What Education can learn from Video Games - Jesse Schell

Jesse Schell is the founder of a gaming company called Shell Games. There is so much education can learn from the gaming world and Jesse Schell point out why in his talk titled, ‘Learning is Beautiful’ at the learning without frontiers conference.

He describes how almost everything around us has become beautiful by giving examples of the varieties of toothbrushes, designs of the Apple iPhone and the Gateshead Building design.

He spoke about four aspects of gaming that education can learn from and described each one of them as follows:-

1)         Beautiful – Every year the best selling games bring out newer versions of the game with better graphics and more features. For example Fifa 2010, Fifa 2011 and so on. The Grand Theft Auto Series or the Halo Series is another example.

2)        Customization – Several games have come out where participants can create their own characters on a game. For example Sims 2, allows you to be part of a virtual world with virtual characters. The game ‘Little Big Planet’ had over 2 million user created levels on it.

3)        Sharing – People like to share. This can be information about the way they are playing a particular game or about the way they lead their lifestyle. 

4)         Real  -  People want to be able to connect to real products and service. Because almost everything has become virtual and people long for real connection. That is why many people prefer reality television or more real organic grocery being delivered directly to your house.

Then Jesse Schell showed the audience a picture of a classroom. He asked them if the picture showed a scenario that was beautiful, customized, shared or real?

The answer was No. The modern classroom was anything but beautiful. There were ugly tables, ugly walls and ugly design all over.

There was no customization because all the tests, uniforms and much more at these schools were standardized. And students were told to focus on their work and not share any information with anybody during class.

Who is a Real Teacher and a Real Student?

Jesse Schell describes a real teacher as someone who is an actual expert on the subject and knows how to prepare students for it in the real world.

Sometimes teachers teach certain subjects, only because it is given to them and not because they have studied it in detail, are passionate about it or have any expertise in it.  Though there are several teachers that develop an expertise in the subject over time.

He describes a real student as someone who is really hungry for the knowledge so he can go out and create something with it.

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