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Outline

Title
Abstract
Figures
Introduction Expert Interviews
Methodological Approach
Literature Review
Details of the Publications Reviewed Follow
Introduction
Executive Summary
Summary of Expert Interviews
All Topics
Education
Educational Technology

Games-Based Experiences for Learning

Profile image of Magdalena BoberMagdalena Bober

Abstract

This report provides: - an overview of what makes a digital game a motivating and engaging learning experience - a taxonomy of learning elements of digital games - a set of design principles for digital games-based learning experiences. The report is based on a summary review of the available research literature on digital games-based learning and interviews with eight experts, including game developers, researchers in the field and teachers.

Figures (10)
LIT Pr iiital yredQy CHimlOGrerl Call WIE dt UIe sallle Uille ds Evel YUUUY else, interact, share ideas, build a document, write at the same time - literally - as other people. [...] It also gives you the opportunity to have a chat channel along the side but also to draw using a link-up with a thing called Scribblar, which means that they can draw interactively as well. So for example, when we're using the Wild Earth game and the children are researching, they take notes into [PrimaryPad] and they can, instead of taking lots of parallel paragraphs about the same thing, they can be adding to the same text and correcting and chipping In, contributing to a thing. But you can also get a teacher to drop in a diagram or an illustration and children can annotate that using Scribblar. And again you could say this isn’t games-based - it is exactly that - it is games-based in that the base is the game. What happens around it is the important aspect.” (image reproduced with kind permission of Tim Rylands]
LIT Pr iiital yredQy CHimlOGrerl Call WIE dt UIe sallle Uille ds Evel YUUUY else, interact, share ideas, build a document, write at the same time - literally - as other people. [...] It also gives you the opportunity to have a chat channel along the side but also to draw using a link-up with a thing called Scribblar, which means that they can draw interactively as well. So for example, when we're using the Wild Earth game and the children are researching, they take notes into [PrimaryPad] and they can, instead of taking lots of parallel paragraphs about the same thing, they can be adding to the same text and correcting and chipping In, contributing to a thing. But you can also get a teacher to drop in a diagram or an illustration and children can annotate that using Scribblar. And again you could say this isn’t games-based - it is exactly that - it is games-based in that the base is the game. What happens around it is the important aspect.” (image reproduced with kind permission of Tim Rylands]
Image 2: Code of Everand
Image 2: Code of Everand
“[Feedback is] always kind of automatic when it’s in the game because the game can't really read the minds or react to the players, and It’s also a matter of resource when developing the game, like building a large enough feedback system, it’s a really, really big job.”
“[Feedback is] always kind of automatic when it’s in the game because the game can't really read the minds or react to the players, and It’s also a matter of resource when developing the game, like building a large enough feedback system, it’s a really, really big job.”
Image 5: A postcard and part of the map of the Alternate Reality Gam ARGOSI ) (image reproduced with kind permission of Nicola Whitton]
Image 5: A postcard and part of the map of the Alternate Reality Gam ARGOSI ) (image reproduced with kind permission of Nicola Whitton]
“They all had to learn together, so we went through the introduction together. | had a copy [of the game] and they all had a copy. If | want to show them, | often make use of a visualiser and [put] the console on the visualiser which brings it up on the interactive white board, and we talked through it, and then | said, ‘Right, you now have to go off and find out how’, so they have to do it as teams [...] but also using other children in the class. So if someone found out the puzzle, we'd say, Well, you might want to go and ask them to give [you] clues’. So they were all working with each other and learning from each other instead of us [...], the teacher, being that fountain of knowledge [...]. We wanted to step away from that role and learn with them.” Image 6: Children playing on the Nintendo DS
“They all had to learn together, so we went through the introduction together. | had a copy [of the game] and they all had a copy. If | want to show them, | often make use of a visualiser and [put] the console on the visualiser which brings it up on the interactive white board, and we talked through it, and then | said, ‘Right, you now have to go off and find out how’, so they have to do it as teams [...] but also using other children in the class. So if someone found out the puzzle, we'd say, Well, you might want to go and ask them to give [you] clues’. So they were all working with each other and learning from each other instead of us [...], the teacher, being that fountain of knowledge [...]. We wanted to step away from that role and learn with them.” Image 6: Children playing on the Nintendo DS

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