As I progress through this course, I will be periodically commenting on our class resource, Play this, learn that! by Dr. Chris Haskell in this ongoing Blog post.
To being with, we must identify the purpose of the ebook which is to help us find the educational value in commercial games. This will move us beyond the traditional notion of educational games which Haskell calls "serious games" (think Oregon Trail) whose sole purpose is to educate and introduce us to a whole new world of gamification. Haskell points out that we can do this if we use contextual transposition when using a commercial game. In other words, if we change the context and goal of a game, we can adapt it to our educational needs. I don't have much experience in doing this so I am eager to try this out. Computer games are an appealing and motivating teaching medium and we are just starting to see the potential it can have on learners. We keep talking about how we need to adapt to the needs of the 21st Century learner and gamifying our learning environments may be a great place to start.
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