rather than on the player's experience, attitudes and interests. Importantly, what they don't necessarily ask, when thinking about linking the motivation of games with learning, is 'how much of motivation is dependent upon context as well as upon activity?' A recent paper by Draper argues that we need to develop a more complex understanding of what makes things 'fun'. He points out, rightly, that 'most things that you find fun in the middle of a day on holiday you do not find fun when woken in the middle of a night during a work week' (p118).

What Draper adds to the discussion on the role of games as motivating and 'fun', is a recognition that 'fun is not a property of software, but a relationship between the software and the user's goals at that moment' (p121). In other words, that it 'takes two to tango' - it takes the user thinking that an activity is going to be 'fun' and appropriate for their interests at that point combined with some of the features in the software outlined above. This is linked to definitions of play, as play is often described as something that is 'freely chosen'.

What then, are the implications of this for using games for learning? Historically, 'having fun' and 'learning' have been seen to be diametrically opposed - learning, in most popular discussions, is seen as the complete antithesis of 'fun'. While this might not necessarily be the case, in particular when we talk with young people who report enjoying learning, this view is fairly well embedded culturally:

Calvin and Hobbes (a five year old and his tiger) are on holiday, it's the summer vacation and they're running around getting into trouble as usual when they come across a snake. 'Is it dangerous? What does it eat?' Calvin asks. Hobbes' blank look in response leads them both to bemoan their lack of knowledge about reptiles - a solution is offered: Hobbes will find a book on snakes and then they'll 'know everything there is to know about them'.

Five minutes later they are lying on the ground in the sun reading said book when suddenly Calvin jumps up, 'hey, we're not supposed to be learning anything, it's summer.'

Hobbes responds with a tone of finality: 'if no one makes you do it, it counts as fun.' (with thanks to Watterson, 1997)

The approach that Marc Prensky advocates - which is to address the learner not as a 'learner' but as a player - to make the experience one of games play rather than learning - in other words, to create an experience in which the player does not know that they are learning, is often held up as the solution to this problem. This has often been called 'stealth learning'.

Yet even an advocate for games-based learning such as Prensky, highlights that making a learner 'unaware that they are learning' will not, in itself, solve the problem of combining games and learning. As he argues, and as most educational researchers and practitioners would agree, knowing that you have learned something is often a key part of useful, generalisable and transferable learning. Or, as Prensky puts it:

Reflection is what enables us, according to many theorists, to generalise, as we create 'mental models' from our experience. It is, in many ways, the process of 'learning from experience'. (p50)

Similarly, Wegerif (2002) points out that the issue of 'transfer' remains a thorny one. Namely that when designing environments for learning we do not want learners simply to be able to learn how to 'work that particular environment', rather we want them to be able to learn from that environment and apply their learning when faced with new and different challenges. Without 'reflection'it is unlikely that this transfer from one experience to another is likely to take place easily. For a more detailed discussion of this subject see the Futurelab Series report on thinking skills, technology and learning.

When considering games as a motivating environment for learning, we therefore need to ask:

1. What are the characteristics of games that encourage motivation?
2. What are the expectations and goals of a user when playing a game for learning?
3. How can reflection, knowing you are learning, be built into the learning environment - either within the game or within the context for using it?


COMPUTER GAMES AND LEARNING

Recently, there have been a small number of studies in the UK of how existing computer games might support learning in traditional and non-traditional educational settings. The TEEM report, for example, trained a number of teacher evaluators to use games in a school setting and administered questionnaires to parents and over 700 pupils to determine what the learning outcomes might be from playing games. Reporting on the use of mainstream games such as Sim City, Age of Empires, Rollercoaster Tycoon and Championship Manager, the report outlined the following outcomes from using games in the classroom:

Skills - this was seen to be the key area in which games made a contribution to the curriculum, although these skills are not always recognised within the curriculum. Key skills identified were:

Communication and working with others - children playing games were required to communicate with other children playing games, to describe what is taking place, to share resources, to make arguments and debate actions.

Problem solving - the games provide a set of challenges that children must overcome in order to complete the game successfully.

Mathematical development (application of number) - many simulations require budgeting decisions, encouraging financial capability. Further, many games environments require learners to 'use everyday words to describe position'. (pp13-16)

Children using games outside the classroom also reported the following 'learning outcomes':

Working as a team is the most commonly reported skill developed through game playing in KS2 and 3. At KS2 boys and girls report this more or less equally at 48%. At KS3 the overall figure is 64% but only 55% of girls as opposed to 75% of boys selected this option. At KS4 the most commonly reported skill is decision making, but planning and working as a team are also popular. Girls report more decision making and boys report more planning and working as a team.

At KS2 19% boys and 31% girls believe that game playing helps with school subjects and general knowledge. There are also reports related to ICT skills and spelling and reading. No specific school based learning is reported by secondary school pupils. This probably reflects the content of the games that are played at the different key stages, which does vary. (p27)

Importantly, the motivational aspect of games play was again reported as a key factor to support learning, encouraging children's skills acquisition - in particular in terms of problem solving and team work. Teachers also reported that games play in the classroom provided a motivating stimulus for other learning activities.

The report on games and learning for Becta identified a similar range of outcomes in terms of using traditional games for learning:

1. ICT skills acquisition - need ICT skills in order to play the game.
2. Motivation/interest in activity - the games generated a lot of self-motivated play of the games. 'However, the teacher noted that a focus on curriculum learning objectives may be lost as the user becomes involved with the game. This indicates that schools would value versions of the game which combined game play with a focus on the aspects of the game which support specified learning objectives.' (p9)
3. Collaboration - children chose to work together to complete games. In particular, choosing to learn from and work with peers.
4. Thinking skills - reasoning, enquiry, creative thinking, evaluation of actions, devising strategies, considering options, taking rational decisions. Thinking logically, planning ahead, considering impact of range of factors.

With existing games, then, it seems that the key benefits are in the areas of skills development, team working and motivation to learn. Given that both of these reports studied the use of mainstream games not originally designed for learning, it was unsurprising that the 'content' aspects were rarely mentioned as key benefits. In fact, it was reported that the games content was sometimes problematic, relying as they did on models of reality that were at best undescribed, and at worst incorrect.


MANAGING LEARNING WITH GAMES IN SCHOOL

Both of these studies identified features of games that caused difficulties in terms of supporting learning in the school setting and strategies that could be employed by designers to overcome these. These were a combination of content issues and classroom management issues. The TEEM report produced a list of factors that need consideration prior to developing games for classroom settings:

(CONTINUE...)