Archive for games

Edutainment Links

// August 2nd, 2010 // No Comments » // awesomeness, e-learning, games

As you all know I do a fair bit of research in e-Learning and look at several hundred web links monthly. While doing so, I like to document a few of the better ones. So here you go – 100 Learning Game or as I call them Edutainment links. If you are already developing learning games, these links will broaden your horizons, as they did mine. If you are contemplating beginning – it might help to look at links that interest you to get some grounding ideas.

  1. It is All Fun and Games…And Then Students Learn- Kapp Notes, July 30, 2008
  2. Building Better Learning Games- Learning Visions, April 9, 2009
  3. Marc Prensky – Digital Game-Based Learning
  4. Gadgets, games and gizmos for learning- Clive on Learning, January 29, 2008
  5. How to Delight and Instruct in the 21st Century
  6. What Makes a Learning Game?
  7. Serious Games Blog
  8. mLearn08: MiLK: students building mobile learning games in higher education by Debra Polson- Ignatia Webs, November 12, 2008
  9. Marc Prensky – Twitch Speed, June 17, 2009
  10. Using computer games in education- ThirdForce Blog, January 30, 2009
  11. Digital games and learning gains (PDF), June 17, 2009
  12. Learning in Immersive worlds: A review of game-based learning
  13. Army War College – digital game resources
  14. Immerse Yourself in Another Language- Kapp Notes, June 3, 2008
  15. Resources: Games and Gaming in Education- Don’t Waste Your Time
  16. Which name is better – Serious Games or Educational Simulations or…?- The Learning Circuits Blog, October 13, 2007
  17. Interactive learning with game-based design principles
  18. More Educational Games- Kapp Notes, August 7, 2008
  19. Examples from TWITCHSPEED.COM Digital Game-Based Learning, June 17, 2009
  20. The Art of Making Video Games- Kapp Notes, June 10, 2008
  21. Linking Commercial Games with Defense
  22. Colleges Play Games- Kapp Notes, May 27, 2008
  23. Casual Games get Serious, June 17, 2009
  24. Aspects of Game- Based Learning
  25. Walk a Mile in My Shoes: Games Let You Do That- Kapp Notes, July 30, 2007
  26. Educause
  27. Digital Game Based Learning
  28. Good Video Games and Good Learning
  29. Digital Games: A Motivational Perspective
  30. The use of computer and video games for learning
  31. For a Better World: Digital Game and the Social Change Sector
  32. Games for Change – Toolkit
  33. Lego Games
  34. Additional Resources for Digital Game-Based Learning
  35. Why Are Video Games Good For Learning?
  36. Teaching Educational Games Resources
  37. using the technology of today, in the classroom today
  38. Simulation Games – A Learning Tool
  39. Video games and the future of learning
  40. moving learning games forward
  41. 36 Learning Games to Change the World
  42. Game Development Research
  43. BBC School Games
  44. Yes You CAN Create E-learning Games- Bozarthzone , June 22, 2007
  45. Apple Learning Games
  46. And You Thought Mechanical Engineering was Boring- Kapp Notes, August 14, 2008
  47. Adopting Digital Game-based Learning: Why and How- Upside Learning Blog, March 26, 2009
  48. ZaidLearn: 75 Free EduGames to Spice Up Your Course!, December 11, 2008
  49. A Theory of Fun- Clive on Learning, August 16, 2007
  50. Games e-Learners Play, April 29, 2009
  51. The treatment matrix- Clive on Learning, August 5, 2008
  52. PDF: Serious games: online games for learning (PDF), June 17, 2009
  53. Where games, sims and 3D worlds meet- Clive on Learning, June 24, 2007
  54. The Top 5 Platforms for Creating Educational Video Games « Educational Games Research, June 17, 2009
  55. Caspian’s ILS taxonomy- Clive on Learning, November 17, 2008
  56. 24 Questions about computer games and education- The Learning Circuits Blog, August 8, 2005
  57. Casual and Serious Digital Games for Learning – Some Considerations- Upside Learning Blog, April 17, 2009
  58. Clark Aldrich’s Style Guide for Serious Games and Simulations: costs for simulation, December 11, 2008
  59. Gadgets, Games and Gizmos: Learning Algebra in a Game- Kapp Notes, November 19, 2006
  60. Latest Issue of The Escapist Focuses on War Games and Gaming, September 23, 2008
  61. Games and the Gamer Generation: Keynote- Kapp Notes, August 10, 2007
  62. Games and Learner Assessment- Kapp Notes, May 30, 2008
  63. World Bank: Serious Games and Urban Planning, October 30, 2006
  64. Top 10 Educational Games of the 1980s- Kapp Notes, September 20, 2008
  65. Game Studies 0102: Cultural framing of computer/video games. By Kurt Squire, June 17, 2009
  66. It’s Monday, Are You Stressed? Relax with a Unique Video Game- Kapp Notes, October 29, 2007
  67. Confessions of an Aca/Fan: The Official Weblog of Henry Jenkins: From Serious Games to Serious Gaming (Part Four): Labyrinth, November 14, 2007
  68. Save Planet Helios from ecological devastation!-3D Game by IBM- Kapp Notes, August 29, 2008
  69. Serious Games: Slideshow of examples from an event at Harvard Business School, December 13, 2007
  70. Email Games, June 17, 2009
  71. Trends with Games, December 23, 2008
  72. Learning Circuits – ASTD’s Online Magazine Covering E-Learning
  73. Learning in Video Games
  74. Hong Kong Digital Game Based Learning Association
  75. Gadgets, Games and Gizmos: MMORPG in ICT Education- Kapp Notes, January 16, 2007
  76. GDC’s Serious Games Summit- Upside Learning Blog, April 3, 2009
  77. Rapid authoring for immersive games and sims- Clive on Learning, January 26, 2009
  78. Gadgets, Games and Gizmos: ESL in SL- Kapp Notes, February 13, 2007
  79. What is a Game? The Art of Computer Game Design, June 17, 2009
  80. TCC09: Digital Learning Environments: Context Sensitive and Imaginative Classes in Second Life, April 14, 2009
  81. Why Most Off the Shelf Commerical Games Will Not Work in Education? And What Is The Alternative?, June 17, 2009
  82. Textra Games, June 17, 2009
  83. Shootorials: Kongregate Teaches You How To Make Your Own Games, October 22, 2008
  84. Predictions for 2009, December 30, 2008
  85. Simulations – Are They Games (PDF), June 17, 2009
  86. Serious Games Enhancing The Rehabilitation Environment, June 17, 2009
  87. Training Games, June 12, 2007
  88. Eight Myths About Video Games Debunked, June 17, 2009
  89. Computer Games and the Military: Two Views, June 17, 2009
  90. Serious Games, June 17, 2009
  91. Social Sites, Design, Informal Learning, & Brain Games, May 4, 2009
  92. Groupboard, May 7, 2008
  93. Why Do People Play Games? – The Art of Computer Game Design, June 17, 2009
  94. Video games are good for you!, February 13, 2009
  95. Army is to Spend $50 Million in Edutainment for Troops, November 25, 2008
  96. Playing with Our Heads – Why Video Games are Making our Kids Smarter-and more obedient, June 17, 2009
  97. Federal Consortium on Virtual Worlds, November 19, 2007
  98. Examples of Games Based Learning, June 17, 2009
  99. Interesting Web Sites for Game-Based Training, e-Learning and Education:, June 17, 2009
  100. Fourteen Forms of Fun, June 17, 2009

I will continue to add links over time and as always open to suggestions so please comment here with links & descriptions and I’ll definitely take a look at the sites suggested and consider inclusion.

Games and learning….

// May 30th, 2010 // No Comments » // e-learning, games

“Where in the World is Carmen Sandiego?” was a very popular gaming series back when I was a kid because it followed the basic cops and robbers theme – you had to chase a crook who escaped to places all over the world using a set of educational clues, and every successful arrest would help you climb up the professional ladder. To cut a long story short, we enjoyed these games, but they were educational too. They focused on teaching geography, history, mathematics and even English.

Today’s kids however would scoff at Carmen Sandiego, inured as they are to multi-player and multi-tasking games like World of Warcraft and Age of Empires. While parents are dead against them, there are a few educational experts who argue that video games, even the ones that are around today, can actually enhance the learning process. Microsoft is leading the way by setting aside $1.5 million to fund The Games for Learning Institute, a joint venture with a few colleges that include the New York University and other reputable institutions. The initiative hopes to see if video games can be designed to help students gain skills that will help them excel in the subjects of mathematics, science and technology.

The problem with today’s games is not that they’re violent and so detrimental to the minds of young children; the more pressing issue is that they’re addictive and end up becoming an overpowering influence in the lives of children who need a more balanced range of activities. Gaming has ruined many a brilliant college student’s life by bringing down their grades (because they’ve been too busy playing and not studying) and by negating their social lives with real people.

Gamers claim that games can encourage scientific thinking because players have to come up with various scientific and mathematical models of the worlds they have to build and defend, and also boost spatial skills and the ability to think and react quickly. We’ve always known that video games improve hand-eye coordination, but now they seem to boost mental acuity as well.

But at the end of the day, the plain truth is that such games are addictive, and the educative value comes out and is of use only if the gamer is able to draw the line between fantasy and real life and never cross it.

Games in Corporate Training? I think so

// January 17th, 2010 // No Comments » // e-learning, games

Learning by playing is neither a new invention nor a gift of the digital times we live in. All of us remember our first toys that taught us to count beads, recognize shapes, build a tower, win a business park, spell words, solve crosswords, and so on. We learned! Very effectively indeed! Because we had fun!

The problem with learning usually starts when it becomes divorced from fun, when it becomes a chore, a “must do”, a training requirement to be accomplished. This is very frequently the case with corporate training. It is seen as a very serious need—which it indeed is. An organization’s productivity, survival, profit, its competitive edge, and everything besides depend on the efficacy of its employees for which ongoing training is needed.

But we also know that putting people in a training room with a trainer and expecting a miraculous ROI to occur never worked—unless the trainer is exceptionally brilliant and knows the pulse of the learners and the organization inside out. This arrangement is also expensive with enough logistic issues (especially if the organization has more than one office in different geographies) to drive even the most placid HR or training department slightly insane.

I have noticed that most companies, realizing this, have resorted to (or will soon resort to because others are doing so) transferring all their training materials to CDs or web-based training that is a little better or sometime worse (because of the lack of a dynamic trainer) than badly designed PPTs. All of this in the name of “just-in-time” training, learner-centric training, use of the web in training, e-learning, and so on. The training department rejoices because now the courses can be tracked, no logistics need to be arranged for, learners do not spend “productive” time away from their desk, learning can happen at a time convenient for the learner, and all of this within the training budget (which is the first thing that has undergone reduction during this recession). And the training department—for whom this has been a new venture (more of a hit-and-miss adventure because they are new to the e-learning concept) can proudly tick off one more task accomplished from their task list.

Training is over; everyone has taken the course. Eighty percent of the learners have received above 80%–the set pass criteria. The rest twenty percent have been sent a mandate to take the program again—within the next three weeks. For the ensuing two quarters, managers, heads of departments, and the training department anxiously follow the productivity matrix, the delivery quality, the client satisfaction surveys, process and project delivery cycles—and come to the conclusion that things are much the same.

The training department head, the initiator of the program, now vaguely recalls the e-learning consultant (someone like me) saying that the kind of program required to make the training effective and bring about a behavioral change in the learner could not be addressed by just simple “click and reveal” slides. This would require an initial investment much higher than the budget put forth. But the end result would be effective. The complexity of the training need required an approach that would bring about the necessary behavioral change. “How”, had been the question from the skeptical training head. “By making the training fun, by incorporating games”, had been the answer. “Oh, games! No, no, not required. We don’t want our employees to play games. They need to be trained to work effectively. Just make all the content available through CDs and the internet.”

What do you all think?