EDUC 6814 Globaloria Game Design

2011 WV Globaloria Game Design Competition

1. Which one do you like the best?  (Elemental Elegance)

2. What content is being learned? (Elements: Chemical Reactions)

3. Do you think it effectively teaches the content? (Yes, as a 5th grade science teacher, it is not possible to "do" all of the chemical reactions that are in this game.  Students have the option to learn vocabulary, definitions, and actually create numerous combinations of the elements to observe chemical reactions.)

4. Does it involve higher order thinking?  I believe that to create the game it requires Higher Order thinking skills such as; animating, publishing, collaboration, linking, media clipping and playing.  While playing the game, the higher order thinking skills are; applying, evaluating and creating.  

5. Does the game possess and principles of good games and learning:  Elemental Elements

• 1.They can create an embodied empathy for a complex system :  The game allows for a deeper feeling of how the chemicals/elements react.
• 2. They are action-and-goal-directed preparations for, and simulations of, embodied experience” : This is definitely an example of acting out the simulation and testing chemical reactions before acting out in the real world.
• 3. They involve distributed intelligence via the creation of smart tools: Possibly playing the role as "scientist".
• 4. They create opportunities for cross-functional affiliation: This is not a multi-player game.
• 5. They allow meaning to be situated:  This game is based on "academic language".
• 6. They can be open-ended, allowing for goals and projects that meld the personal and the social:  I feel that Elemental Elements can be viewed as "a project" with goals of completing the vocabulary, definitions and making the correct matches between elements.

6. In your opinion do you think letting kids design games is productive activity for school based learning?  Yes!  My colleague and I have allowed our students to create games based on content/cso's for 5th grade, and actually used the games in stations for other students in the class to play.   To create these games, students were most definitely operating at higher level thinking skills to design the game.  These games were board games, but technology tools assisted in the design, images, game pieces, and research.  Here is a link to Game-Based Learning- (GBL)   Game Based Learning