In the summer of 2016, it was practically impossible to walk through a public space without encountering groups of people glued to their smartphones, heads bent down to gaze at their screens. This was the height of Pokémon Go fever, when the augmented reality (AR) mobile game sent millions out into streets, parks and squares to catch virtual Pokémon superimposed into real world environments.
While far from the first AR game, Pokémon Go singularly captured mainstream attention. At its peak, it boasted 45 million daily players and generated over $2 billion in revenue. Clearly, the game resonated by tapping into nostalgia for the beloved Nintendo franchise paired with novel location-based gameplay powered by smartphones and geospatial technology.
But Pokémon Go offered little in terms of meaningful skills development or learning. Gameplay mainly consisted of aimless walking, collecting cute creatures, and battling for control of gyms. Still, the game provided joy, exploration, and social connections. And it hinted at emerging technologies’ potential to motivate through interactivity and real-world overlay.
The Runaway Success of Fortnite
A similar meteoric rise occurred with the online multiplayer battle royale game Fortnite. Released in 2017 by Epic Games, Fortnite combined a zany, cartoonish style with shooting, building, and survival game mechanics. Up to 100 players compete against each other in a large open map to be the last person standing.
Matches are punctuated by over-the-top weaponry, elaborate dance moves, and outfits ranging from superheroes to bananas. Fortnite captured the zeitgeist not only as a game, but a virtual hangout space. Along the way, it shattered records by amassing hundreds of millions of players and billions in profit through in-game cosmetic purchases.
Like Pokémon Go, Fortnite prioritizes entertainment over education. Gameplay involves socializing, collaborating, and honing fine motor skills and reaction time. While not devoid of value, the game lacks concrete learning objectives or takeaways beyond memorizing weapons stats and map locations.
Yet both Pokémon Go and Fortnite clearly resonate by fulfilling emotional drives for achievement, creativity, and human connection. As educators look to digitally native generations, these cases raise thought-provoking questions. How can we harness technologies like AR, VR, and AI with the same magnetism as games while achieving defined learning goals? What principles should guide future digital learning design?
Blurring Entertainment and Education
We often segregate “learning” activities from “play,” designating some pastimes as frivolous and others as enriching. But this binary distinction is outdated. The most effective learning experiences, especially for younger generations, seamlessly blend entertainment, engagement and education.
Pokémon Go and Fortnite illustrate the motivational pull of interactive digital activities. Yet there are also counter-examples of educational apps and games that expertly embed academic concepts within compelling narratives and challenges. For instance, physics concepts like velocity and trajectories come alive in Angry Birds. Epidemic simulators like Plague Inc. convey mathematical models in an engrossing framework.
The point is not to gamify curriculums by tacking on superficial badges or points. Rather, the principles of great games—interactivity, storytelling, escalating challenges, customization—should inform the core design of digital learning. With thoughtful scaffolding, almost any subject can be nested within captivating digital experiences that feel like play.
Leveraging Emerging Technologies Thoughtfully
AR, VR and related technologies clearly speak to digital native learners in their idiom. However, novel interfaces alone won’t automatically yield better learning. Their capabilities should be deliberately leveraged to transform pedagogy itself.
For example, VR’s immersiveness could allow students to vividly inhabit historical events or abstract concepts, forming experiential anchors for retention. AR’s real-world overlay can bring academic subjects out of textbooks into lived spaces, encouraging investigation. AI tutors within simulated environments can provide personalized guidance.
Modern curriculum design should begin by asking: What enduring insights do we aim to impart and why? Only then determine how technologies can best serve that goal based on their affordances, whether embodied presence, contextualization, or adaptivity. Novelty inspires momentarily—but sustained engagement requires substance.
Cultivating Soft Skills and Mindsets
While concrete knowledge remains important, equally vital are lifelong soft skills like communication, clear thinking, creativity and collaboration. Digital environments present openings to organically foster these capabilities.
Open-ended creation tools with room for experimentation exercise creativity. Multiplayer team challenges build collaboration. Guiding personalized avatars or characters through interactive stories that branch based on choices reinforces systems thinking. There are abundant prospects to implicitly develop essential mindsets and interpersonal abilities alongside academic lessons through thoughtful learning experience design.
Emphasizing Learner Agency
What sets games apart from traditional curriculums? Games offer player agency—a sense of directing one’s own experience through choices and consequences. Likewise, digital learning works best by empowering learner autonomy.
Rather than passive media consumption, learners should actively make decisions through creating, exploring, building, customizing, collaborating and more. They can set their own goals within scaffolded environments. Dynamic feedback responds to learner behaviors without strict penalties. Agency and accountability promote buy-in.
AI Can Personalize and Scale
While learner-centered, digital learning must also provide structure. AI-powered solutions can analyze past behaviors to offer personalized feedback, guidance and “nudges” dynamically. Platforms can adapt to different paces, preferences and capabilities to keep learners ideally challenged.
And once designed, simulated digital environments are infinitely scalable at low marginal cost. AI tutors provide round-the-clock support without strain. This makes personalized, responsive learning feasible for all.
Blended Experiences May Be Ideal
Purely digital curriculums shouldn’t fully replace offline activities. While technology can enhance learning, human connection remains invaluable. The ideal blend likely involves flipping classrooms—learners undertake interactive digital lessons independently to build knowledge, then apply it through in-person problem solving, discussions, projects and teacher guidance.
Digitally layered field trips, mixed reality collaborations, AI-enhanced in-class exercises and other hybrid formats marry virtual dynamism with real relationships and accountability. Technology should complement physical learning, not isolate youth.
A New Paradigm
Games like Pokémon Go and Fortnite point toward the spirit of learning experiences that resonate with digitally immersed generations. Learners crave immersive worlds to explore, customize and shape. Yet satisfying this need not come at the expense of sound educational foundations.
The biggest lesson may be that learning can be simultaneously engaging, empowering and effective by design. Technological interfaces are enablers, but human-centric design is the driver. With care, digital environments could transform curriculums to cultivate knowledge along with passion for lifelong discovery beyond required schooling. That is the ultimate goal.
This new paradigm demands imagination and rational rigor. If designed thoughtfully, technology-enhanced learning will engage, inspire and prepare learners for an exponentially changing world while retaining what is timeless. The possibilities are exhilarating if we approach them with wisdom.
Comentarios