Essay: Learning to Play to Learn (Nick Fortugno & Eric Zimmerman)

Game designers and researchers Nick Fortugno and Eric Zimmerman published an essay describing some important principles for the design of educational games.

They write: “Educational games are a hot topic these days. From game developers and learning theorists to classroom teachers and policy wonks, all manner of curious folk seem drawn to games that teach something, to someone, in some way or another. However, the only consensus in this whirlwind of activity seems to be that educational games are something of a failure. To quote industry veteran Brenda Laurel at a recent conference, “I can sum up educational games in one word – and that word is… CRAP!”. Our position, in a nutshell, is that no one has all the answers. Developers and educators need to work together to tackle these issues. So in the short space that follows, we have tried to highlight some of the ways that educators, developers, and others involved in creating and studying educational games fail to see eye to eye. Perhaps by planting some seeds in the fertile “crap” of current educational games, we can begin to grow some new ways of thinking”.

Read the full paper at: http://www.ericzimmerman.com/texts/learningtoplay.html