Why is game based learning a meaningful trend in education?
- Even though millions of children do not finish high school in the US, million of people play games for more than 45 hours per week. How can we influence that gaming energy to grow the minds of our students?
- Many of the principles of instructional design can be related game design.
- Games can enhance traditional learning by engaging the player in the objective of learning, creating thoughtful stories/challenges/quests, providing instant feedback, and making learning fun.
- In some exceptional cases, students have found the process of making games fun.
- Games can help us experience “unseen” worlds.
As an industry, we know that designing, coding, and testing a quality game comes with a large price tag. Many educational game makers have addressed the funding challenges by asking the community to support the game creation effort. Kickstarter.com has become a key player in engaging our educational communities to game based learning. I wanted to share five projects funded through Kickstarter. In each case, I would love to see my kids play these games in the class room of the future.
- Code hero – Game to teach programming
- Xeko – Game to create strong ecosystems
- Urbanization – Game to teach economics
- Sanjiten – Game to teach language
- Hit seekers – Game to teach math
Do you see other interesting educational projects on Kickstarter.com ? I would love to hear your feedback.