pedagogy

I’m often asked by colleagues who know my interest in games in education to suggest a game students can play that will teach them some particular set of knowledge or skills. “Do you know any iPad games that can teach quadratic equations?,” or “Has anyone made a game about conjugatingContinue Reading

Locations carry a great deal of narrative potential for us, even in everyday life. Locations carry meaning in themselves and communicate temporal significance through their changes. Certain places evoke particular memories of times that were different. When one goes back to their hometown after an extended time away, we immediately mark theContinue Reading

Cropped cover of Gaming the Past

Routledge is releasing my new book, Gaming the Past: Using Video Games to Teach Secondary History in just a few days (May 24th). I’m very excited for its release as, to my knowledge, it is the only book of its kind anywhere: a practical guidebook taking history and social studiesContinue Reading

One of the classic books in the field of computer gaming and learning is James Paul Gee’s What Video Games Have To Teach Us About Learning and Literacy. I often see the title abbreviated as What Video Games Have To Teach Us–an understandable shorthand, but one that allows, I think, forContinue Reading

Of course the unexamined game can be well worth playing if the goal is simply to enjoy and recreate—though I’d wager that many players reflect actively on their experiences in games. Enjoyment should always be a primary purpose of games. When the focus shifts to simulation games and the formalContinue Reading