Myths about Serious Games & Improving Public Policy through Game-Based Learning
Two articles of note: Ben Sawyer debunks ten myths about serious games over at The Escapist Magazine:
“The serious games field is rife with misconceptions because it encompasses so much. To help spread the truth about serious games, let’s debunk 10 of the biggest myths about the genre [...]
Serious Games are for Learning and Training
The most notorious myth is the notion that serious games are edutainment repackaged under a different moniker. Nothing could be further from the truth. A rich set of games based on goals other than education, including health-related therapies, exercise, public opinion research and economic studies, have enjoyed success. In fact, making a game that teaches a specific lesson is one of the hardest design goals to accomplish. Serious games that act more like utilities and exist beyond education offer a lot of promise for the field’s future.” [more!]
And on a related note, the folks at DigitalMill have published a white paper called
Serious Games: Improving Public Policy through Game-Based
Learning and Simulation
In today’s public policy environment, computer simulations have become important modern-age tools used to affect the policy debate and implementation process in a variety of areas. Whether they run on supercomputers in the national labs or use off-the-shelf statistical packages and spreadsheets, complex models and simulations are critical in helping scientists, policymakers, and others forecast, examine, and educate people concerning the potential outcomes and effects of public policy.
Given the importance of these models and simulations, it is critical to examine if they are being built as accurately and effectively as possible and whether the models are reaching the widest possible audience. This paper, written by a leading web-technology firm, examines the promise of game-based simulation as applied to public policy.
A Polis of Pixels: Social Networking for Classics Instructors
I am a member of the ‘eclassics social network’, which was recently written up in the case studies section of the Higher Education Academy’s Subject Centre for History, Classics & Archaeology. The response to this social network in classics circles, as documented by Andrew Reinhard, is quite interesting… read the case study.
“The eClassics website was created to build a bridge between Classics teachers and technology, and between technologically enabled teachers and those instructors who describe themselves as technophobic. By creating a virtual, comfortable, even fun meeting space to candidly discuss the topic of integrating technology into the Classics classroom, we can begin to break down barriers between the perception of technology as “scary” and its genuine usefulness to language learning. Recently developed technological applications, specifically software in the Web 2.0 toolkit (wikis, blogs, social networking, and the like), can blend traditional book learning with a more kinetic, active approach to exploring how language works. This new pedagogy of active learning better suits modern students. eClassics serves as the nexus connecting teachers to technology and, ultimately, to those students….”
