During the past week (in addition to getting the flu) I have been working with fellow HASTAC scholars at my university.  We noticed the call for panels at the upcoming Digital Media and Learning Conference in San Diego and thought that we should create a panel together.  We are in the process of discovering the intersection of our different academic pursuits in the hopes that it will provide a unifying theme for our panel. To get started, I suggested that we each read Mimi Itos article, Engineering Play.

      Ito's article (and now book) looks at the development of the edutainment genre of educational video games.  She makes the point that many games while utilizing representational genre cues from entertainment, have come to mobilize a participation genre grounded in mainstream models of educational achievement and individuated competition."  The puzzles and problem solving objectives of these games have a tendency to reward students for learning how to game games rather than for learning any of the educational content.

      As I read through Itos article I reflected on my own experience in school.  The only time I can remember having games as part of the curriculum was when we played Jeopardy as a test review technique.  Jeopardy days were highly anticipated as the class was eager for a break from the normal school day routine and also fond of game based competition (especially battles of the sexes).  Jeopardy in the class room seems to fit with Itos research.  It is an attempt to harness the play of a game for the purposes of curriculum.  The consequence of this marriage between entertainment and education is the competitive edutainment genre.

   Researching Jeopardy in the classroom in Academic Search Complete I was surprised to find many articles from educational literature describing the success that teachers have had using Jeopardy in the classroom.  The popularity of this old media game approach to education gave me an appreciate of the way in which new media educational gaming must inevitably interact with a culture of educational gaming that has preceded it.   The challenge for advocates of digital media and learning will be to explain the ways in which digital technology can enhance or transform these existing education paradigms.

      Ito points out that one of the first ways that this can happen is that game developers and educators must recognize that peer based social exchange is a key factor in digital learning.  The technology of social networking and the applications which make this activity possible are developments that must be incorporated in the classroom in order to change the way that games operate as learning tools. 

      The producers of Jeopardy seem to appreciate this implication of Web 2.0.  The show has long offered official versions of Jeopardy for classroom use.  Until recently these efforts have seemed like little more than a merchandising opportunity.  However, the latest version of Classroom Jeopardy allows teachers to access a networked database of shared questions and Jeopardy categories developed by other teachers.  Though the major selling point of this Jeopardy Link technology is the ability to improve standardized test scores (and thus reinforcing the competitive achievement model of gaming) a secondary lesson is being taught.  The social networking performed by the teachers by using this Jeopardy Link introduces reluctant educators to the benefits of collective intelligence efforts, crowdsourcing and the potentials of Web 2.0.  http://www.classroomjeopardy.com/index.aspx

      While working on this project this week I have also been watching live streaming video from the Breakthrough Learning in the Digital Age Conference on the Google Campus.  Major minds from the government, private sector and academia have gathered together to determine the ways in which technological development can help change the education system.  Among the strategies presented was the idea that digital technology literacy needs to be ubiquitous not just among children but adults.  The Jeopardy Link system, and other social network lesson/game planning, tools can help educators become familiar with the technology and the possibilities of social network education.

      As Jeopardy has been a traditional way of bringing gameplay to the space of learning perhaps it can act as a bridge for modeling social networking activities.  The value of the game may not be in its entertainment but its cultural status as a trusted educational tool.  The more existing educational games that we can identify and evolve using Web 2.0 strategies the closer we become in changing the culture of the edutainment genre.  New games and new models are important, but I believe that in a transitional moment we must operate within the realms of existing signifiers in order to expand the literacy of the education system.