What videogames can teach us about assessment?

I label this post as "non-research" because it is not related to my dissertation. However, it is important to my work in IDM research in Education because from where I come from, educators here have been grappling with how best to design and implement alternative assessment and how IDM can facilitate the process. So this post is like a bookmark in my "online diary", pointing and reminding me of James Gee's excellent work on studying what videogames can teach us about alternative assessment.

Why I say alternative assessment? Personally, I feel traditional assessment or assessment that we all familiar with will be around for many years to come. Efforts to explore alternative assessment are most welcome not only that they show us how learning should be assessed but also to help move public opinion. Alternative assessment will continue to work in the fringe of schools' assessment of learning until the public are ready to embrace it.

There is a series of four articles altogether. The first one is the pic above: Rise of Nations: A Model of Assessment, where Gee identifies seven points what videogames can teach us about assessment. In his second article: Games as Their Test, Gee brings it to our face why can't assessment and learning be one and not two separate entities. Like in games, games itself is assessment, and playing and learning is assessment, all part of a complete whole. In his third article, the title already suggest what it is all about: Assessing Development, Not "Static Stuff". In the last article: Appreciating What the World Say Back to Us, Gee pokes us to relfect back on our fascination with assessing fact (he calls this fascination "fact fetish"). He calls for the need to assess learners' respond in advancing their learning further from feedback they receive.