Why Educational Games?

Educational games are not a new topic, nor am I the first proponent of mixing the learning sciences with game design. However, few put all the pieces together for readers to see. Why are educational games so cool an idea? Responses to other efforts include people saying it doesn't tell them how to use the great ideas, and others saying it isn't such a big deal.

With my focus on such an effort, I would like to "put it together" for everybody. I want to answer "Why educational games?"

1) Inexpensive

Yes, inexpensive. Small games using free, or low cost, graphics, sounds and tools can be made to teach one thing, or several related things. Adding, subtracting, multiplying and dividing are all very connected, so they could be taught together. That is well understood and accepted, but what about in games?

Well, it only takes text and a single graphic to make a game that teaches those things. Adding one is the same as counting by one. Subtracting is the reverse. Multiplying is how many of a number you add together. Dividing is how many times you can subtract a number from the first. These are commonly shown with a single type of item, and can all be dealt with like that. The similarity means you can reuse what you have. Instead of needing a lot of art, use a single type of item for the whole game, and you don't need a great image to start with.

The game may not be so great, but it works. It's a start. With that idea you can then improve the art and gameplay through ...

2) Iterative Design

This is one of the greatest things about games. Design, build, test and repeat till satisfied. That's iterative design. This means you come up with an idea, make a prototype and test it to find out the details of how it works. For educational projects it means having proof you are doing things right, and quick feedback when things need to change.

The key point though is the testing. When is crucial, because if you change too much, the results are not as helpful. Change three big things, find out something caused a problem and now you have extra steps to figure out which one, or combination, caused the problem. How what is tested is just as important, since a bad test doesn't give good feedback. Without testing, how will you know throughout the development process if you are ...

3) Engaging Players in Active Thought

Play is an active verb. Playing games that get you thinking about strategy, managing supplies, economics, politics and other things creates a learning environment where you use information, rather than just hearing or reading about them. Such games could be called Interactive Exploratory Models. The potential doesn't stop there, in fact there is ...

4) Much More

There are tons of reasons why games have the potential to become great learning tools, and I encourage everybody to read articles, books and lists on this. However, I'm not going to repeat all those lists. That's not the point of this article. The point is that it's ...

5) All in One Simple Package

That's the big deal and why games have so much potential in education. Yes, games share great learning and teaching properties with real life activities and methods. Yet, most real life activities and tools are very limited in their scope and potential. Fun interactive computer simulations, games, have a lot of potential, in one package. Done well, they are inexpensive, easily refinable, engage players/learners in active creative thought and many other highly effective, and efficient, teaching/educating principles.

Have fun, spread the word and tell me what you think,
Igen Oukan

Why Educational Games?

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