Abstract:

Universities are pioneers of e-learning but the process of teaching and learning online has been innovated rather insufficiently (at least in the context of the Czech Republic where school as a playful environment has it´s roots in the work of Jan Amos Komensky). My contribution suggests a shift from the instructive (linear) approach to games which I believe provide ample opportunity to develop alternative, more effective educational model based on the teaching principles incorporated in digital games as learning systems. Playing, using and consuming of digital games (in various forms) as a contemporary medium of choice for my generation structures students´ everyday life. It leads to transformation of our habits and requirements for the form and content of communication. The aim of an interaction here in general is to divert from one-way instruction to an active student engagement in the context of a learning substance and in cooperation with other participants. I want to uncover what place games in schooling hold, how (or why) teachers use them with respect to design of an e-course, how so called serious games affect people, what students think about them and what they possibly take away from them.

Serious games as a learning tool successfully applies several teaching principles which I want to identify. I compare e-learning agendas (ie. tools in online learning environment) to the modular structure of digital games as complex learning systems. Elements of these dynamic, interconnected systems operates under the rules and gameplay mechanisms. I start from the idea of a teacher/designer and his/her shifted role in designing e-learning course through effective use of ludic principles found in modern digital games. We will touch on such ways in which a teacher (while designing an e-course) engage, motivates, evaluates and rewards students. Teachers possessing knowledge on how to direct transmission of information in class can now design playful e-course accordingly, so they can exploit digital games´ inherent educational potential in teaching mediated by e-learning resources.

Keywords:

e-learning, serious games, teaching principles, interaction, cooperation, online learning systems, rules, roles, players, problem solving, choice / consequence.