Games And Education Designs In And For Learning

We live in a time of educational transformations towards more 21st century pedagogies and learning. Games and Education explores new designs in and for learning and offer inspiration to teachers, technologist and researchers interested in changing educational practices.

The field of Games is rapidly expanding, prompting institutions throughout the world to create game development programs and courses focusing on educational games. As a result, games have also become a hot topic in the area of educational technology research. This increased interest is due to the technological advancement of digital games and the fact that a new, digital generation is emerging with a strong gaming background. Games: Purpose and Potential in Education focuses on the issues of incorporating games into education and instructional design. Ideas of identity development, gender diversity, motivation, and integrating instructional design within game development are addressed since each of these areas is important in the field of instructional design and can have a significant impact on learning. This volume brings together leading experts, researchers, and instructors in the field of gaming and explores current topics in gaming and simulations, available resources, and the future of the field.

Can we learn through play? Can we really play while learning? Of course! But how?! We all learn and educate others in our own unique ways. Successful educational games adapt to the particular learning needs of their players and facilitate the learning objectives of their designers. Educational Game Design Fundamentals embarks on a journey to explore the necessary aspects to create games that are both fun and help players learn. This book examines the art of educational game design through various perspectives and presents real examples that will help readers make more informed decisions when creating their own games. In this way, readers can have a better idea of how to prepare for and organize the design of their educational games, as well as evaluate their ideas through several prisms, such as feasibility or learning and intrinsic values. Everybody can become education game designers, no matter what their technical, artistic or pedagogic backgrounds. This book refers to educators and designers of all sorts: from kindergarten to lifelong learning, from corporate training to museum curators and from tabletop or video game designers to theme park creators!

The pervasive use of games by students and their integration in formal education by a number of pioneer teachers creates a need for a different frame-of-mind to look at the learning experience offered by such innovative technology-enhanced learning experiences. Educational computer games are related to two disciplines, which are computer sciences (in particular, eLearning and related areas) and games development. A pattern-based design approach to overcome the problems and challenges of learning-games is proposed in this book. The aim is to awaken the learning-game community to approach learning-game design more structurally and to motivate them to communally create a theoretical and practical basis for learning-game design and game-based learning research. Furthermore, given the popularity of computer games and the educational and ethical problems they raise, we need a way of evaluating games. This book contributes to this task by articulating the epistemic, moral, and ethical aims of education and by applying these criteria to computer games.

"A series of well argued but surprisingly entertaining articles go far to set the very foundations ofthe field of digital game based learning. This book is absolutely essential reading for anyone interested in games and learning and will be for years to come." - James Paul Gee, Mary Lou Fulton Presidential Professor of Literacy Studies, Arizona State University

The Learning, Education & Games book series is perfect for any educator or developer seeking an introduction to research-driven best practices for using and designing games for learning. This volume, Bringing Games into Educational Contexts, delves into the challenges of creating games and implementing them in educational settings. This book covers relevant issues such as gamification, curriculum development, using games to support ASD (autism spectrum disorder) students, choosing games for the classroom and library, homeschooling and gameschooling, working with parents and policymakers, and choosing tools for educational game development. Learning, Education & Games: Bringing Games into Educational Contexts is the second in a series written and edited by members of the Learning, Education, and Games (LEG) special interest group of the IGDA (International Game Developers Association).

"This book will give readers a solid understanding of issues in educational game design and deployment in the classroom"--Provided by publisher.

First Published in 1994. Routledge is an imprint of Taylor & Francis, an informa company.