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Board and Card Game Resource for Libraries

Board and Card Game Resource for Libraries

Scott Nicholson from Wilfrid Laurier University is collaborating with the mEducation Alliance to create a resource for libraries in low-resource settings, focusing on board and card games. The initiative aims to compile games that are easy to explain, engaging, and robust enough for long-term use. Key criteria for selection include robustness, explainability, table presence, engagement, and overhead. Community members are invited to suggest suitable games via a Google Document. This project seeks to empower youth to teach games in libraries, fostering community connections and learning. For more information, contact Scott Nicholson at scott@scottnicholson.com

libraries, games, educationDave EngOctober 16, 2024libraries, games, education, engagement, community, resourceComment

Games are the secret to learning math and statistics, says new research

Games are the secret to learning math and statistics, says new research

New research suggests that integrating games into teaching can significantly enhance learning outcomes in subjects like economics and statistics. Led by Assistant Professor Joshua Fullard from Warwick Business School, the study compared traditional lecturing with game-based learning among university students. Those who used games showed a remarkable 7% increase in exam scores, with significantly fewer failing—only 7% compared to nearly a fifth in the traditional group.

gamesDave EngOctober 16, 2024games, teaching, learning outcomesComment

Are games too much like pornography?

Are games too much like pornography?

The games industry moves pretty fast, and there's a tendency for all involved to look constantly to what's next without so much worrying about what came before. So if you came here expecting some hot, hot games industry B2B discussion about pornography, I'm sorry to say all I have to offer you is a column about educational video games hype.

gamesDave EngAugust 20, 2024games, industry, digitalComment

Mad About Science: Complex board games

Mad About Science: Complex board games

While it's easy enough to boot up a console and start pwning n00bs online, some interesting things start happening to your brain when you're playing video games versus playing board games with a group of friends or strangers.

gamesDave EngAugust 17, 2024games, video, cardsComment

Researchers Suggest Swapping Textbooks for Games

Researchers Suggest Swapping Textbooks for Games

A team of researchers have proposed swapping textbooks for "Serious games," especially for the teaching of modern problems and specialist knowledge. The team has developed a "Serious Games Cookbook" to provide a guideline and support those new to the idea.

gamesDave EngAugust 15, 2024games, cookbook, teamComment

UW displays collection of board games from 18th, 19th centuries at Memorial Library

UW displays collection of board games from 18th, 19th centuries at Memorial Library

"From Jan. 23 to Aug. 2, the University of Wisconsin Special Collections presents their first ever educational board games exhibition titled "'Most Agreeable & Rational Recreation': Two Centuries of Educational Board Games.

gamesDave EngAugust 6, 2024games, collections, exhibitionComment

B-Schools Adopt Board Games as Training Tool

B-Schools Adopt Board Games as Training Tool

For a corporate training session at omnichannel beauty retailer Nykaa, IIM Udaipur associate professor Shobhit Aggarwal chose the same medium - a board game he'd co-created. Phalgun Polepalli, co-founder of board game publisher and designer Mozaic Games, says board games can be an important tool for a company to achieve a certain objective.

gamesDave EngAugust 3, 2024games, training, toolComment

Games in the classroom and the boardroom: How 'serious games' are helping us learn

Games in the classroom and the boardroom: How 'serious games' are helping us learn

A team of researchers is encouraging us to swap textbooks for games, as they drive the application of games in learning, engagement and research. Known as 'serious games', these games are designed for more than just entertainment. Ranging from digital applications to physical board games, they are developed for learning, problem-solving, raising awareness, research, and stakeholder engagement-with potential in both schools and workplaces.

gamesDave EngAugust 1, 2024games, cookbook, applicationComment

Games in the classroom and the boardroom: How ‘serious games’ are helping us learn

Games in the classroom and the boardroom: How ‘serious games’ are helping us learn

A team of researchers are encouraging us to swap textbooks for games, as they drive the application of games in learning, engagement and research. Known as 'serious games', these games are designed for more than just entertainment.

gamesDave EngJuly 29, 2024games, serious, globalComment

How to Use Games Post Training to Assess, Engage, and Make the Content Sticky

How to Use Games Post Training to Assess, Engage, and Make the Content Sticky

This post will cover how games and gamification after a training session can boost motivation and engagement in after-course activities. 4 Ways Games Are Effective After a Training Session Games are quick: Many games can be completed in 5 minutes or less.

gamesDave EngJuly 25, 2024games, training, gamificationComment

How Opal Grove Games is fostering a third place for Black gamers in Detroit

How Opal Grove Games is fostering a third place for Black gamers in Detroit

"I want to be part of creating more opportunities for Black people, for everyone who is underrepresented in games. I get people all the time who think of tabletop games as a 'white people hobby.' Games are for everyone. Fun is for everyone."

gamesDave EngJuly 24, 2024games, fun, experienceComment

Wisconsin teachers and librarians to help create astrophysics learning game

Wisconsin teachers and librarians to help create astrophysics learning game

On Friday, Feb. 9, a small group of select librarians and teachers from across the state will gather with game designers and scientists for a day-long workshop in Madison to develop a new educational computer game that will take learners to the furthest reaches of space.

gamesDave EngJuly 20, 2024games, workshop, educationComment

Engaging with purpose: Game-based learning

Engaging with purpose: Game-based learning

Recent trends reveal that games are becoming increasingly important to younger generations. Game-based learning vs gamification There are two broad ways in which games currently feature in education, namely gamification and game-based learning.

gamesDave EngJuly 19, 2024games, learning, collaborateComment

Column:' Huge stretch' to link board game with colonialism

Column:' Huge stretch' to link board game with colonialism

Not everything is linked to something nefarious or has some underlying social commentary, writer says of popular board game Settlers of Catan. This piece titled 'What's unsettling about Catan: How board games uphold colonial narratives' goes on to explain how Catan follows a familiar pattern of other 'colonialist' games such as Risk and pretty much anything else where the goal is to get the most resources and build out into the playing surface to win the game.

gamesDave EngJuly 16, 2024games, colonialism, narrativesComment

How can a picture of flowers make you see games differently?

How can a picture of flowers make you see games differently?

The collective is a group of academics and creatives making thought-provoking art by exploring the seams of AAA video games. Firstly, it explores how games so often reproduce an uncritical, capitalist, imperialist political perspective. "We enjoy playing games a lot," says Klengel.

gamesDave EngJuly 15, 2024games, video, exploreComment

Backrooms, Liminal Spaces, And The Subliminal Menace Of Loneliness in Indie Horror Games

Backrooms, Liminal Spaces, And The Subliminal Menace Of Loneliness in Indie Horror Games

This is about the horror of liminal spaces, and the intrinsic surrealism of our digital world That beautiful awful loneliness of existing in the electric void of shared virtual fantasies that video games are. Despite the incredible depth of detail AAA games today have, I think the older lack of detail, the hidden things, what remains unsaid is why horror in games remains such a unique experience.

gamesDave EngJuly 7, 2024games, world, horrorComment

Brain Play: Unlocking the Neurological Secrets Behind Gamified Therapy’s Success

Brain Play: Unlocking the Neurological Secrets Behind Gamified Therapy’s Success

By fostering increased engagement, alertness, social bonding, and neuroplasticity through a well-designed blend of gaming elements, gamified therapy presents an effective method for improving recovery outcomes, showcasing the capacity of our brain's adaptability and response to innovative rehabilitation strategies.

gamesDave EngJune 27, 2024games, therapy, elementsComment

Food for thought: taking food in games beyond mechanics and into the narrative

Food for thought: taking food in games beyond mechanics and into the narrative

Food has been a part of video games for ages, from Pacman to Metal Gear Solid. There are dozens of games where I shot, punched, or exploded other characters. The meal sequences in Pentiment and Sakuna are perfect examples of how to do exposition in games.

gamesDave EngJune 20, 2024games, food, writingComment

From Tic-Tac-Toe to Monopoly, a mathematician reveals the design secret of great  games

From Tic-Tac-Toe to Monopoly, a mathematician reveals the design secret of great games

Below, du Sautoy shares five key insights from his new book, Around the World in Eighty Games: From Tarot to Tic-Tac-Toe, Catan to Chutes and Ladders, a Mathematician Unlocks the Secrets of the World's Greatest Games.

gamesDave EngJune 16, 2024games, playing, mathematicsComment

Making a Better Monopoly: Or, what games-based learning can learn from a century of game development

Making a Better Monopoly: Or, what games-based learning can learn from a century of game development

If Monopoly is not a good role model for game design, how could modern ideas and developments improve it? What might Monopoly look like if it had been designed today? I'd like to show how we could reconstruct Monopoly as an enjoyable game and also as a learning game - one that families could play over the holidays but that could also teach them a thing or two.

gamesDave EngJune 14, 2024games, players, designComment