Archive of CRN Home Page Topics for Discussion

Oct. 19, 2001 E-Learning with a Playful Spirit Steve McCarty, CRN Advisory Board Member

E-learning and online education can be playful when practiced in that spirit. By comparison, professional baseball in Japan has seemed like work, which has contributed to the exodus of top players to the U.S., where PLAYers aim to enjoy the GAME. Similarly, enjoyable education may be more effective, but it takes creativity to design. Since the job of children, developmentally, is to play, they could potentially learn more when the learning challenge is enjoyable. Here are some examples in my experience involving computers in education where maintaining a playful spirit was motivating to children and adults. Computers unfortunately received their name when they were used only for computation, and older people may hesitate to try something new with what they perceive as cold machines. But children who grow up playing with computers perceive the same objects as toys. For over six years I have observed this with my son Nikki Sean. From age three he could use a Macintosh with its graphical user interface to play games on CD-ROMs in Japanese or English. Perhaps we could have pushed him, but he has faced no indications that a computer is anything but fun. We parents have had some troubleshooting to do. A system crash was caused by many greasy fingers of neighborhood children on the CD-ROMs, and another time they put in two CD-ROMs at once :-) Recently I caught my son about to put a classic Mac CD-ROM into my wife's Windows computer :-| But Nikki Sean has sometimes helped us with the computers. Now he uses the Web/CD-ROM hybrid course BE-GO from Benesse Corporation. He has posted to their Website, and he changed the desktop pattern of my wife's computer into a menagerie of the cute BE-GO characters. He has continued with it for quite a long time independently. There is a voice recognition function, though it does better with intonation than pronunciation. It would quite complex to recognize all varieties of English pronunciation, plus male and female tones, while catching errors. In a game format, a buzzer sounds with errors, while there is a chime and other rewards for making progress, such as personalized e-mail messages. If it is too strict, the kids can get discouraged from communicating, which is a more important aim than accurate speech. The BE-GO for Juniors Website in Japanese is at: When my older son Kiley Alan was in fourth grade, he had a very dedicated teacher, so I invited his whole class of 40 to experience the Internet at my college. The Principal also gladly came along. Of note here was the fact that the Web tour included the most popular animated characters, which motivated even active boys to master the basics of Websurfing in a hurry. The Web tour is at: http://www.kagawa-jc.ac.jp/~steve_mc/kids.html See an article on how it was done, also suggesting "Reforms in Computer Education that are Possible for Japan": http://www.childresearch.net/CYBRARY/EVISION/2000/STEVE.HTM Also see an article on a creative Child Research Net "playshop": http://www.childresearch.net/cgi-bin/topics/column.pl?no=00105&page;=1 Our World Association for Online Education (WAOE) has conducted some events in a playful spirit that have motivated adults to learn from other cultures while trying new educational technologies. Various synchronous (real-time) and asynchronous communication venues have been used for discussions among educators all over the world. See, for example, "World Culture Festival Online": http://scout18.cs.wisc.edu/NH/99-02/99-02-09/0026.html Animated Japan-U.S. Friendship Dolls are displayed at: http://www.kagawa-jc.ac.jp/~steve_mc/doll_festival.html Or, collaborating with CRN, "Summer Festivals in Japan": http://www.childresearch.net/RR/POSTER/WAOE.HTM Or, thanks to Brazil, a greeting card in 20 languages: http://www.kagawa-jc.ac.jp/~steve/ufv_waoe.html Never to lose the playfulness that we are all born with is becoming more difficult, much less to regain such a paradise once it is lost. So it is wonderful to behold a happy child who keeps learning and bringing cheer to others. A playful spirit will continue to be a much-needed consideration for online instructional design, and to plan educational events rich in multilateral communication. by Steve McCarty, Professor, Kagawa Junior College, Japan President, World Association for Online Education: http://www.waoe.org/ Online Library: http://www.kagawa-jc.ac.jp/~steve_mc/epublist.html In Japanese: http://www.kagawa-jc.ac.jp/~steve_mc/jpublist.html E-mail: steve@kagawa-jc.ac.jp

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