An Introduction to Educational Games

Jane McGonigal on Gaming

In her 2010 TED Talk, Gaming Can Make a Better World , Jane McGonigal, pinpointed four skills that gaming engenders:

1. Urgent optimism
   • Gamers believe they can succeed because in well-designed games, it is always possible to win.
2. Social fabric
   • Gamers build trust with the people they play with, and even against.
3. Blissful productivity
   • Gamers work hard (and long hours) if the game feels challenging and meaningful.
4. Epic meaning
   • Powerful games have great and important missions at their core, so gamers feel that they are doing something important.

The problem, according to McGonigal, is that gamers are making a difference in virtual worlds… not the real one. When games are about virtual worlds, they can easily become a form of escape from the problems we face, both locally and globally.

Here’s where educational games come in.

As an educational game designer, McGonigal believes in harnessing the power of games to create optimistic, collaborative, and productive gamers who want to do meaningful work to tackle real world problems. With games like World Without Oil and Superstruct, she has sought to develop gamers interested in solving real problems like oil dependency and food scarcity.

So, What Are Educational Games?

It is a commonplace that education is about preparing youth for work, while games are about work’s nemesis – play. Just think of the proverb immortalized in Stanley Kubrick’s iconic adaptation of Stephen King’s The Shining (1980): “All work and no play makes Jack a dull boy.”

Seen in this light, education and games might seem like case of strange bedfellows. And in their application, they often are. During my career as an itinerant English language teacher, I have seen many teachers reach for a game as a reward on a Friday afternoon for all the toil students endured Monday through Thursday: a break from the routine of work. There is nothing inherently wrong with this practice, but educational games can be something more.

Considering the global popularity of video games (check out data compiled by WePC), particularly in the Asia-Pacific region, North America, and Western Europe, and especially among children and young adults, educators would do well to consider ways to integrate education and games – particularly digital ones – into their course plans. Games can be more than mere Friday afternoon reprieves.

Over the past few decades, some educators have been pushing for the use of digital games in education. Some twenty years ago, Marc Prensky (2001) argued that young people today have significantly different cognitive preferences than their predecessors, preferring twitch speed to a slower pace, seeing technology as an asset instead of an inconvenience, valuing payoff over patience, and prizing play over work. Jenkins, Clinton, Purushotma, Robison, and Weigel (2006) see play as an essential 21^st century literacy skill, “one that encourages experimentation and risk-taking … [and] views the process of solving a problem as important as finding the answer” (p. 24). As mentioned above, McGonigal (2010) identifies four desirable skills – or attributes – that games engender.

A Working Definition

An educational game, then, might be defined as a tool – usually digital – that educators can employ to harness the inclinations and skills of many of today’s learners in order to achieve educational goals and objectives.

Whether or not an educational game is effective in a particular context depends on a wide range of variables, including content, the type of game, attitude (of both teacher and learner), and access.

References

Jenkins, H., Clinton, K., Purushotma, R., Robison, A. J., & Weigel, M. (2006). Confronting the challenges of participatory culture: Media education for the 21^st century [PDF file]. John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation. Retrieved from https://www.macfound.org/media/article_pdfs/JENKINS_WHITE_PAPER.PDF

Kubrick, S. (Producer), & Kubrick, S. (Director). (1980). The shining [motion picture]. United States: Warner Brothers.

McGonigal, J. (2010, February). Gaming can make a better world [Video file]. Retrieved from https://www.ted.com/talks/jane_mcgonigal_gaming_can_make_a_better_world

Prensky, M. (2001). Digital game-based learning. St. Paul, MN: Paragon.