Universities and Online Gaming??!

I wouldn’t have bothered reading about this event, much less posting anything about it, but because it’s going on in the same state I spent some time investigating what it was all about.

The SimU Conference

On September 7, the University of Arkansas will host a significant conference at the Reynolds Center of Enterprise Development, addressing the challenges and opportunities for higher education that are provided by increasing numbers of so-called “millennial students”. These students come to the university with extensive experience in digital gaming, including video games, computer-based role playing games, and massive multiplayer on-line games.

Let me say that I’m a passive online gamer. In the past I’ve had my fair share of addictions to multiplayer games like Age of Empires and Counter Strike, but I’m not a fan World of Warcraft, and personally I think Second Life is an absolute joke. I downloaded Second Life a few weeks ago and spent two evenings walking around lost and alone. “Surely this will get better” I kept telling myself, but alas, it didn’t. That’s my personal opinion, and I think many colleges are wasting valuable resources trying to build a presence there. Mark me down as a Second Life naysayer. The hype will soon be over.

Nonetheless, there are many other worthwhile forms of online gaming, and it’s hard to ignore the facts:

…One study reports that the average entering student in the next decade will have spent many thousands of hours playing video/computer games. While gaming is seen by some as frivolous or even a destructive activity, recent research and scholarship, indicates, instead, that students are, in fact, learning valuable skills. These include such skills as contextual bridging, high time-on-task, motivation and goal orientation, and collaborative and teaming skills.

Speakers will be asked to address one or more of the following topics:

• What skill sets have extensive gaming developed in individuals now entering higher education?
• How should higher education pedagogy respond to these new capabilities and expectations (new courses, new techniques, new approaches)?
• How will the combination of gaming experience and new educational responses better prepare the students for the workplace of the 21st century?

So I’m actually kind of curious about this conference and might be attending. It’s only one day, and a few hours up the road.