Episode 135 Ryan Schaaf on Digital Games-Based Learning
Ryan Schaaf on Digital Games-Based Learning
Episode Summary:
In this episode of Experience Points, host Dave Eng interviews Dr. Ryan Schaaf, an award-winning professor and author, about the transformative role of digital games-based learning in education. Dr. Schaaf shares his journey as a gamer and educator, highlighting how games foster skills like problem-solving, collaboration, and critical thinking. He explores the unique needs of the "always-on generation" and discusses barriers to adoption, such as funding, training, and data privacy. Offering actionable advice, Dr. Schaaf suggests educators start small by integrating vetted games into lessons. He also teases an upcoming resource to support educators in adopting game-based learning.
Ryan Schaaf
he/him/his
Professor & K-12 Educator
Notre Dame of Maryland University, Baltimore, MD, 21210
Dr. Ryan L. Schaaf is an associate professor of educational technology at Notre Dame of Maryland University and faculty at Johns Hopkins University. He was recently selected as the inaugural 2023 Outstanding Higher Education Award winner by the Maryland Society for Educational Technology for advancing excellence in teaching and leading with technology. He was previously nominated for Maryland Teacher of the Year and received the Dr. Hickey Award for technology leadership. He is the author of seven books involving digital-age learning and assessment. His text, Reinventing Learning for the Always-On Generation, received an IPPY Award for its contributions as a resource for educators. Ryan’s research interests include online and blended learning, digital game-based learning, educational reform, learning design, and learner agency. In his spare time, Ryan is a K-12 substitute teacher, workshop facilitator, and consultant.
(Twitter): https://x.com/ryanlschaaf
(LinkedIn): https://www.linkedin.com/in/ryanlschaaf/
(Facebook): https://www.facebook.com/ProfRyanLSchaaf/
(Website): https://www.ryanschaaf.com/
Dave Eng:
Hi, and welcome to Experience Points by University XP. On Experience Points, we explore different ways we can learn from games. I'm your host Dave Eng from Game Space Learning by University XP. Find out more by going to www.universityxp.com. On today's episode, we'll learn from Ryan Schaaf. Today's guest is Dr. Ryan L. Schaaf, an associate professor of educational technology at Notre Dame of Maryland University and faculty at Johns Hopkins University. He was named the 2023 Outstanding Higher Education Award winner by the Maryland Society of Educational Technology. Ryan is also an award-winning author of seven books, including Reinventing Learning for the Always On Generation. His research spans online learning, games-based learning and educational reform. Outside of academia, Ryan stays active as a K-12 substitute teacher, workshop facilitator and consultant. Ryan, welcome to the show.
Ryan Schaaf:
Thanks, Dave. I appreciate the invitation and I'm looking forward to having our chat about digital game-based learning and today's learners.
Dave Eng:
Great, great. I'm really glad for that. I'm going to jump into the first question here because I'd like to know a little bit more about your own personal journey and background. So can you take some time to brief me and the audience on your journey into educational technology and how your experiences have helped shape your passion for digital games-based learning?
Ryan Schaaf:
So I've always been a gamer. My mother started me off with the Atari 2600 playing Frogger and Combat and Asteroids. This was back in, oh my goodness, the early 1980s. As I got older, I then had a Nintendo, a Super Nintendo, a PlayStation, a PC, and I've always loved to game. So then I decided I wanted to become a K-12 educator. As I taught my students, I had a natural affinity for using computers and sharing my love of them. We started completing web quests together and creating multimedia projects and exploring the web. But what truly captured my interest and passion was gaming. I had a student named Farhan. He was brand new to the United States. He didn't speak English. At that time language acquisition was all about immersion. They would just learn over time. So I would have lessons with him then give him centers where we'd actually go around to stations and doing learning activities.
His favorite center by far was the computer station because it had some great digital learning games on it, and these games were math games and science games, literacy games. So he was learning by doing. And the other kids gravitated to him and the games assisted him through his lessons. Fast forward 20 years into the future, and that is a blueprint to modern learning. You have collaboration, you have using technology to amplify our teaching and learning efforts and an introduction to self-directed learning. My county, when I was a K-12 teacher was pretty progressive and adopted a philosophy of heavy technology integration. This was way back in 2006. But technology was used in a meaningful, purposeful way, not just as a digital babysitter. During this time, I graduated from Johns Hopkins with my Masters in Educational Technology and Leadership. The truly amazing tool that stuck out the most were the digital learning games. This is when everyone was developing game content on Adobe Flash. I used games and crafted instructional experiences around them. Although I still taught the curriculum, I infused gaming into my teacher toolkit and I absolutely loved it.
Dave Eng:
Great. Thank you, Ryan. I appreciate that background. I want to know though, your student, it's Farhan, F-A-R-H-A-N?
Ryan Schaaf:
Yes.
Dave Eng:
I don't know if it's on topic, but I remember one of the very first, you would call them serious games now, but a lot of people remember Oregon Trail, but one of my first games I would say would be Mavis Beacon Teaches Typing. Do you remember this game?
Ryan Schaaf:
I do.
Dave Eng:
You do? Okay. Then do you remember the game called Typing of the Dead?
Ryan Schaaf:
I do not. We used to use Type to Learn and one called Dance Mat Typing, which is still there, and it was produced by the BBC and it has all these fascinating English accents and the kids, absolutely, they were getting their typing lessons in it, but they love the voices because they spoke with such heavy British accents and terminology. So it was hysterical where the kids would laugh and they didn't understand what they were saying, but they just loved the immersion and they actually loved, again, learning by doing through their typing tutorials. It was also a site that kept track of data too in the early days. Yeah.
Dave Eng:
I mean, I know that we're talking about digital games-based learning, but I think that this story is really impactful because it really addresses a lot of the intrinsic motivation. Part of the reason why Farhan wanted to keep playing was because the actual experience was fun and intrinsically motivating. Now I have to type as part of my regular day job every single day, but I learn how to type at least in junior high and high school through games like Mavis Beacon Teaches Typing and Typing of the Dead. So I think that your story specifically about that intrinsic motivation and why players are playing and the additional positive educational benefits is really inspiring. So thanks for sharing Ryan.
Ryan Schaaf:
Yeah. And it's been almost 20 years, so I think the time then disclosing is okay.
Dave Eng:
Great. Well, now that we've gotten a little bit of background on your personal journey, I want to talk more about the digital impact of games-based learning. So how do you see specifically digital games-based learning transforming education, particularly for the "always on generation" because I think that's a really meaningful summary of a generation.
Ryan Schaaf:
And I wish I could take total credit for coming up with that term. That was Shirley Turkle, I think it was, and she's an amazing... She's a researcher that really explored technology and psychology and kind of how they merge together. So my co-authors and I took that term and ran with it because we just thought it was great and it really did explain, or at least characterize the generation. I'm reading one right now about a psychologist named Jean when just talking about this current generation of child that is the ones born pretty much after 2013. So these are the kids that are 10, 13 and younger, and they're growing up, she almost calls them pollers because they're growing up in a really polarizing political atmosphere and just a lot just how hot topic everything is now. But it's also talking about just how technology has almost completely become almost a second reality to them.
We call it in reinventing learning, the always on generation, we call that almost they live in a transfluent type of experience, both digital and real world types of identities to where they're almost completely merged and they're not separate. So kind of getting back to your question, how do you see digital game-based learning transforming for this generation? So outside of school, most K-12 students, they game in some fashion. They play Fortnite, they do Minecraft, Roblox, Apex. It's what my oldest, my 17-year-old's playing right now. There's Call of Duty and pretty much anything from EA Sports. That's my youngest son, Ben, he's 11. He's my kid that I would call one of the polar kids. It's what he's playing now. He does anything from football to basketball.
So they gravitate to the competition between the different players, the games and all the other nuances that really make games immersive, exciting and engaging. So the always on generation, they get to choose what games to play. They get to cultivate next generation skills like problem solving, collaboration, data analysis, critical thinking and learning through iteration. And then there are traditional schools with traditional learning. When they enter the classroom, they lose their choice and their voice. They start to lose their agency where when they're playing games, they get to really be really the active participant in their experience and their learning. They get to choose the games they want to play. They get to choose the skills that they want to cultivate.
But when we go to schools, a lot of times when students are learning, they lose a lot of their choice. They lose a lot of their agency, and that's where I really think one of the biggest ways that digital game-based learning can kind of transform education is by kind of changing that type of learning experience. Because the player, they get to make a lot of choices. They get to practice a lot of agency. If you think about traditional learning, a lot of times the teacher is the person that delivers the content. They're, what was it? Kurt Squire calls it a content dispensers where educators become just content dispensers. But in this case, when it comes to digital game-based learning, it's really, it's almost like a three-way dance when it comes to learning. It's the learner, it's the teacher, and it's the game that they're experiencing and that really does help to change the aspect of teaching. It really helps them to become a facilitator instead of just, again, that content dispenser and that really does change the role of an educator.
I feel like many kids are waiting for the video game version of school because it will be tailored to what they want education to look like. They want it to be immersive. They want it to be tailored to their identities and their needs. They want to receive that instant feedback for their efforts without significant consequences. If they make mistakes, they can learn as they grow. Digital games provide the always on generation with the first taste of artificial intelligence and digital assistants and virtual environments. A lot of kids are learning that, wow, computers actually can make some choices. And then it starts to get them interested in how do they make these choices that a lot of them are pre-programmed or now that we actually have intelligence built in, they discovered that computers can learn in some aspects.
And I find that a well-designed digital game provides an amazing learning experience. While educators can assume, again, that role of a facilitator instead of a content dispenser, all while collecting safe formative assessment data mapped to learning goals, that can be a blueprint for success. And to really reach into learning science and theory, one of the first learning strategies kids use during childhood development is play. In kindergarten they play a lot and it is enriching and powerful, but by high school, they aren't playing in school anymore. Play is seen as a waste of time. It shouldn't be that way.
Dave Eng:
Great, thanks Ryan. I also want to just confirm for our audience, when you're talking about specifically the always on generation, you cited 2013 as a date of birth, would this be also classified as generation alpha?
Ryan Schaaf:
Yeah. And again, it depends on how you characterize. I'm really talking about the... When it comes to either I use the terms digital generations or the always on generation, I'm really talking about the generations, so there's multiple generations that we're really born in the internet era. This is in the last 20 some years, and now of course we're teaching mostly two generations in K-12. We have those, was it X? No, no, X is mine. I'm too old. We have this generation alpha or what is termed as pollers, we also have the ones that came right before them.
And that's why a lot of times in my books now I call them generations is because there's so many and there's a few, but where we used to have events and we used to have technology to some point to kind of stratify these different generations, now we have technology in this evolution to where the generation gaps are just shrinking considerably to where if we think of a generation that might be 20 or 30 years, now it's five to 10 years sooner. It's going to be really interesting how they characterize different generations. So just to kind of clarify, when I say always on generation, it's really, I would have to say the last 15 years since really kind of what you would say is the expanse of smartphones and tablets and laptops. But when it comes to the digital generation, we do have people now in the workforce that were the start of the digital generations.
Dave Eng:
And I think that you brought it up before specifically because we're kind of getting that, I would even term it generation inflation and that the time between generations is getting smaller and smaller. Because I was talking about this with some of my colleagues, a lot of the children or kids today in K-12 and some early young adults that are going to be starting their careers in higher education are ones where the internet has always been present. There's always been social media. There's always been, for part of the younger generations, there's always been some sort of AI assistant starting with Siri and now with generative AI. And I feel like at least some of the younger generations or those where this technology, this level of technology and access has always been present.
Whereas for me, I'm a millennial. I don't know what generation you identify as Ryan, but for me, I grew up as like, oh, there was a time in my life when I did not have internet, and then there was a time in my life when internet was somewhat accessible, and then there's a time in my life where it is always accessible. So I think the biggest change for me is that for them, this has always been the case, but for me it was like I remember a time when we didn't have all of these things and we had to going back to Encyclopedia Britannica and everything else. Whereas this current generation, it is something that's always been present. It's always something that they've always had access to, and I think that's a really great avenue to approach with digital game-based learning.
Ryan Schaaf:
Absolutely. And just let's go back to Marc Prensky and how he introduced the term digital game-based learning, or at least he wrote a book about it and didn't actually use that term except I think for the actual title. And then he spent a whole book just exploring different experiences, different people that were exploring this new possibility. And he's the one who termed digital natives and digital immigrants. And it's funny, I think with our generation we're kind of like, "Am I a native or am I an immigrant?" I remember always having that internet. I remember having the internet, but I also remember not having the internet. And it's funny now as we're arguing, if we're considered immigrants or natives, now we have the second, third generations that have been these natives, like digital natives, almost like 2.0, 3.0 because now AI is going to come and just disrupt everything.
It's just disruptive innovation I think is really ingrained into this generation stratification, I guess is the best way to say it, or the shrinking of that time between different generations and iterations. It's interesting. I don't know if was it anthropology or media anthropology or digital anthropology or sociology? I have no idea. But it's really cool to explore and as an educator, it's really fun to engage with that and try and teach them because they almost teach as much to you as you do to them, which it's inspiring.
Dave Eng:
I know that we went a little bit off-topic with the generational, but I think it's entirely useful, Ryan, but I want to talk about the specific barriers and solutions. Because I think you're preaching to the choir here with someone who's into game-based learning. Specifically we're talking about digital games-based learning, but I also want to represent some of the questions of the audience and the listeners overall. So I want to talk about barriers and solutions. So according to you, Ryan, what do you think are the biggest barriers to implementing digital games-based learning and K-12 and higher education, and how can educators and institutions overcome those barriers?
Ryan Schaaf:
That's like the million-dollar question, I think. So there are many barriers to large scale adoption of digital game-based learning. Right now we have pockets. We have some researchers. We have some facilitators that are exploring it, and they might create grants, they might do something to try and explore and build it up, but it really hasn't caught significant traction. When I say that it's not as maybe popular in the studies, although if you go, you'll see that a lot of studies, a lot of research are still going and exploring into digital gaming and learning. So that is one definite positive aspect. But I feel like the barrier to that is just for schools, and colleges have their set curriculums and a game has to be aligned to what they must learn. So I'm not saying this is how it should be, I'm just expressing the reality of things. So that's one barrier.
How does that improve? Is that I think with more partnerships between schools and learning game designers or learning game developers or companies to see what they truly need, and this has been like one of those, I think real struggles. You have the big names. You have Brain Pop, you have Minecraft, which now Microsoft, you have all of these games that have learning potential, and now they're starting to onboard educators and learning designers so this way they can actually take this amazing resource, because I almost consider games not just a tool, but also learning environments. They're taking these and trying to explore how can we teach with this? What can we teach this? And what comes out of after they're done, what are these learning goals? What are the skills that are being developed? So I'd have to say you're starting to see a little bit of that as the solution is the partnerships have to happen.
And of course, now there's other hurdles that companies, back when I was in K-12 spaces a lot using digital games with my students all the time is there's hurdles that they're dealing with right now. There's data privacy policies that are absolutely, I love what they're doing. They're protecting the privacy of our learners, our students, that they have to have their identities protected. However, it does make an additional barrier for that integration because schools have to adopt tools that are compliant with these, and a lot of them are federal and state regulations. They have to adhere to them. So that's a potential barrier. And again, I see a lot of learning game developers trying to navigate this space, and I cheer the efforts to protect the learners, I really do, but it does add that layer of complexity to the situation. A colleague that I spoken with in the past, and I know she does a lot of work with science and outcomes, is Lindsay Tropf can never pronounce her name, quite 100% correct. She does Tyto online, T-Y-T-O online. She builds incredible games that teach really complex science, and it's truly amazing.
I know she sometimes gets funding, I think through federal grants and maybe state-based grants. I don't even know how she gains grants, but I find it amazing that she's able to develop such amazing games that are immersive and incredible graphics too. She can create that. Now, I'm sure that this is one of the things that she's exploring is data privacy between schools, because one of her biggest clients are school districts. So again, it's just about kind of navigating that space. Of course, there's cost. Schools are very, when it comes to digital tools and resources, they do still spend money on hardware, but when it comes to software and apps, they feel like that's usually the last thing that really gets money unless it's like a learning management system.
If you have the Canvas and the Brightspaces, they'll put money there because of all the things it does. However, when it comes to something like a digital tool, like a game, they're like, "Oh, well-spent money not probably in gaming." So it's also just the money, the money and the funding. It's hard to kind of get that, and it's kind of like a sore spot, I think, for many people in this digital game-based learning space. You have the learning designers, the game developers, that they need funding, and because these games, they're trying to give it either at a significant discount, so K-12 students don't suffer, but you also, at the end of the day, they're building a product and they also need to survive and thrive.
So you have these types of barriers existing. And there's also, of course, I think the biggest one for adoption is the teacher training and the development. How do you teach learning using digital games? That is why I write these books like Game On and Reinventing Learning for the Always on Generation, and the current one I'm currently working on is The Learning Arcade. I want to help the educators in all the stakeholders see the potential of games for modern teaching, learning and assessment.
Dave Eng:
Great. Thank you, Ryan. I appreciate it. I know we're a little bit of tight on time here, but I want to make sure that the audience and the listeners get some actionable items here from this particular episode. So say I am a K-12 educator and I want to get started with digital games-based learning. What's a good place for me to start or what's a first good action for me to take, or what's a book of yours that I should start out with?
Ryan Schaaf:
So Game On right now, it's coming up on, I think I wrote it in 2017, so it's getting a little older, but in that book, it has a lot of games that you can almost pick up and play almost instantly. But there are so many different gaming sources that students can still absolutely use. I know a lot of them use Chromebooks, they use laptops. They use some way to access them in school or somewhere to access them at home. There are differently games that they can find and play. So I suggest that they look at it like almost they look at YouTube videos or videos that are instructional. As educators they find them, they vet them as in, they find out if they're safe or not, and then they kind of think about, how can I use this in the instructional process?
Game On actually does that. It actually takes you through the, here's ways to find games, here's ways to vet the games. Here's some good questions to ask about the kind of adopting a game. Here's how you can actually use games during the lesson plan and the lesson implementation phases, and here's even how you can kind of use assessments with them. So it kind of walks them through the entire instructional process. But it also helps them with selecting and figuring out if a game doesn't do something, how they can do it out in the real world. So that's one aspect. One actual takeaway that I'd suggest is just finding games, playing it with your colleagues. If you have a team, I know I used to have teams of teachers. We used to find a game, we used to review it and then figure out how we were going to use it during the learning process, again, for modern teaching, learning and assessment practices.
Dave Eng:
Great. Thanks, Ryan. I think our educators who are listening are going to be able to get a lot of those individual steps, and I'll also make sure that they get a link to your book in the show description or notes. So thanks for joining us today, Ryan. Where can people go to find out more about you online?
Ryan Schaaf:
So ryanschaaf.com, it shares all my books, my presentations and my free resources. I'm on Facebook. You can look up Professor Ryan Schaaf, that's S-C-H-A-A-F and you can connect that way. I love LinkedIn. It's definitely probably one of my favorite go-to professional networks right now because for the most part, it's a lot of educators. I've been able to create such a nice learning network with all of like-minded folks and individuals that we can share resources and ideas and presentations, all sorts of things. And of course, I have an Amazon Author Central page that you can always go to. And I'm working on something really exciting for digital game-based learning in K-12 learning environments. I'm trying to work on this learning game database that has all these digital games that I'm curating and trying to provide for educators, but that is a big task that I'm still working on. So I want to thank you Dave for having me today.
Dave Eng:
Great. Thanks, Ryan. I'll make sure that everyone gets links to that in the description or show notes, and hopefully when you finish that resource, you'll be able to share it out with me so that I can share it out with everyone else and other educators and game-based learning practitioners I know. I hope you found this episode useful. If you'd like to learn more, then a great place to start is with my free course on gamification. You can sign up for it at www.universityxp.com/gamification. You can also get a full transcript of this episode, including links to references in the description or show notes. Thanks for joining us. Again, I'm your host, Dave Eng from games-based learning by University XP. On Experience Points, we explore different ways we can learn from games. If you like this episode, please consider commenting, sharing and subscribing. Subscribing is absolutely free and ensures that you'll get the next episode of Experience Points delivered directly to you.
I'd also love it if you took some time to rate the show. We live to lift others with learning. So if you found this episode useful, consider sharing it with someone who could also benefit. Also make sure to visit University XP online at www.universityxp.com. University XP is also on Twitter at @University_XP and on Facebook and LinkedIn as University XP. Also, feel free to email me anytime. My email address is dave@universityxp.com. Game on.
Cite this Episode
Eng, D. (Host). (2025, April 6). Ryan Schaaf on Digital Games-Based Learning. (No. 135) [Audio podcast episode]. Experience Points. University XP. https://www.universityxp.com/podcast/135
Internal Ref: UXPT8M680ZJW
References
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