Part 2: Provocation
Case studies, environmental scans, situational analysis, or other activities that illustrate games-based learning in action.
2017
A Journey to Discovery: Using DGBL to teach for empathy and understanding in Australian History
One of the most challenging and rewarding aspects of education is the opportunity to evaluate and redesign curriculum units to make them more effective and relevant to students. Research has suggested that History, when compared with other school subjects, is more likely to be lacklustre and challenging for learners, with …
Engaging early years in digital gaming
Play based education has been a foundation of learning for centuries. The combination of the best methods of constructivism makes this style of learning effective. With the continuing growth of digital spaces and the internet, education is starting to move in to digital spaces. In this chapter I will examine …
Exploring GBL in History classrooms: Using BreakoutEdu as a physical and digital game to teach senior history
Gaming has become an undisputed part of our culture over the past three decades, and Game Based Learning (GBL) in education will become increasingly embedded in 21st century curriculum. Gaming is an industry that has shown accelerated growth, with various sources all showing a high percentage of the population regularly …
Exploring the sustainability of GBL in the secondary context: An environmental scan
In recent years, it has been suggested that game-based learning (GBL) should be adopted into the educational setting (NHR, 2014, p.38). Since then, schooling institutions have been implementing it with varying degrees of success. This chapter will consist of an environmental scan of a secondary school in regional Victoria, Australia …
Public Sector Ethics Act: Promoting understanding and effective behavioural changes in the creation of a serious game for the education of employees in the concepts of the Public Sector Ethics Act
This chapter is focused on a case study on the creation and rollout of a serious game on public sector ethics within a government organisation. It was a serious game developed by the author and had the aim of creating awareness of the participants’ obligations under the Public Sector Ethics …
Resiliency, Goal Setting, Empathy and Relationships: Introducing Digital Games to the National Draft HPE Syllabus
With the National HPE Syllabus currently in the final consultation stage (as at May, 2017), now is the perfect time for teachers to further develop their use of digital games in the classroom, or perhaps embark on including them in units of work ensure more comprehensive engagement with 21st century learners …
2016
A whole new game: digital games, information literacy and the school library
School libraries are moving beyond recreational gaming within their spaces to integrate digital games into teaching practice. This experiential case study looks at how digital games and digital game based learning (DGBL) may be used to teach concepts of information and digital literacies as part of the school library program …
Click here to read A whole new game: digital games, information literacy and the school library
Designing a Gameful Language Learning Classroom
Over the last decade or so, the use of digital games, and the techniques learned from them, to improve engagement in educational contexts has enjoyed a great deal of attention (Seaborn & Fels, 2015). Digital games have been recognised for their potential to engage users with “unparalleled intensity and …
Click here to read Designing a Gameful Language Learning Classroom
Fight For Your Life: Game Based Learning in a Public Library
Fight For Your Life is a game created in a public library as a means of informally teaching children about New Zealand ecology. The primary purpose was to teach players about New Zealand native animals and the roles of pests and hunting, with a secondary aim to teach players the …
Click here to read Fight For Your Life: Game Based Learning in a Public Library
Gold Rush – Using Minecraft EDU to reimagine Stage 3 teaching of the gold rush years.
Playing digital games introduces layers for conceptual learning and new taxonomies for pedagogical design and educators are coming to understand the complex learning that can occur in game play, “It’s the new age of learning”. This work is a provocation to action for the introduction of DGBL elements within existing …
Click here to read Gold Rush – Using Minecraft EDU to reimagine Stage 3 teaching of the gold rush years.
How game-based learning constructs, and their characteristics benefit, adult learners
Educators have a theory on teaching and learning whether implicit or explicit. How we engage with adult learners gets expressed and enacted through the tools we use (or don’t use), including where we stand in our educational environments be it face-to-face or virtually. Currently traditional theoretical frameworks can be grouped …
Students as Game Designers
Learning activities in schools have not supported engagement of … gamers, who are often students in schools (Lim, 2008, p. 997). This work acts as a provocation for schools that are considering introducing students to game design as an educational learning experience. The provocation was triggered by the unexpected outcomes …
The Raw Facts: Examining the effectiveness of exclusive Digital Game Based Learning by directly comparing it to conventional teaching within a unit of work in secondary level Geography
Computer games have increasingly become a fundamental part in most of the current cultures of the World (Oblinger, 2004). With an exponential growth and advancement of this current technology along with the accumulative access to these forms of media, it comes with no surprise that the industry has become one …
2015
Digital Playgrounds
How can teaching and learning be informed by a playful immersion in virtual spaces? Educators have been challenged to develop an understanding of gaming environments so as to make use of them in education (Van Eck, 2007). Not just as tools to gloss over traditional education but for establishing substantially …
Good Game Design, Transmedia Storytelling & the Challenge of Engaging the ‘Net’ Generation
When it comes to the holding power of video games, you can’t go past games such as World of Warcraft, Grand Theft Auto and Civilization. All three have been around for more than 10 years and have clearly struck a chord with the video gaming public as evidenced by their …
Information Behaviour in World of Warcraft
Hordes of people spend countless hours creating detailed strategies, online resources, and video tutorials. An alliance of like-minded individuals discuss data, learning how to optimise situations from wildly varied minutiae. Statistics are analysed, theories crafted, support networks activated, reflective debriefs held, and cross-functional teams brought together from across the globe …
Click here to read Information Behaviour in World of Warcraft
What can playing (and designing) games teach us about learning?
The promises and challenges of Game Based Learning (GBL) for secondary education seem to be as elusive today as they were when educators first experimented within the field. The challenge laid out is to provide seeds of opportunity to bring games into a contemporary classroom within a school that has …
Click here to read What can playing (and designing) games teach us about learning?
Master of Education (Knowledge Networks and Digital Innovation) developed by the
School of Information Studies, Charles Sturt University, 2017.
