Educational Games
“Purposeful, goal-oriented, rule-based activity that the players
perceive as fun” (Klopfer, 2008)
When teachers talk about games, they are
talking about motivation.
The key question in mind is “how could we
capture same motivating features which
attract in games to function also in
educational materials.
Educational Games
Games are not inventions of the computer era
and they have been part of our culture for a
long time.
Background on games…
Roger Caillois, French anthropologist
Games of competition
football, chess
skills rule
Games of chance
roulette, lotto
Games of simulation
role games, PC racing games
Games of vertigo
roller coaster
Background on games…
Intrinsically motivating activities by Thomas Malony
Challenge
Curiosity
Fantasy
Background on games…
Intrinsically motivating activities by Csikszentmihalyi (1979)
The activity should be structured so that the
actor can increase or decrease the level of
challenge he is facing, in order to match
exactly his skills with the requirements for
action.
Background on games…
Intrinsically motivating activities by Csikszentmihalyi (1979)
It should be easy to isolate the activity, at
least at the perceptual level, from other
stimuli, external or internal which might
interface with involvement in it.
Background on games…
Intrinsically motivating activities by Csikszentmihalyi (1979)
There should be clear criteria for
performance, one should be able to evaluate
how well or how poorly one is doing at any
time.
Background on games…
Intrinsically motivating activities by Csikszentmihalyi (1979)
The activity should provide concrete
feedback to the actor, so that he can tell how
well he is meeting the criteria of performance.
Background on games…
Intrinsically motivating activities by Csikszentmihalyi (1979)
The activity ought to have a broad range of
challenges, and possibly several qualitatively
different ranges of challenge, so that the actor
may obtain increasingly complex information
about different aspects of himself.
Educational Games
Games should be compulsory:
Games are probably the easiest way to
learn implicitely the ’logic of digital devices
and services’ – to figure out rules instead
of learnig screen and keystroke sequences.
Educational Games
Good sites for tracking games and games
development
http://www.spreelearninggames.com/
http://www.gameslearningsociety.org/
http://www.educationarcade.org/
Research vs. Design
Design experiments
- Answering research
questions
- Truth
- Life span often limited by
the length of the project
- Economic rewards usually
end when the project is
over
Design
- Creating products and
services
- Use
- Life span limited by
usefulness, competition
- Economic rewards are
based on use