Understanding art with games

During my ongoing literature review I often discover interesting facts about things I’ve never thought about. Sometimes I can connect these facts with my own observations: The result is mostly a completely new idea why things are as they are. Maybe these ideas are new to you, too. Therefore I’ll share my new science based knowledge with you!

This week: This time, I think about the problem of understanding art. Games can be used to simulate real world facts, but can they be also used to enhance the understanding of art?

I’m always seeking for new or good applications of computer games to enhance the education. Computer games do have a high potential of keeping the motivation high and they also easily allow to visualize different outcomes.
In order to target a certain learning outcome, computer games can be tailored for this specific purpose and directly cover the learning content. Computer games that fall into this category are also referenced as serious games.
However, games don’t need to be designed as a serious game to have a good educational effect. Regular computer games with a pure focus on the entertainment can be used to illustrate specific knowledge as well. Cooperative games like World of Warcraft can enhance the team training[1] outcomes and simulation games like Kerbal Space Program can be used to demonstrate the specific knowledge[2] they’re simulating.

Taking advantage of simulation games is often a good way to enhance the demonstration of specific knowledge because these games do have a good visual presentation of the outcomes. Furthermore, simulation games rely on the laws of the natural sciences and thus are able to use the appropriate formulas for calculating the results.
Understanding these formulas is often the main learning goal and thus simulation games become a good visual enhancement to understand the presented facts. Learners can try out what will happen if they manipulate a certain variable and thus foster their understanding of the specific knowledge.

Although there’re no clear formulas for team training or similar social skills, taking advantage of cooperative games can be very useful. Players need to collaborate in these games to succeed. This often can be done if they establish a general understanding of the common goal and their specific role in their group. Establishing this understanding is mostly the key factor for a successful teamwork.
Cooperative games create a virtual world where players can get used to understand the connection between the common goal and their specific role. Additionallly, goals and roles are often well defined in computer games and thus it’s much easier to develop a basic understanding for the own role. The ability of the own integration into a group can be finally transferred to real world teamwork.

However, there’re some learning goals that are much more complicated to be represented and demonstrated in a (serious) computer game. I’m referring to the understanding of literature and art. Of course, there can be a certain interpretation of a text or a canvas, but often this can vary from the personal standpoint and/or from the personal experience. In this case, there aren’t any formulas which will return a clear result.

Although there might be no clear result, computer games could still be used to tackle the understanding of literature and art. Computer games could offer a certain interpretation or could evoke some questions about the work. These results of playing the game could lead to a deeper look into the work and/or to another point of view of approaching the topic of the work. In the end, this could help the learners to think more deeply about the work and to develop a completely own understanding.