Gamelog: Fostering Reflective Gameplaying For Learning

On the surface, it seems like teaching about games should be easy. After all, students arc highly motivated. enjoy engaging with course content. and have extensive personal experience with videogames. Games education in reality is surprisingly complex. In game classes, students are often asked to reflect, generalize, and articulate their understanding of games as they play and analyze them. Educational research Suggests that these tasks are particularly challenging for students. We report on the use of GameLog, an online blogging environment for supporting reflection on gameplaying experiences. GameLog differs from traditional blogging environments because each user maintains multiple parallel blogs, with each blog devoted to a single game. GameLog was used in two University level games-related classes. Our results indicate Students perceived writing GameLogs as a positive learning experience for three reasons. first, it improved their relationship with videogames as a medium. Second, it helped them broaden and deepen their understanding of videogames. Third, it provided a vehicle for expression, communication, and collaboration. Students found that by reflecting on their experiences playing games they began to understand how game design elements helped shape that experience. Most importantly. they stepped back from their traditional role of "gamers" or "fans" and engaged in reasoning critically and analytically about the games they were studying. Our analysis of the students' GameLog entries Supports the students' perceptions. We identified six common styles of entry: overview, narrative, comparative analysis, plan/hypothesis, experiment, and insight/analysis. These styles align with practices necessary for supporting learning and understanding. We propose that blogging about gameplay experience, as a reflective writing activity, can help lay the foundations on which further learning and understanding of games call happen.