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help those with numeracy and/or literacy challenges; reduce behaviour management
problems and facilitate an engaging learning environment.
MoLeNET (www.molenet.org.uk) works collaboratively with the Learning Skills
Council (LSC) to actively promote mobile learning through shared-cost projects.
Additional support and evaluation of the programme has been provided by Learn-
ing and Skills Network (LSN) (www.lsnlearning.org.uk), which includes technical
and pedagogical guidance. Over £16 million has been invested in three phases of
MoLeNET, which started in 2007/8. This is important for building up an evidence
base of examples regarding the impact of digital games on learning.
In 2010 MoLeNET conducted 35 case studies, looking specifically at hand-held
devices to support teaching and learning and found such devices helped literacy,
numeracy and mathematics learning; English as a second language (ESOL) and other
language learners; 'engaging the disengaged'; improved behaviour; supported voca-
tional, work-based learners and those with LLDD. The report outlines examples of
teachers adoption of digital-games-based learning and is a good place to start reading
to get an understanding of the practical issues with implementation.
Overall, MoLeNET (2010) found that hand-held mobile devices are generally easy
to use, required little training or additional costs and, most important, a number of
benefits to teaching and learning could be clearly identified; see Table 4.2.
Pedagogy - history of games-based learning: before computers
The idea of designing games and simulated environments for learning and teaching
was a novel idea in the late 1960s when the first articles were written for the journal
Simulation and Games (1969 Vol. 1, No. 1) (Ruben 1999). This development emerged
in response to the traditional teaching paradigm, which was seen as passive infor-
mation transfer, without recourse to experience and personal meaning making. The
quest for a new paradigm came in the form of experiential-based learning, with simu-
lations and games. The classic instructional model was seen to do little to promote
active learning or help acquire the critical skills needed to select and evaluate that
which is important among a wide array of competing information. Indeed, issues of
emotion and the linkages between the cognitive, affective and behavioural domains
were undeveloped. As researchers came to acknowledge 'cognitive skills and knowl-
edge acquisition alone are seldom sufficient for personal, social, or professional effec-
tiveness' (Ruben 1999: 499), so active learning through games gained prevalence and
pedagogical kudos in the 1960s and 1970s. In the UK this was seen in the Plowden
report (1966), which was influential in promoting child-centred education and the
importance of play and learning though discovery, which in turn had been influ-
enced by the work of Piaget (1951).
Interestingly, the theoretical foundations for interactive and experience-based
learning, including simulations and games can be traced back to the writings of Aris-
totle and oral practices of Socrates and were popularized in the 1960s, Ruben (1999)
argues, by Bruner (1966), Dewey (1966) and Holt (1967). Following this, the 1970s
and early 1980s saw a rush to embrace experiential learning as an alternative to the
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