Part 1: Motivation
Emerging readings, research, environments & change factors that require or validate a move into game-based learning.
2017
Demystifying the challenges of GBL: Teacher professional learning needs
Recent articles report that digital game based learning (GBL) has been embraced as a welcome solution to low levels of student engagement, and also as a new way to realise transformative learning experiences within the everyday classroom. …
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Digital and Information Literacy in Higher Education through Game-based learning
In an increasingly online world our society is becoming more and more reliant on information to operate. We live in an ‘information society’ where a lot of our wealth, employment and socio-cultural activities are driven by information (Bawden & Robinson, 2012, p.231). With so much information currently available and more …
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Game based learning in secondary school libraries: Getting teacher librarians on board
A school library is a communal learning space where students can read, think, study, research, inquire, discuss, use technology and socialise. Secondary school libraries provide access to physical and digital learning spaces using a variety of print, digital and multimedia resources to support the curriculum and recreational needs of students …
Go with the Flow? The implications of flow on game-based learning and video game addiction
The presence of technology, electronic media devices, the internet, and video games is so prevalent in our culture, society, and daily lives that most people will have at some point felt the state of optimal experience, known as “Flow”, that comes from total immersion or involvement in an activity …
How can Game Based Learning re-engage students with high behavioural issues in the primary English classroom?
From the beginning of classroom education, there has always been students, who struggled to learn in these strict, teaching controlled environments. These students have difficultly learning for many reasons and are considered at-risk of reaching their learning potential (Yong & Ping, 2008, p. 521). Students who are at-risk disengage from …
How can we help you? Digital Game-Based Learning and public libraries
Public libraries, while not being formal institutions of learning, have traditionally existed to provide public access to informal, lifelong learning, and have acted as gateways to new information technologies (Gilton, 2016, p. 3). From typewriters, to the first personal computers, print services and the Internet, to modern computers, handheld devices …
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Let’s Play: Where will it fit?
This chapter discusses the advantages of Game Based Learning in the classroom setting and the benefits that arise from student exposure. The challenge of time constraints and teacher education in order to prepare students with the necessary 21st century skills can easily be accomplished with the introduction of games into …
Lunchtime Gaming in the School Library: It’s more than just child’s play
Over the years, there has been much research into the important role of games in education. As a result, it is now generally accepted that digital game based learning has a place in the classroom, as games have the potential to develop a wide range of useful skills. But where …
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The future of education is fun!
Learning should be fun! Digital immigrants think learning can’t (or shouldn’t) be fun (Prensky, 2001, p. 3). Why shouldn’t education be fun and engaging for digital natives who have grown up with technology integrated into their social and home environments. Perhaps digital immigrants do not understand the value which technology …
Video game literacy through design
Our students are surrounded by information and communication messages in an audio visual world, where the lines of communication and persuasion are blurred between fact and reality. They access information across digital and print, and via social media, videos, games and other modes of information. For our students to be …
2016
Games and Information Literacy: Considerations for teacher-librarians
The digital age has brought technological changes and with this new information and social environments. It is widely accepted that information is now everywhere and in this connected and networked environment, there is an amplified ability to access and use nearly unlimited resources. This has implications for the skills students …
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Immersive Schooling
Welcome to this new imagining of Immersive Schooling. Inspired by a forthcoming renaissance in Virtual Reality (VR), this chapter seeks to unpack an investigation of Immersive VR Multi-User Virtual Environments (MUVEs) as a potential platform for schooling. Figures 1 & 2 show how VR/MUVEs look in a classroom environment …
Instructions for play: Games based learning in the Primary classroom
Digital Games Based Learning is a 21st Century approach to education. The 21st Century will change the way that people utilise technology. Educators will need to adapt pedagogy to ensure that 21st century students are learning 21st century skills Saavedra, & Opfer (2012), Robinson (2010). Surely then this adaptation must …
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Learning Literacy: A modern, game-based approach to mastering an age-old skill
The basic skills of literacy and numeracy are still of vital importance in the modern era, but are consistently seen as areas of concern in Australian classrooms. As game-based learning continues to grow as a proven methodology for engaging young learners, integrating games into educational contexts in order to enhance …
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Learn, Thrive, Connect: GBL as library orientation to engage senior secondary students with their school library
Senior secondary students (Year 11 and 12) are bringing preconceived and stereotypical ideas of their school library experience with them from high school, particularly within the feeder area of this particular school (‘School X’). This leads to minimal engagement with the library within the first crucial weeks of their college …
Re-imagining Mathematics: Motivating secondary students to reengage in the Mathematics Classroom.
Learning mathematics presents various challenges for many children and many students come to the high school Mathematics classroom disenchanted with their ability to learn maths. They have switched off and decided that it is all too hard and that they will never be able to do it. Game Based Learning …
Repetition to Re-imagination: How games-based learning can enhance science education for modern Primary-aged learners
This paper discusses the current state of Science Education in Australia, and builds a case for the integration of Games-Based Learning (GBL) as a potential strategy to increase the scientific literacy of students. Research has informed us that students consider science lessons to be boring, with a content heavy, note …
Teaching Addiction? Pitfalls and Prevention in Games Based Learning
Since the onset and subsequent rise in popularity of video games, many educators have been using the fascination and captivity that games provide as an educational tool. Digital games give students immediate feedback, cognitive rewards and leave the player wanting more, long after they are finished playing …
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2015
Constructor, co-constructor and de-constructor: GBL defining the 21st century learner
At the turn of the 21st century, Henry Jenkins predicted that video games would be the ‘art form for the digital age’. In 2007, Edward Castronova (2007, p.xiv) warned of the exodus of “…people from the real world…” into video games and synthetic worlds. Six years later, Zimmerman (2013) …
Digital game-based learning levels up digital literacies
Digital literacies and digital game-based learning (DGBL) are both concepts that have emerged in the educational arena since digital technologies have become all pervasive in every aspect of society. With mobile technologies continuing to develop, games are being used more and more by people of all generations and schools are …
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Games as a professional development option for workplace training
Educators and researchers involved in games for learning understand the potential that games offer to develop 21st Century skills that are important for students entering the workforce. The intent of this paper is to demonstrate the potential of games to build from that base and to show how games may …
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Girls, Games & Science
The overall number of students sitting the HSC increased between 1992 and 2014, however, in this same timeframe, the number of students studying a Science subject for the HSC (for example, Chemistry, Biology and Physics) has not maintained the same trend (Phillips, 2014). The percentages of females studying each of …
Inside the Magic Circle: Using Digital Games to Teach Ethics
Computer games are a valuable tool when it comes to teaching and learning. This is particularly true for the teaching and learning of ethics, as games create an isolated virtual context where players can experiment with their behaviour and actions in a safe environment. This isolated context is referred to …
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Let them play: DGBL as a creative use of technology that can help transform primary school education into an innovative learning space
We are living in a time of rapid change, in a society reliant on innovation. Educational institutions, long thought of as society’s way of preparing children for the future, are largely the products of technology infrastructure and social circumstances of the past (Davies, Fidler & Gorber, 2011, p. 13) and …
Meaningful DGBL experiences
Students, teachers, policy makers and parents should be motivated by the value that digital game based learning (DGBL) activities offer for schools. The implementation of DGBL has, however, faced social and cultural challenges that have resulted in a slow acceptance of their technologies in mainstream classrooms. Modern approaches to DGBL …
Pedagogical changes inspired by Good Game Design
New technologies have led to students processing and transmitting information differently compared to previous generations. This generation of students is known for playing video games for hours outside of school and whilst there are still concerns and negative stereotypes associated with video games and education, a good teacher can manage …
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Playing our way back into learning
Introduction. Despite the changing society in which our modern students live, surrounded by multimodal forms of information, education has stuck primarily with text based forms of instruction (Kovacevic, Minovic, Milovanovic, Ordonez de Pablos & Starcevic, 2013). The attention span of learners in the twenty-first century is limited and needs to …
Master of Education (Knowledge Networks and Digital Innovation) developed by the
School of Information Studies, Charles Sturt University, 2017.
