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Harnessing Online Games in Constructivist Learning
Morris S.Y. Jong
by Professor

Assistant Professor, Department of Curriculum and Instruction

Kong. This module involves knowledge of natural issue and their mutual relationships can always and their mutual relationships can always
issue
appear neatly in the form of a mind map. Moreover, neatly in the form of a mind map. Moreover,
environments, government, economics, technology, appear
an invest-and-reward mechanism is implemented in
production systems, and environmental problems. an invest-and-reward mechanism is implemented in
LearningVillages®. Every time the students create a
Farmtasia™ is a round-based game (with 12 LearningVillages®. Every time the students create a
rounds in total); every round (1 hour) equates to six house or make a posting in a village, they need to
months in the “virtual world”. It features interacting “pay” donuts (virtual money in the “virtual world”).
farming systems which are modeled by authentic However, when the number of quality houses and
geographical, botanical, biological, and economic postings in this village reaches a certain amount,
models. Each student in Farmtasia™ performs as it will be “upgraded” by the learning facilitator.
a farm manager to run a farm composed of a Benefits brought to the villagers by the upgrade
cropland, orchard, and rangeland. He/ she competes include donut reward and higher social status for
for financial gain (the quantified gaming outcome) enjoying extra privileges in LearningVillages®.
of his/ her farm with other players who are at the Significant and positive results on the effectiveness
same time running their own farm in the “virtual of LearningVillages® in motivating and scaffolding
world”. The financial gain is determined by whether students in the course of collaborative social inquiry
he/she can derive good strategies to yield quality learning have been obtained in the recent evaluation
farm products to be sold in the market. In the recent study.
evaluative study on the pedagogical effectiveness
41 of Farmtasia™, significantly positive results in Farmtasia™ 42
students’ conceptual and meta-cognitive knowledge
Curiosity is one of the best driving forces for acquisition, have been obtained in comparison with
learning; keeping students curious by engaging the traditional teaching method.
them via gaming is widely believed to be a desirable
approach to learning. Today, online gaming is an Supported by the Quality Education Fund, Professor
integral part of the lives of most youths. Furthermore, Jong and his team have also developed another
the 21st century education perspective advocates MMORPG, LearningVillages®, to motivate and
for constructivist learning approaches, emphasising support primary students in conducting collaborative
that knowledge should be built actively by students social inquiry learning. This game engages students
themselves rather than by receiving it passively in pursuing two-tier discourse (village-level and
from teachers. Against this backdrop, educational house-level) during the inquiry process. A village
researchers and technological educators have in LearningVillages® represents a societal issue.
been looking into the potential of online games for Students in a village can build houses to denote their
providing school-age students with new constructivist viewpoints or arguments with respect to the issue,
learning opportunities. This pedagogical endeavour and then become villagers of that village. They can
is termed Constructivist Online Game-based Learning further construct roads to interconnect the houses Learning Villages®
(COGBLe). Professor Jong's research work in this to reflect their in-between relationships. This is the
realm is two-pronged.
village-level discourse. Every house is “enterable”,
functioning as an independent forum to facilitate in-
Supported by an Early Career Scheme award from depth discourse about the corresponding viewpoint or
the Research Grants Council, Professor Jong and argument. This is the house-level discourse. The more
his research team have developed a massively discourse postings there are in a house, the larger its
multi-player online role-play game (MMORPG), size will be and the more modernity it will possess. A
Farmtasia™, for learning and teaching of a theme- key strength of this two-tier discourse design is that
based inter-disciplinary module, Agriculture, in the major viewpoints and arguments about a societal
senior secondary Geography curriculum in Hong