"rhaps the best way to think about games in education is not to automatically call everything that looks like fun a “learning game.” Lumping all digital game approaches together makes no more sense than a toddler’s inclination to call every four-legged animal a “doggie.”
Game interest is definitely on the upswing in K-12 and higher education. It seems almost cyclical: every several years, almost in sync with the acceptance of new technologies (such as multimedia CD-ROM, then online, then mobile), there’s a surge of activity with games in education.
But everything game-like is not a game. And while game purists may wince at this simplification, it helps to consider games in education in terms of gamification, simulation and (simply) games. The three approaches aren’t always exclusive – they’re more of a continuum, or a Venn diagram’s overlapping circles – but they are notably different."
"The Heros Journey A Junior Level Honors Guide to The Joseph Campbell Monomyth"
"Lecture 1 of 4 in the Game Design Class, Fall 2012 - Structure of Games: introduction to formal, dramatic, spatial elements, and a definition of games."
"This talk explores how we can use game mechanics to facilitate more engaging and inspiring learning experiences for our students. The talk was presented during Learning Innovation Talks 02 held at Taylor's "
"Researchers from UCL are analysing a serious game called TARGET to see if it could help workers develop skills such as negotiating and trust-building in the workplace.
Serious games are video games designed for a primary purpose other than pure entertainment. A collaborative project between 17 partners, including UCL, TARGET aims to use the Technology Enhanced Learning (TEL) environment provided by the game to support the development of workers."
"When adding game elements to your site or business, be sure to incorporate a way for current customers to recruit new ones, says gamification expert Gabe Zichermann. Unlike loyalty programs, which can reinforce behaviors of existing customers, the "viral nature" of gamification can help attract new customers to your business. "At the very heart of what you're trying to do with gamification is to get people to come in, keep coming in and bring their friends to create a cycle in which your products, services and egagement drive customer adoption," Zichermann says."
Engagement is a good thing, of course. The preference to be not bored is pretty universal. But with time constraints and information overload, getting and maintaining people's already short attention spans is harder than ever. So, marketers and content specialists are turning to gamification as the latest Holy Grail.
Too bad they don't know what they're doing.
Gamification without solid core ideas to communicate, and a clear, concise method of doing so, is doomed to fail. It's about as effective as taking a PowerPoint deck and just changing every fifth slide to read “REMEMBER TO HAVE FUN!” Attention getting? Maybe. More effective communication? No. Just lipstick on a pig.
"This week in the GBase, we have three new examples added for Finance, Consumer Applications, and Productivity:"
Games are fun—well, unless you’re playing with your super-competitive friend. And we all have one, don’t we? Still, for the most part, games are entertaining—and that’s why gamification has taken off as a technique to entice people to adopt various applications and processes.
Gamification is defined as the use of game design techniques, game thinking, and game mechanics to enhance non-game contexts. In other words, gamification gets people interested in something they otherwise wouldn’t notice while also encouraging them to compete in game-like activities.
If two start-ups have their way, videogames might cure more than just boredom. They could also be used to treat attention-deficit hyperactivity disorder.
Games are increasingly popular in our workplaces today — and I don’t mean those time-wasters we play between meetings. Games used to achieve a business result, such as corporate learning or customer education, have recently entered mainstream conversation, even though they’ve been around for years.
Gamification is defined as using game technology in a website, service, community or application in order to drive participation. It’s a perfect way to create customer engagement or employee participation. Companies big and small are examining the impact of games on their business.
Learning can be fun when you make a game out of it. That premise underlies the decision of an online learning platform to use game mechanics to engage college students. It works by motivating students to join, participate, contribute and share their successes.
Links to everything that is serious gaming
Welcome to the serious games list, a website made for you who are interested in working within the field of serious games or want to get in touch with the serious games industry. Whether you are looking for games, developers, publishers, organisations, educations, or researchers, we intend to make this site the essential place for you to visit to take your project forward.
Serious Games means Serious Learning for organizations. Sealund is committed to help organizations benefit from Serious Games by engaging learners in experiences which increase retention and improve performance.
Sealund is proud to be a pioneer offering Serious Games to Fortune 1000 Corporations and organizations globally. Sealund has integrated Serious Games into eLearning since 1985. Today, Sealund offers Serious Games to support increased engagement and retention of important information
Sealund's Serious Games include Serious Games Engines, off-the-shelf products and customized Serious Games solutions.
To some people, gamification — the method of applying game mechanics and philosophy to nongaming applications in the real world — is a dirty word. Video games, after all, are more than just their mechanics: Some have elaborate narratives, fantastic musical soundtracks, and appealing graphics that all come together to create a seamless experience. When you strip a game down solely to its mechanics, it can seem cheap, soulless, and even exploitative when it comes to businesses and corporations using gamification for their own interests.
But gamification isn’t about creating games. It’s about enhancing user engagement, something game developers know how to do. And as witnessed at this year’s recent Gamification Summit held in San Francisco, game designers are clearly interested in helping this new industry with its growing pains.
Game-Based Learning, and particularly serious games that teach content, are fast becoming utilized in the classroom. Frequent success stories are appearing, from Minecraft in the elementary classroom to games that teach civics. There is curriculum that pairs World of Warcraft with language arts standards, and many other variations where the gaming focus is on content. What about 21st century skills? Yes, games can be used to teach and assess 21st century skills! As the conversation in education reform moves forward, and educators are increasingly leveraging 21st century skills, we need to consider how to couple games with reform. Let's take a look at what many consider the top three 21st century skills and how games can teach and assess them.
The gamification trend and how it has developed over the past year.