Faculty & Staff Resources: Gaming in Education

"Why are so many students intellectually disengaged? Mark Carnes says it is because students are so deeply absorbed in competitive social play. He shows how month-long role-immersion games in the curriculum can channel those competitive impulses into transformative learning experiences, and how bricks-and-mortar colleges can set young minds on fire."

"In this completely updated and revised edition of a contemporary classic, one of America's most well-respected educators considers more than thirty new video games in his provocative examination of their positive effects on learning. Gee includes recent games such as World of War Craft and Half Life 2 and analyzes new theories of cognitive development, such as how individuals develop a sense of identity, grasp meaning, evaluate and follow a command, pick a role model, and perceive the world. This is abook that will open your mind to the possibility that video games are the forerunners of instructional tools that will determine how we learn in the future."

"While the vast majority of college students use social media and gaming in their everyday lives, colleges and universities have been slow to recognize and harness the power of either. Postsecondary Play explores the significance of games and social media in higher education, and particularly how they can be used to attract, retain, educate, and socialize students."

"Prensky traces the shift from traditional learning to digital game-based learning. He demonstrates how learners have changed, how digital game-based learning works, its applications, and implementation and shows the role of teachers and trainers in this new arena."

"In this lively and practical book, seasoned educator Jonathan Cassie shines a spotlight on gamification, an instructional approach that's revolutionizing K–12 education. Games are well known for their ability to inspire persistence. The best ones feature meaningful choices that have lasting consequences, reward experimentation, provide a like-minded community of players, and gently punish failure and encourage risk-taking behavior. Players feel challenged, but not overwhelmed. A gamified lesson bears these same hallmarks. It is explicitly gamelike in its design and fosters perseverance, creativity, and resilience. Students build knowledge through experimentation and then apply what they've learned to fuel further exploration at higher levels of understanding."

"The new global, fast-paced, interconnected world demands that educators consider new educational methods and media in order to meet the needs of a mobile, shifting society. Design and Implementation of Educational Games: Theoretical and Practical Perspectives researches how to meet this need by effectively engaging the learner while keeping learning integral and still creating an enjoyable experience for the user. The necessity for a balance between the art and science of game design cannot be overstated, and this book presents an impressive selection of studies and analysis performed to illustrate how game components can work in concert to facilitate learning. As technology driven games become increasingly prevalent, the principles discussed, studied and demonstrated in this reference form a necessary compendium for game designers, educators, and researchers alike."