Game creation seems to support computational thinking in several way, however, playing games seems less supportive of computational thinking. Both Kafai and Peppler suggest that creating games can help students learn coding. Kafai describes how creating games can help students with three aspects of computational thinking: concepts, practices, and participation. This idea is also reflected in what Fai said a few weeks ago about games vs. stories in scratch: it seems like kids who are creating games are more likely to engage with computational concepts like loops, conditionals, etc. than kids who are creating stories.
These articles focus more on the social aspects of computational thinking than the articles we have read in math, science, and literacy. It seems that because students are so invested in the creation of games, and because computational tools allow them to easily share games, that game creation supports interaction more so than other types of computational activities.
I think the biggest challenge with regards to games, computational thinking, and school is how to make sure that students are engaging with content beyond coding or computer science ideas. Since most schools do not have robust computational curricula, learning computational participation might not be enough to encourage schools to adopt these types of activities.
These articles focus more on the social aspects of computational thinking than the articles we have read in math, science, and literacy. It seems that because students are so invested in the creation of games, and because computational tools allow them to easily share games, that game creation supports interaction more so than other types of computational activities.
I think the biggest challenge with regards to games, computational thinking, and school is how to make sure that students are engaging with content beyond coding or computer science ideas. Since most schools do not have robust computational curricula, learning computational participation might not be enough to encourage schools to adopt these types of activities.
I agree with what you're saying about playing vs making games. Now I'm wondering more about what's the difference between computational thinking and computational participation from the readings this week. It seems like it definitely has to do with the social aspects, but I'm not totally clear on it yet. Maybe it's just another word to attach to a similar idea, but with more of a focus on learning in communities and with others and how it intersects with social issues. But I kind of worry that we attach too many different words to basically the same thing and it gets confusing. Like I don't think Wing would say that CT ignores participation and communities because a large part of it is how CT helps solve problems in different situations, and learning programming, like learning CT, happens in a community (not just with pair programming but with all the online resources and everything, too, including the Scratch online community as an example). Sorry, that was kind of a rant not directly related to your blog post.
ReplyDeleteBut more to your post, it definitely seems like creating games is an easier way to get at CT. But playing certain kinds of games gets at some aspects of CT, too. I kind of feel like board games may be better than digital games because board games tend to have more strategy involved whereas in digital games, there's strategy, but players can also try things more haphazardly. If they do something wrong in a videogame and the avatar dies, they can just reload and try it again, but in a board game, you're not really supposed to say oops that was wrong and reset things. So you're forced to think a little more carefully in board or card games.