On parle souvent des Etats-Unis comme étant la terre promise pour les nouvelles technologies ainsi que pour l’utilisation de ces technologies concernant l’éducation et l’apprentissage.
Voici que la FAS (Federation of American Scientists) se plaint du fait que le gouvernement américain ne reconnaît pas le potentiel des TICE comme pouvant être bénéfique à l’avancement de la société américaine. La FAS a choisi trois axes de recherche et financement de projets considérés comme stratégiques pour le développement des Etats-Unis :
Energy and the Environment
Learning Technologies
Strategic Security
Le programme Learning Technologies est un vrai imne aux nouvelles technologies et à leur potentiel de transformation de l’éducation et de l’apprentissage, et donc de la société: ”Games can teach, we’ll prove it !“. En même temps, la FAS se plaint de l’absence d’un programme national de recherche, de développement ET d’évaluation des technologies pour l’apprentissage, et définit cette absence comme “one of the largest and most dangerous gaps in the federal R&D portfolio.” Voici pourquoi elle participe à la Digital promise coalition et met en place deux actions :
- la recherche de preuves scientifiques à travers l’Educational Games Summit. Ce sommet s’est tenu en 2005 et 2006 et a donné lieu à une publication
- le développement de jeux vidéo pour l’apprentissage, jeux complexes qui s’adressent aux sciences, à l’histoire, ou même au métier de pompier. En particulier : Immune attack. La version finale est disponible en téléchargement gratuit mais une petite donation de 5 $ est la bienvenue. Immune Attack est à présent en phase de test, une phase très importante pour le jeu, et pour les jeux vidéo appliqués à l’apprentissage en général. Les tests ont pour but de mesurer les effets du jeu sur l’apprentissage de l’immunologie et aussi de l’attitude à l’égard de la biologie.
Pour terminer, voyons les motivations qui poussent vers le jeu vidéo d’apprentissage. Nous en trouvons une liste à la page du site FAS qui a pour titre : Why games?
- Parce que les jeux, par leur nature, encouragent l’apprentissage actif (active learning) qui fait de l’étudiant le conducteur de son propre apprentissage, et non un simple passager
- Parce que les jeux vidéo, quand ils sont bien conçus, ont la capacité de donner aux étudiants les mêmes impresssions de défis du monde réel (the look, feel, and decision-making challenges of the real world) et donc de les préparer à faire face au monde réel
- Parce que la structure des jeux vidéo, y compris des jeux commerciaux, est très semblable à celle de l’apprentissage par résolution de problèmes, qui encourage les étudiants à résoudre un problème avant de passer au niveau suivant
- Parce que les jeux vidéo fournissent des feedbacks immédiats, ainsi que des suggestions, aides, critiques ; et ceci plus rapidement qu’un enseignant
- Parce que quand l’étudiant joue, il est au centre de son propre environnement d’apprentissage qui s’adapte à sa vitesse d’avancement et applique ses décisions.
Or, toutes ces particularités - l’apprentissage actif, expérimental, basé sur la résolution de problèmes, ayant un feedback immédiat et des aides ainsi qu’un rythme personnalisé pour l’avancement - sont considérées comme des principes importants dans la conception moderne de l’éducation, prouvées par des expériences (comme l’apprentissage expérimental du vol par des militaires et civils ou les effets du feedback immédiat).
Et encore:
- Parce que les jeux sont des outils idéaux pour présenter des concepts complexes, comme le fonctionnement du système immunologique
- Parce que les jeux sont des outils qui permettent aux joueurs de donner des solutions originales et donc favorisent l’expression créative des apprenants, tout en les poussant à comprendre les messages émis
- Parce que les jeux peuvent faciliter des formes de collaboration et communication ou encore de comparaison du designer
- Parce que les jeux permettent au designer, à l’enseignant et au joueur de viser plusieurs objectifs : les parcours de jeu ne sont pas univoques et peuvent être personnalisés par tous ces acteurs.
“Founded in 1945 by scientists who had worked on the Manhattan Project to develop the first atomic bombs. These scientists recognized that science had become central to many key public policy questions. They believed that scientists had a unique responsibility to both warn the public and policy leaders of potential dangers from scientific and technical advances and to show how good policy could increase the benefits of new scientific knowledge.
With 84 Nobel Laureates on its Board of Sponsors, FAS provides timely, nonpartisan technical analysis on complex global issues that hinge on science and technology. Priding itself on agility and an ability to bring together people from many disciplines and organizations, the organization often addresses critical policy topics that are not well covered by other organizations.”
LEARNING TECHNOLOGIES PROGRAM:
“The Learning Technologies Program focuses on ways to use technology to improve how people teach and learn. Well-paid, rewarding jobs in the U.S. depend on a workforce prepared to operate in a fast-paced, technologically sophisticated global economy. Doing this in an affordable way for a highly diverse population demands new approaches. But progress in improving education and training has been slow. Advanced technologies have the potential to make learning more productive for students of all ages and all backgrounds and are an essential part of meeting the nation’s education and training challenges. “
“Based on the principles proposed by the Digital Promise Project, Congress has established the National Center for Research in Advanced Information and Digital Technologies. The Center was created as a 501 ( c)3 housed in the Dept. of Education, pending appropriations from Congress, with the enactment of legislation to reauthorize the Higher Education Act (P.L. 110-315) on Aug. 14, 2008.
The National Center’s goal is no less than to transform America’s education, workplace training, and lifelong learning through development and use of revolutionary advanced information technologies comparable to those that have already transformed the nation’s economy, its communications system, media, and the daily lives of its people. These technologies will enable the nation’s schools, universities, libraries, museums, and public broadcasters to reach out to millions of people in inner cities and remote regional areas, no matter how poor or deprived, in the U.S. and throughout the world, with the best of the educational and informational content now locked inside their walls. The Centerwill support the research and development of new models and prototypes of educational content, taking full advantage of the Internet and other new digital distribution technologies.“
ACTIONS:
- Summit on Educational Games. Harnessing the power of video games for learning. En voici des extraits:
“Modern video and computer games offer a rich landscape of adventure and challenge that appeal to a growing number of Americans. Games capture and hold the attention of players for hours as they struggle to operate a successful football franchise, help Romans defeat the Gauls, or go through the strict regimen of Army basic training in virtual landscapes. People acquire new knowledge and complex skills from game play, suggesting gaming could help address one of the nation’s most pressing needs — strengthening our system of education and preparing workers for 21st century jobs. Numerous studies of American competitiveness completed in the past few years have emphasized that America’s position in the world depends increasingly on maintaining leadership inntechnology. And they emphasize that this can only be accomplished if American workers are prepared to move quickly in response to technical change, and be ready for new jobs and careers as they emerge. The success of complex video games demonstrates games can teach higher- order thinking skills such as strategic thinking, interpretative analysis, problem solving, plan formulation and execution, and adaptation to rapid change. These are the skills U.S. employers increasingly seek in workers and new workforce entrants. These are the skills more Americans must have to compete with lower cost knowledge workers in other nations. Games and simulations can also serve as powerful “hands-on” tools forteaching practical and technical skills, from automotive repair to heart surgery. In addition, today’s students who have grown- up with digital technology and video games are especially poised to take advantage of the features of educational games. To explore how the United States can harness the powerful features of digital games for learning, the Federation of American Scientists, the Entertainment Software Association, and the National Science Foundation convened a National Summit on Educational Games, on October 25, 2005 in Washington, DC. The Summit brought together nearly 100 experts to discuss ways to accelerate thedevelopment, commercialization, and deployment of new generation games for learning. …
There are several attributes of games that would be useful for application in learning. These include: ¢contextual bridging (i.e., closing the gap between what is learned in theory and its use); ¢high time-on-task; ¢motivation and goal orientation, even after failure; ¢providing learners with cues, hints, and partial solutions to keep them progressing through learning; ¢personalization of learning; and ¢infinite patience. There are differences between games for education and games for entertainment. Developers of an educational game must target the desired learning outcome, and then design a game to achieve that target. Educational games must be built on the science of learning. Educational game designers must also design for third-party users of their applications who support, augment, and monitor player progress. A robust program of research and experimentation is needed to enhance development of educational games by stimulating transfer of the art and technologies of video games to education and learning systems. Research is needed to develop a sound understanding of which features of games are important for learning and why, and how to best design educational games to deliver positive learning outcomes. R&D is needed to support the development of automated tools to streamline the process of developing educational games, and to reduce development costs. …
There was consensus at the Summit that educational games are not the same as today’s commercial video games. Instruction, rather than entertainment, is the purpose of educational games. Educational game design must target the desired learning outcomes, and design a game to achieve the specific learning goals. Educational games must be built on the foundation of learning science. This requires expertise beyond the specialists that design commercial entertainment games. For example, the development and design of Immune Attack - a game to teach basic concepts of immunology to high school and college students - has involved experts in instructional design and immunology, educators, game developers, and medical illustrators. …
The education sector has not been part of the IT revolution. In a recent Commerce Department analysis of industries, the educational services industry had the lowest information technology-intensity. Yet, educational services is arguably one of the most knowledge- and information-intense industries in the country. Most schools’ adoption of technology has focused on integrating technology into existing organizational and instructional systems. This mirrors the first corporate attempts to use new digital technologies by focusing largely on automating existing work, without recognizing that dramatic improvements in business models, systems, and processes were possible. It was only after rebuilding corporate processes around the new tools and their economics did these companies and industries begin to show substantial productivity gains. …
New technologies will not have a significant effect on learning outcomes unless they are accompanied by systematic changes in approaches to instruction and organization. Schools have been built as systems, designed and organized to maintain the status quo. In the perfect system, processes, rules and procedures, culture, organizational form, and the roles of people are all designed to work together and reinforce each other. That means fundamental change — which undermines the very basis of a system and its components — is so challenging and disruptive that organizations resistit. …
The No Child Left BehindAct, and the education and testing standards it has engendered, is linked to traditional “tell and test methods” of instruction. As a result, the progressive instructional approaches associated with educational games and simulations are not well aligned with the current climate in K-12. Many games — such as the civilization-building games being used in some classrooms today — are not generally compatible with the traditional fixed 45- minute segmented class schedule. For example, Civilizationtakes several hours to learn and 10–20 hours to play, and could not be completed in the time span of several classes in school. This is in contrast to instructional systems geared around books, focused on taking a chapter of a book for each class period, working through it, and then doing the next chapter in the next day’s class. …
Developing effective methods to measure and assess what students learn from educational games and simulations is a key challenge. Educational games and simulations may be especially effective in developing higher-order skills - such as strategic thinking, interpretative analysis, problem solving, and decision-making. For example, in games, players are making decisions continually, in contrast to low levels of decision-making in traditional learning. Educational games and simulations may also be effective in developing complex aspects of expertise, not simply short-term memory of facts. These higher-order knowledge and skills are typically not revealed by tests of facts, or standards of learning-types of examinations. Instead of concrete measures of learning outcomes, what is available is typically strong anecdotal evidence - kids that participate in game- and simulation-like learning are very
excited, they’re motivated, they’re immersed, and they seem to do better. In addition, games and simulations tend to blur the line between education and training, as they involve learning-by-doing. For example, decision-making may be best assessed in a test of its practical use.”
- Immune Attack. You must navigate a nanobot through a 3D environment of blood vessels and connective tissue in an attempt to save an ailing patient by retraining her non-functional immune cells. Along the way, you will learn about the biological processes that enable macrophages and neutrophils - white blood cells - to detect and fight infections.
We chose to create a biology game, because of the need to engage more students in Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics (STEM) related fields. We choose immunology because high school teachers indicated that this subject is one of the most difficult to present.”
Escape Hatch provided graphics and game mechanisms in Immune Attack that are not only fun and exciting for students to play, but that have been patiently modeled and re-modeled in response to scientists’ critiques.
Key parts of the game mechanism are that every object in the game functions as it should in nature, except for the fictional, cell sized submarine (called a nanobot) that the player pilots remotely through the body. In this manner, game actions that are not true to nature are clear, because they involve the nanobot. Additionally, great care was taken to generate the communication that comes from the game’s “on board advisors” so that it helps the player play the game while always presenting information that is true to science.”
- Discover Babylon The game opens with a cataclysmic event-an earthquake in Baltimore. The player quickly learns that this event is caused by an ingenious archaeologist named Dexter who has figured out how to travel back in time, accidentally and unknowingly wreaking havoc with the fabric of time. The storyline then unfolds, compelling the player to go on a series of missionsto ancient Iraq to find Dex and restore the fabric of time The player travels back in time, ‘leaping’ into the body of several historically attested characters. In the first level, the player assumes the character of Taribi, a 12 year old boy studying to be a scribe. Living a day in Taribi’s life, the player is challenged to learn what he would have learned in school. Players are encouraged to learn by discovery and to experience one of the earliest cities, Uruk ca. 3100 BC.”