LMS = Learning Mario-Style?

Think about the phrase: ‘Mobile learning’. Straight away, most people consider learning on their mobile phone – and its limitations. Whilst squinting at a text message isn’t exactly what is being proposed - consider the capabilities of Windows Mobile 6.0; bigger and brighter screens, and mobile Instant Messaging - it’s probably what most people immediately think of as the mobile experience.

However, it has now emerged that Nintendo consider themselves to be a mobile learning business – and that’s important for three reasons.

Firstly, Nintendo operate on a ‘Keep It Simple’ model. Their mobile, as in ‘portable’, gaming platforms, from Game Boy through to Nintendo DS Lite, have sold by the tens of millions because of this ethos. With Nintendo in the picture, the phone networks, manufacturers and software providers hoping to get a slice of the learning market need to raise their game.

Secondly, Nintendo’s DS Lite has both WAN and LAN capabilities and that’s crucial for communication in today’s networked environments.

Thirdly, the entry point for development on the Nintendo DS Lite platform is reasonable in terms of software and development, and becoming more so in terms of hardware. Rumour has it that the minimum order of cards (the DS Lite plays media based on a proprietary Nintendo format) has dropped to 5,000. That’s within the reach of a local authority, large corporation, or a learning and development provider with multiple clients.

However, Nintendo’s involvement is no magic bullet. The issues related to games and learning persist and need further investigation. As well as recognising certain exceptions and grey areas, the learning community’s language needs to separate the games (or games-based learning) and the technology (games technology-based learning).

Games-based learning has its problems. Rewarding, challenging or punishing (depending on your point of view) game players with a learning point after a certain amount of play suffers because, firstly, the games have been designed in the first place for other purposes:

• Getting the gold coin out of the pot
• Make the monkey go along the ledge
• Shooting as many people in the fastest time you can
• Managing a virtual community... of animal-faced automatons

Of course, the counter argument goes that ‘you’ve chosen a subset of games there to fulfil your purposes’ – well, yes and no. I fundamentally believe that playing games makes you better at playing those games, that’s the point of the game – and games-based learning is based on the game, not the underlying technology.

Secondly, the players start to only care about the game. If you watch an audience playing games interrupted with quizzes, they hammer away at the questions and the game, apparently engrossed in both and what do they learn? Nothing, you could argue. They treat the questions in the same way as the game and use the same ‘twitch’ responses to get through it.

On the other hand, ‘games technology-based learning’ doesn’t need to be this simplistic. Giving you access to the underlying technology, as well as a community of developers, tools, materials and expertise, this opens up possibilities. If you want an office-based management sim, a scenario-based training system, a complex character-based awareness program, or to simply lift your systems training with an innovative approach – games technology and development techniques can assist, and it can assist across multiple delivery devices, including those which are mobile.

Whilst some devices appear too complex, too inaccessible, or simply not aimed at you or your target audience, it’s fair to argue that... if you can learn to play a game on a device, you can learn to do other more education or business-focused tasks on it.

Dominic Mason