What are Educational Games?
What are Educational Games?
What are Educational Games?
We often approach applied games with a sense of their overall purpose. Commercial games are developed because they are vehicles for commerce. They are a product to be sold or subscribed to for the purposes of entertainment.
But when examining applied games, serious games, and games-based learning, we can see that there are other uses for games. Namely educational games. But what are educational games exactly? Are they the same as learning games? How can we best leverage them for games-based learning?
This article will define educational games. It’ll explore why we should consider using educational games for teaching and learning as well as explore the evolution of educational games over time.
Specific disciplines and how they are addressed by educational games will be discussed as well as different types of educational games. Engagement and efficacy of educational games will be covered as well as how they are interpreted by players through the player experience.
Finally, this article will close on serious games as educational games and how we can use them as vehicles for teaching and learning through games-based learning.
Definition of Educational Games
So, what exactly are educational games? Educational games are games that are explicitly designed with educational purposes in mind and inherently posse educational value. The way that they accomplish this, is through the reinforcement of previously learned knowledge as well as through play to learn new information and skills.
Often the education to be had from educational games is learned through playing in the game in the experiential learning loop. Many educational games apply this through enjoyable and interactive experiences. As such, these games are designed and created for educational purposes and target specific age groups, learners, and subject areas. Often, these games are designed to make the learning process more engaging, effective, and entertaining.
Educational games are often defined when they are demonstrated to teach specific subjects or skills. These are most often observed with children or through students’ using toys and play that can be applied both inside and outside of the classroom. Therefore, educational games are a type of serious gaming with a specific focus on learning outcomes.
Educational games are often deployed with children and young students, because of their need and desire to play. This play often represents an experiential learning cycle that games are structured to provide. As such, educational games take advantage of this need for play and offer players opportunities for self-discovery and personal development through interaction with them. Later, they can be used by more mature learners as more structured activities with a deeper educational focus as well as high fidelity simulations of real-life situations.
Why Educational Games?
So why use educational games at all? Educational games are useful because they leverage two important characteristics: agency and play. Through both elements, players are provided the opportunities to learn from diverse and different areas. The use of agency and decision making in educational games create a natural means of experiential learning over rote memorization.
The way that players and learners engage with educational games makes it an activity that cannot be done passively. Therefore, educational games tap into intrinsic and extrinsic motivations of players to learn. These motivations are harnessed in concert with other formal game elements to create fun, engaging, and influential venues for learners to make learning more enjoyable and productive.
This means that educational games have been used in the past to adapt and transform traditional classrooms into more engaging learning experiences. This can also take place with games-based learning and serious games when educational video games are applied to encourage creative thinking and problem solving for students.
Certain educational games also have the added benefit of teaching soft skills such as communication and collaboration as well as meet other more concrete learning outcomes. The applications of learning games as whole, are open as they can provide more actionable feedback; positive reinforcement; and scaffolding which makes more complex subjects approachable for learners.
Perhaps the most important element to educational games is that they emphasize continuous improvement rather than relying on students to complete high stakes assessments where they do not have the opportunity to learn from past mistakes. Additionally, educational games can also be used independent of synchronous class time and can instead be assigned as homework or as an independent learning activity for students to complete.
Evolution of Educational Games
Many believe that educational games are a recent and modern invention. But games have been used as educational tools for centuries. The real change in modernity has been how educational games are applied; adapted; employed; and assessed for teaching and learning.
Some of the first games in ancient civilizations such as Egypt and Mesopotamia were board games and puzzles that used formal game elements, logic, and critical thinking to educate their players. These early games later evolved into the modern adaptations of strategy games seen in chess that retains the original frameworks from its earlier predecessors.
Modern shifts have come from the adaptation of these early board games into the evolution of video games and then digital educational games. The latter providing more immersive experiences for learning and social skill development.
One of the earliest developments of these digital educational games was the 1970’s Oregon Trail as released by the Minnesota Educational Computing Consortium (MECC). The 1980’s saw the rise of even more popular digital educational games such as Where in the World is Carmen San Diego, Reader Rabbit, and Math Blaster! to name a few.
These games later set the stage for 1990’s games that leveraged the power of the internet to game online with titles like Whyville and other virtual worlds and simulations. The 2000’s internet also provided the means and ways for laypersons to develop their own digital educational games from using programming languages like Scratch. This ushered in the development of games like Big Brain Academy and Little Big Planet.
Since then, simulation games have increased in style and scope and become professionalized in their application and use not only for technical skills but applied to broader training context for adult learning and development.
Contemporary examples of educational games in the 2010’s have been adapted for educational purposes from their original commercial intent. This can be seen in Minecraft for its open world potential as both educators and designers continue to push the value and application of educational games for teaching and learning.
Disciplines of Educational Games
There are several different disciplines that can be incorporated into educational games. The following are some of the most popular ones that have been integrated; but is not a comprehensive list. This is because educational game and serious game designers continue to iterate and evolve the use and application of educational games over time.
Mathematical educational games teach learners different mathematical concepts such as addition, subtraction, multiplication and division. More advanced mathematical educational games exist that address concepts such as algebra and geometry. Conversely, language arts focused educational games concentrate on the development of language skills for learners such as spelling, grammar, vocabulary and reading comprehension.
Likewise, science based educational games are more focused on applications of scientific principles in diverse fields such as biology, chemistry, physics, astronomy, and other science related subjects. History and social studies educational games present content for students within historical contexts such as geography. This is done so that players are provided with the structure and theme to understand events as they took place during different historical periods.
Finally, language arts educational games are designed to help learners practice and improve their proficiency with languages and often represent one of the most popular types of language games and applications of games-based learning.
No matter the type of educational game, virtually all games can be applied for effective education of diverse skills. Educational games are not limited to only one discipline within a single game. Games can be applied to include and teach multiple different subject areas. Gamification can also be leveraged to enhance collaboration and cooperation among players: an additional soft skill that accompanies player interaction.
Types of Educational Games
While educational games encompass many different disciplines; they also exist in many different types and modalities. Educational games can be board games, card games, mobile games, and video games. Educational games can also exist on online platforms and can be used in schools, universities, homes, and other educational settings.
They can be used as supplementary materials as part of a holistic curriculum or serve as anchor content for a particular class or course. The overall idea of educational games is to leverage the inherent intrinsic motivation of players to engage with the game that provides an experiential learning activity.
The result of which is why learning games are powerful mediums for interactive play. The nature of games includes structures such as rules and goals which provide opportunities for the player to adapt their goals to the game and solve problems and challenges within it. Often this comes with necessary social interaction for cooperative circumstances. The results of which are experiences that provide enjoyment as well as outlets for creativity in applied games.
Specifically, recall and retrieval educational games are often found in quizzes, and other forms of formative and summative assessments in learning content. Whereas some other types of educational games focus on memory skills that often involve recognizable mechanics such as matching pairs and remembering items.
More in-depth applications of educational games require adept strategic thinking. This can come from simple and rudimentary games such as Connect Four to older and deeper ones such as draughts and chess. Likewise, word-building games exist as a means for learners to engage and experience the application of words in unique circumstances.
Lastly, dexterity games require players to practice specific hand-eye coordination as well as fine and major motor skills dependent on the game and the required physical input from the learner.
Engagement and Efficacy in Educational Games
One of the hallmarks of influential and engaging educational games is their adaptability. Educational games come in various forms, and they can all be adapted to different teaching styles, learning styles, and subjects. Therefore, the effectiveness and overall efficacy of educational games relies on the game mechanics and the level of engagement that they can provide to learners.
The greatest outcome that highly effective educational games can have on learners is by influencing the experiential learning cycle through the provision of immediate feedback. Educational games that provide immediate feedback to learners allow them to learn from their mistakes, make corrections, and reinforce their application and understanding in real time.
Such a fast form of feedback and iterative reinforcement are best deployed to mitigate inattentiveness that may exist for students learning in a more traditional environment. Therefore, the overall efficacy of effective educational games is based not only on the adaptation of educational content to practice; but on how mechanics in the game provide feedback to learners through their engagement. This engagement is more adequately covered in the review of the player experience for educational gamers.
The Player Experience in Educational Games
The player experience is one that best encompasses the interpretation of gameplay for learners. It is here whether educational game designers need to best balance playability with fun and learning design when creating educational games.
Fun is an often sought after result for designing commercial games. Educational games can also benefit from being fun as a means for attracting and retaining players in the game. The result of which is a means for players to reduce idleness and passivity that often accompanies other forms of educational engagement and instead replace it with highly engaging and interactive experiences through educational play.
Therefore, fun learning boosts motivation for ongoing learning and education that will hopefully transcend and extend beyond a traditional learning environment. This is also seen and observed in more social interactions and learning environments that don’t rely solely on the player interacting with the game but also encompasses the interactions (and often competition) with other players to participate in the game.
The result of which is usually high individual learner motivation and interest which is crucial for educational game success. Often this occurs as a means of successful deployment of serious games that are created specifically from the ground up for purposes other than entertainment.
Serious Games as Educational Games
Serious games are games designed for a serious purpose. Often for reasons other than pure entertainment. Therefore, educational games created for teaching and learning serve the same purpose. Examining educational games through the lens of serious gaming positions educational games as an opportune platform for learning and problem solving.
These educational games that are also developed as serious games often see use in different sectors such as healthcare; marketing; and education. One of the most applicable uses of such serious educational games is for direct vocational training. This is often necessary as educational games provide the experiential framework for knowledge creation through experiential learning.
A common companion to both educational games and serious games is applied gamification. Gamification is often used to address training needs in specific areas and emphasizes the intrinsic motivation of players to continue engaging with content and improving various skills. The need and connection of both educational games and gamification in education have led to the creation of the Serious Games initiative which addresses the development of games for specific purposes such as policy and management issues.
The connection is often a worthwhile one as the platform “Game of Island” has demonstrated that serious educational games can contribute to improving skills in sustainability, teamwork, innovation, and creativity.
While serious educational games can vary in scope and modality; they are often best represented and deployed as digital initiatives. This allows them to be consumed on various different devices including desktop and laptop computers; mobile phones; and tablets. This flexibility of modality has gone so far as to reimagine the term “serious game” to explore the application of “game science” which connects both game studies with scientific capabilities. This focus has expanded to include learning behaviors, design metaphors and the overall greater impact of games in education.
Games-Based Learning and Educational Games
While serious games encompass games created for reasons other than entertainment and commercial uses; games-based learning encompasses the overall application of games for teaching and learning. Educational games have a role to play here as virtually any game can be used for educational purposes, given they are deployed in concert with a curricular plan and used with an intentional educator.
This makes games-based learning – or learning through the application of games as the medium for learning – a more flexible approach. This is because commercially available games that may already be familiar to learners may be augmented and deployed for such educational uses. This can even be combined with various other pedagogies to enhance student success.
Therefore, the overall flexibility of games-based learning used in concert with supplemental teaching programs helps aid both educators and learners alike. Additionally, the different types and modalities of games that can be used for this purpose are as innumerable as the games themselves.
The most critical area of successful games-based learning application lies in how educators use the various platforms for their own educational purposes. One cannot simply choose a game, play it; and hope that learning will occur. Instead, games – like any other form of content or media – must be chosen and deployed deliberately with specific learning outcomes in mind to be successful.
One of the most deliberate actions that educators can take when choosing games for games-based learning is determining how the core loop of the game reinforces the specific outcome they seek in their students. This core loop allows students to learn from their mistakes from play and apply information more efficiently. Therefore, it’s not always about what game is played. How the game is played makes the real difference.
Takeaways
This article defined educational games. It covered why educational games are used and why they can be impactful resources for games-based learning. The evolution of educational games was discussed and included aspects of games in different modalities from live, tabletop, and cards games to digital and video games.
Educational games exist in many different content areas. So specific disciplines in which educational games exist were explored. These were compared to different types of educational games and how they might be leveraged, used, and deployed for applied gaming purposes.
The overall positive impact of educational games was covered in how players engage with them and how earned efficacy can be achieved through their proper use and play. This is best reflected in the “player experience” for players and how they interpret and reflect on their overall experience.
This article closed on the concept of serious games and how they are created from the ground up for purposes other than entertainment. Some of those purposes include teaching and learning like with educational games. Finally, educational games were reviewed as means of leverage for applied games-based learning and the application of both serious games and commercial games for educational purposes.
This article was on educational games. To learn more about gamification, check out the free course on Gamification Explained.
Dave Eng, EdD
Principal
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Cite this Article
Eng, D. (2024, May 28). What are Educational games ? Retrieved MONTH DATE, YEAR, from https://www.universityxp.com/blog/2024/5/28/what-are-educational-games
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