Leveraging Identity to Make Learning Fun: Possible Selves and Experiential Learning in Massively Multiplayer Online Games (MMOGs)

Abstract

Elizabeth Simpson (2005) believes the relevance and engagement demands of today's generation of learners are largely unmet in typically didactic classrooms. Video games, she argues, can provide an opportunity to meet this challenge, since many teenagers already choose to live much of their real social lives in virtual space—exchanging instant messages, meeting friends online, and interacting with real people in virtual game worlds. Video games cross "all cultural and ethnic boundaries... [but] not recognizing that these shared experiences exist, public education has failed to provide for the impact of that experience on students' learning " (Simpson 2005, 17). Her argument represents the growing momentum of scholars and researchers who believe video games are the gateway to computer literacy and to better education in general (e.g., Gee 2003; Halverson 2005; Foreman 2004). Along with their intrinsically engaging properties, games have been touted for their ability to teach ill-defined problem-solving skills, elicit creativity, and develop leadership, collaboration, and other valuable interpersonal skills via constructivist/active learning and Vygotskian social scaffolding (Prensky 2001; Gee 2003). Despite researchers ' optimism for melding gaming and education, some efforts to bolt learning onto video games—attempts to create edutainment—have been unsuccessful. Educational games frequently consist of repetitive, superficial tasks with limited transfer or poorly disguised attempts to sugar coat learning, which can

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