Teaching and learning as explorative action games. Guidelines for the design of dialogic educational technology

In this paper, I develop a view of teaching and learning as explorative action games (TaLEAG). The concept of the action game is borrowed from Weigand’s (2010) Theory of Dialogic Action Games or Mixed Game Model (MGM). The MGM rests on two basic assumptions: communication is dialogic and language is action. These two assumptions are adapted to teaching and learning in general and to what I call explorative action games in particular. The ensuing discussion revolves around the question of how educational technology should be designed in order to facilitate learning in the context of explorative action games. The paper is structured as follows: Following the introduction, I will outline a theory of teaching and learning that is derived from the main assumptions of the MGM. The focus here is on the dyad of action and reaction in TaLEAG. I will describe the main features of the initial speech act in the game, which I call the explorative speech act, as well as of the discover speech act as reaction to the explorative. In the second step, TaLEAG is connected to a view of learning as conceptual change learning (CCL). In the final step, this will lead us to a set of preliminary guidelines for the design of educational technology. The paper then concludes with an outlook on the direction educational technology should take in the near future.