Educational Gaming- what’s it all about?

Dave Warfield, Head of Game Design at VFS, announces the Award for Outstanding Educational Contribution by Vancouver Film School is licensed under CC BY 2.0

Sometimes an enemy becomes a friend. Gaming is one such entity. What was frowned upon by many as an addiction which was bad for kids is now becoming the favoured learning tool. The inherent addictiveness of popular games is in itself the attraction for folks who teach. They want to know - what makes a game so addictive that people can play it for hours on end?  If students kept at a subject with that much interest, the learning curve would become history!

History of Play

Historically games have been used as a means to learn. The young in the wild play with older members to learn the ways of their kind. Chess was commonly used to learn about strategy. Kriegsspiel, a game created for training Prussian officers was played by volunteers during the civil war. Friedrich Frobel called his Play and Activity institute a kindergarten, setting the foundation for modern day education of our young.

The creation of Edutainment

Games came on to electronic devices a few decades ago. Educationists who saw the interest kids had in gaming understood the potential of bundling a game with learning. Games can be intrinsically learning with a dash of entertainment or largely entertaining with some incidental learning. With all these bridges happening, educational entertainment morphed into ‘edutainment’.

Music, video, TV and now Games

Edutainment first became popular via music and video with shows like Sesame Street and Bill Nye the Science Guy. Many TV shows became games. Then many games introduced elements of education. Games can help kids learn concepts, understand subjects or even pick up a skill.

A billion dollar industry has mushroomed around the gaming industry. Even as casual gaming is cultivating a wider audience, the educational gaming industry is using high tech to reach kids and hold their interest. Interestingly, our classrooms, teaching and evaluation methods are changing to keep pace with this change.

The cons

Even as gaming is gaining a strong foothold, there are those who worry about the psychological and social side effects of gaming. That is for another day.