Foldit: From Educational Video Game to Scientific Pioneer
This entry was created by a student in Stanford's Rhetoric of Gaming class. For more about the class and the assignment, click here.
The typical educational atmosphere consists of textbooks, teachers, lectures, studying, and exams. Each of us has experienced first hand this physical method of learning. However, over the past decade virtual worlds have invaded the “traditional” classroom and have secured a position as primary teaching tools. Educational video games that have been crafted to teach students all range of subjects have assuredly impacted the learning environment. Recently, these “learning” games have also become an alternative method to teach medicine, both to the general public and more importantly to those aspiring to enter medical fields. Yet, some of these “new” medical tools are not only influencing education, but rather the games themselves have become a platform for scientific research and the advancement of human knowledge. The creators of the online video game "Foldit" believe they have accomplished just this.
The revolutionary game allows the player to manipulate proteins. Proteins exist as long links of amino acids that fold up into a tight complex structure. Every protein has a unique, stable arrangement that it folds into that defines its function and the game offers puzzles for the player to solve that result in the correct structure. At this point, computers throughout the world can correctly predict the unique arrangement that some proteins assume. However, humans are predicted through visualization and spatial reasoning skills to be sometimes more effective at protein structure prediction than these computers.
Foldit itself is an incredibly entertaining and honestly, addicting game. Players compete to achieve the correct folded structure, which produces a high score for the puzzle. Initially, the user is taught through a variety of introductory puzzles the composition of amino acid chains, and the methods through which these proteins fold. The player achieves an educational overview of the specific science behind the puzzles. Then, the player is set free to solve much more complex situations by physically tweaking the way in which the protein folds.
Seeing the potential behind such a promising video game, Foldit has taken the next step and has allowed their educational creation to become a platform for discovery. Foldit boasts that it “enables you to contribute to important scientific research.” The game intends to include a function to design proteins and therefore new puzzles to be solved. Foldit argues that the way these new user generated proteins fold could lead to cures to diseases such as HIV/AIDs, Cancer, and Alzheimer’s as well as impacts to knowledge about alternative biofuels.
The makers truly believe that this video game has the potential to create lasting impacts. Let us hope their dreams come true and that the educational platform they have created advances human knowledge and produces solutions to many of life’s scientific mysteries.
Comments
This is a good topic and it has a good amount of recent articles and attention from the media.
There is a very good argument embedded in most sources, which either works to support the idea of educational games such as Foldit, or serves as rhetoric against the general idea.
Something you might want to consider when you're writing this paper is a commentary on the opposing side of the argument. Perhaps playing "devil's advocate" to the opinion that these new teaching methods are not helpful, even This is a good topic and it has a good amount of recent articles and attention from the media.
Other than that, I think this topic has vast amounts of recent articles and opinions, as well as research because of the fact that people are always looking for new teaching methods.
Posted by: Jesse Espinoza | April 30, 2009 10:46 AM
One term used to describe this kind of game is "volunteer computing". Interesting article from The Economist for you:
http://search.ebscohost.com/login.aspx?direct=true&db=aph&AN=27798968&site=ehost-live
Posted by: Chris Bourg | April 30, 2009 08:35 PM
I certainly think that this is a very useful technique for the young to learn instead of the old traditional learning techniques which is reading off books and papers and attending lectures. Whoever created this game must be extraordinary smart as they took into account the technological advances and what interests the young nowadays and that is the video games, so they basically combined education to it creating an educative video gamed as the protein game.
Posted by: Galal Fayek | May 11, 2009 03:09 PM
I encourage very much this type of learning as it motivates people to learn instead of the traditional ones. But, the point is whether teachers will be accepting these new methods in their classrooms or not? I'm also curious to know what form of video games do you mean: do you mean playstation games or computer games?
Posted by: Mohamed Ezzat | May 12, 2009 03:24 PM
I agree that the "traditional" education according to the article became boring and mostly useless, as the student are obliged to do it but they don't make good use of it. moreover, I agree that the virtual world has played an important role in the society, and has its great effect on people at all ages, so using this virtual tools in education would make people feel excited to learn more and more and the standard of education of people would be improved, that is why i think it is a magic tool to florish the education.
Posted by: salma sayed | May 12, 2009 03:50 PM
My father recently talked to me about this very topic. As a doctor, he found these video games very helpful for his students, he pointed out that these entertaining games allowed the students to not rely on tedious books only, but rather learn through innovative and entertaining education (the irony!) games. As it is a topic I’ve already heard something about, I thought further research would enhance my understanding.
Here’s a few sites I found interesting and possible helpful;
http://edugamesblog.wordpress.com/2008/09/16/the-top-10-most-influential-educational-video-games-from-the-1980s/
http://www.networkworld.com/community/node/26782
http://www.slideshare.net/jrobinson/video-games-virtual-environments-education
Posted by: Winnie Nadi | May 13, 2009 12:41 PM
http://serc.carleton.edu/introgeo/games/digigbl.html
http://scholar.google.com.eg/scholar?q=educational+video+games&hl=en&lr=&btnG=Search
The fifth article is a PDF file about the topic, very intresting
Posted by: Mai Alkhamissi | May 15, 2009 02:06 PM
This is the first time in my life I've read something positive about video games. For all I know, video games destroy the minds of their players, either by messages they send, or by gluing the eyes of the players on a screen 24-7.
Video games are addictive, yes. But its good to use the addiction in a positive way. kids never forget how to play a game, especially ones they actually like. so by putting educational material on the games, in an entertaining layout, the material will stick in a kids head. it actually implmenting something they like to do without something that is useful.
its the same as putting spinach in a pizza.
an article that was written in the BBC news tackling the same subject.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/education/1879019.stm
Posted by: Mai Alkhamissi | May 15, 2009 02:09 PM
I agree that this kind of education is very useful and interesting especially for Kids and adults. I remember when I was child; I used to play a game that helps kids in improving their skills in Math and doing simple operations like subtraction, addition, division and Multiplication. I believe that is the reason why I still love Math till now. However, it may be easy to apply such an idea in the U.S but it won’t be easy to apply it in Egypt because we need first to increase “Computer literacy” among students in our schools.
Very interesting topic!
Posted by: Karim Ayyad | May 22, 2009 12:27 PM
I really believe that video games are beneficial. In fact, there are a lot of studies that supports the good effects of video games.
Posted by: Richard | July 20, 2009 09:14 PM