Game Based Learning

Becker, K. (2007) 'Digital game-based learning once removed: Teaching teachers', British Journal of Educational Technology, 38 (3), pp.478-48,

 [Online] Available at: http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/j.1467-8535.2007.00711.x/full (Accessed on: 5 March 2014)

Conclusion from the journal: 

'On the whole, the course was extremely well received, although, with a total of 18 class participants drawn from a local teacher population of over 10000, it is but a drop in a bucket. Many more course offerings such as this one are needed, and this will take time. It is also fairly evident that a single course offering such as this in a programme is not enough to prepare current preservice teachers for what will almost certainly face them before long. Professional Development offerings are desperately needed, as ways to provide basic games literacy as well as ways to help develop teachers who can add this new medium to their repertoire. School administrators also need far more information on the use of games than has been offered to them thus far. Many still refuse to allow games at their schools—and while some of their reasons for doing so are valid, others are not. They need to be able to make informed, rather than simply reactive, decisions.

Finally, it is absolutely essential that teachers be allowed and encouraged to play games. The objective is clearly not to turn all teachers into gamers, but rather to play with a critical eye—to be able to assess whether a specific game might be useful for them in the classroom, and, if so, under which conditions. Just as we would not expect a teacher to teach a unit about a novel such as Don Quixote (Cervantes Saavedra) without ever having read it, we should not expect a teacher to use a game such as Rollercoaster Tycoon in class without ever having played it. Generally speaking, expecting teachers to use games without having played games is similar to expecting teachers to use novels and other books without them ever having read one.

One topic that turned out to be of sufficient complexity to warrant its own set of courses is learning to build games, and it may not even be appropriate for most preservice teacher preparation programmes. Even if one takes advantage of the growing number of game engines and game-building applications, building a game is quite a different proposition from designing a game, and different again from using existing games. Perhaps in the future, educational technologists will be able to specialise in digital games design and development just as they do now in distance learning.

Ultimately, the success of digital games as a medium for learning depends to a large extent on the abilities of new and practicing teachers to take full advantage of this medium. Advances in mass storage, wireless technology, hand-held devices, open source software and other technologies will likely change the way the current generation of elementary pupils live, work and play before they graduate from high school. The use of games for learning is but one aspect of this.'