Games-based Learning Theory: A synthesis of ideas to help plan, implement and assess serious games

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David Gibson

College of Engineering and Mathematics, University of Vermont

Game-based Learning Theory: A synthesis of ideas to help plan, implement and assess serious games

Virtual Worlds Best Practices in Education

Main Presentation Area One - Faire

Friday, Mar. 27, 2009 - 2 PM SL time

Can games be fun and still effectively teach things? Don’t the needs of having “objectives” and capturing “assessment data” wreck the idea of a game? This talk will start a dialogue with participants by using three overlapping theories to think about 1. how people learn, 2. what happens when people interact with something like a game, and 3. what an experience has to have to be “game-like.” The synthesis of theories might be called “game-based learning theory.” How deeply we get into the synthesis theory will depend on the participants and the discussion.