A Long Overdue Pokemon Go Post... and the Impact of Games on Learning

Initially, the idea behind this post was to discuss the good, bad, and ugly of Pokemon Go, but as things do in the field of technology, everything began to change. Rapidly.

The headlines that made it into the media were robberies, bodies discovered, car accidents, people walking into restricted areas or traffic, and all around harumphing from the naysayers, but what was underneath it all from the start was people - all ages - getting outside and walking around and bonding over this game. This article over at Forbes can explain some of the game’s attraction.

And then it changed. Again and again and again. Some of the changes made sense, many didn’t. My street went from having people out and walking with their kids to a few lone stragglers. Even my neighbor deleted the app from his phone and gave up after the last update.

There are still those who play, and I’ve learned a lot from them. The fact that most of them are young enough to be my kids makes no difference to me. Who better to learn from than someone who figured it out and can translate that knowledge?  

My nephew is one of those kids who figures stuff out, and when he talks about a topic he likes, he lights up. I thought I knew what I needed to know about Pokemon Go, but as I talked with my nephew, I discovered there was so much I didn’t know. As we talked, we discovered some common ground, and knowledge began to flow back and forth between us. If nothing else, it was something to bond over.

And because I work in education, the wheels started turning….

Gamification has been a big deal in learning for a while now, and from my experience much of it has centered around in-classroom activities and some exploration into interactive video games on the civilian front. The military has been using video games to train troops for a while now, and we get to see the old stuff once they’ve upgraded. Then along comes Pokemon Go, and now we’ve got a game that lives in an augmented reality space, with one foot in the Pokeworld and one foot in the physical world.

The players figured out quickly how to work the game in their favor, and Niantic responded by making it harder to do so, complete with bans on players who faked their locations so they didn’t have to go anywhere to catch the Pokemon from other countries. The updates lost a lot of players, and that’s disappointing because there’s still so much potential there. Think about it: people who weren’t particularly tech-savvy were researching how to spoof their cellphone so it looks like it’s someplace else, and DOING it (yes, it’s shady, but it opened a door there to curiosity learning and showed they could do it if they put their mind to it, that’s HUGE).

Hopefully with the Gen 2 updates coming in Pokemon Go next year, we’ll get to see a revival of the game and what else it can do. From what I saw, in its current state, it did the following and I don’t think a lot of people realized it:

• Team building via choosing a team to belong to
• Collaborative learning that crossed a multitude of social backgrounds.
• It teaches the metric system - albeit in a somewhat sneaky way, as people tried to figure out what 2 and 3kms translated to in miles in order to hatch eggs and gain candy for their buddy Pokemon.
• It gets people out of the house, walking around, and socializing - kind of a big deal, right there.
• It provides a central point of reference for people to communicate around, much like sports teams or a good book do, except in the case of Pokemon Go all the players know the frustrations of losing a Snorlax while being surrounded by pidgeys and weedles, or the joys of hatching an Aerodactyl.
• It teaches math! The gyms are a great place to learn about basic statistics on an experiential level, believe it or not.
• It teaches history! Many of the Pokestops are located around historical markers in historic areas, with write-ups on the markers that give a brief overview of the place the markers are located why they are significant.

Regardless of how one feels about Pokemon Go as a game, it must be acknowledged that it has potential as a learning tool, and will hopefully be a door-opener to a wider array of augmented reality apps built for educational games.

References:

Elfwine, Alvin. "Pokemon GO Gen 2 Update: Everything We Know So Far". iTech Post. N.p., 2016. Web. 20 Oct. 2016.

DeMers, Jayson. "Forbes Welcome". Forbes.com. N.p., 2016. Web. 20 Oct. 2016.

Theriault, David. "14 Reasons Why Pokemon GO Is The Future Of Learning". ideaFM. N.p., 2016. Web. 20 Oct. 2016.