eLearning magazine recently ran an article called "Online Learning and Fun." It is somewhat encouraging to find educators who are, despite the intense pressure for academic justifiability, championing fun. There were a couple insights in the article that I found especially heart-warming.

The first: "The classic approach in e-learning is to add a bit of fun later, rather than designing learning experiences to facilitate a joy of learning, where the learning process itself is fun." That is definitely it, in a very compact nutshell. When fun is added after the fact, it is more often than not a denial of the fun inherent in the experience of learning.

And this: "...the concept of meaningful failure. A player learns through trial and error and especially from mistakes, trying a different approach to accomplish the task at hand. Games often provide multiple opportunities and methods for a player to succeed. If a player fails using one approach, there are other ways to solve the problem. e-learning can leverage this gaming approach, offering multiple means of solving problems to encourage exploration and learning from failure."

Yeah and again yeah. I call it "learning by dying" and I think it's probably one of the most powerful contributions that eplaying has for elearning. The most fun and efficient way to master most computer games is to play until you get killed, and remember what killed you. You usually have a few lives to sacrifice to learning. And you can always start over. This approach to learning has given most young people so much confidence in their competencies that, when confronted by a new game or new technology, they hardly ever need to look at the instructions.

These are essential messages for those of us who are aware of the arbitrariness and downright silliness of the separation between learning and fun.

See also the excellent Literature Review in Games and Learning from nesta futureLab.