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Can games really be educational? They are certainly addictive and engaging. Can we harness this aspect of games and use it to learn? In this video I show you why I believe the answer is yes. Let’s talk about what really good teaching is and what really good games are like. Then I take you on a brief tour of what I believe are some of the best examples of great educational games.

Here’s the Prezi presentation I showed in this video: Educational Games.

Examples of Educational Games

• Check out a great educational game for the younger set called Timez Attack. Great game.
• Here’s the link for more information about the Serious Games Summit
• FutureLab creates some of the most amazing educational games/experiences for students that you’ll ever see. Highly recommended.


Simulations and the Future of Learning: An Innovative (and Perhaps Revolutionary) Approach to e-Learning List Price: $60.00 Price: $11.88 Read Reviews

• Another fascinating educational gaming creator: Muzzy Lane
• PowerPoint Jeopardy: here’s where you can find the template
• GoVenture creates some excellent educational games, including the business game and the lemonade stand game I showed in this episode
• Tactical Language and Culture is a company that uses sophisticated gaming engines to create immersive language learning games

Really Good Games..

• have win states to give us a feeling of accomplishment
• employ conflict/competition/challenge to up our adrenaline
• use dramatic problems
• use otherworldly stories and characters to stir the emotions
• require problem solving
• encourage interaction to solve challenges
• are unpredictable
• provide a sense of urgency
• have rules to give play structure and help put us inside the game world
• have goals to provide motivation and let us measure ourselves against something
• are interactive to keep us doing things
• are situated in an interesting place or time
• have outcomes and immediate feedback from which we learn
• adapt their difficulty to our skills to keep us in flow
• are “hard fun”

Really Good Teachers…

• Have goals for their lessons
• Draw on “Motivation to Learn” strategies which engage students through the use of puzzles, questions, mysteries, apparent conflicts (Here is the link to episode 29 which explains the Motivation to Learn concept.
• Provide immediate feedback to students on how they’re doing
• Help students summarize what they’ve learned
• Help students reflect on their experience
• Help students draw on prior knowledge
• Encourage students to use metacognitive strategies (“Did I understand what I just heard/read?”)
• Provide students with appropriate challenge to optimize the potential for “flow”
• Provide a context for the material to be learned (i.e., instruction is “anchored” to a setting)
• Encourage active exploration among students (not focused on right and wrong answers)
• Provide opportunities for safe practice

Critiques of Educational Games and My Responses

Critique 1: The situation/context/story the game takes place in is unrealistic.

• Response: True, but what are the main goals of any learning experience: a) to understand, and
  b) to be able to apply. If a game accomplishes these goals, who cares if the setting is unrealistic? Students know the situation is unrealistic, and we can certainly add in a component that gives them an understanding of the real-world nature of the task.

Critique 2: Using games is giving in. Why can’t students just learn the old fashioned way?

• Response 1: The world has changed. The old fashioned ways don’t work as well any more.
• Response 2: Why shouldn’t learning be fun? It starts out that way in childhood – why does it have to become “work”?
• Response 3: Ultimately, people learn best when they work on activities that are tied to achieving their personal goals (“I need to do X”). In school, we can’t give them this, but we can engage them through stories and games. Why not use these tools?

Resources on Educational Gaming

• Aldrich, C. (2004). Simulations and the Future of Learning: An Innovative (and Perhaps Revolutionary) Approach to e-Learning. John Wiley & Sons, Inc.Aldrich, C. (2005).
• Brophy, J. (1983). Conceptualizing Student Motivation. Educational Psychologist, 18, 200-215.Brophy, J. (1998). Motivating Students to Learn. Boston: McGraw-Hill.Brown, J. S., Collins, A., & Duguid, P. (1989).
• Perceiving Value in Obligations and Goals: Wanting to do What Should be Done. Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin, 27, 982-995.
• Situated cognition and the culture of learning. Educational Researcher, 18 (1), 32-41.Bransford, J.D. et al. (1990).
• Anchored instruction: Why we need it and how technology can help. In D. Nix & R. Spiro (Eds), Cognition, education and multimedia. Hillsdale, NJ: Erlbaum Associates.Bruning, R. & Horn, C. (2000).
• Foreman, J. (2003). Developing the Motivation to Write. Educational Psychologist, 35, 25-37.
• Educational Technology Versus the Lecture. EduCause Review.Glasser, A. (2004). Interactive Storytelling. AK Peters, Ltd.Oblinger, D.G. (2004).
• The Next Generation of Educational Engagement. Journal of Interactive Media in Education, 2004 (8).
• Prensky, M. (2001). Digital Game-Based Learning. McGraw-Hill, Inc.Quinn, C. N. (2005). Engaging Learning. John Wiley & Sons, Inc.