The Pedagogy of Games

Books, film, television, and indeed every other medium that came before them has been used and sometimes studied as media for the delivery of instruction. Outstanding examples of each medium have been applied to educative purposes with enduring results. It is now the turn of videogames. A first step to gaining an understanding for just how a particular medium can be used in education is to study the outstanding examples, regardless of their original purpose. This work examines numerous well-known and commercially successful games through the lens of several known and accepted learning theories and styles, using the premise that “good” games already embody sound pedagogy in their designs even if the incorporation of those theories was not deliberate.

• pedagogy in COTS games

• (released Nov 21 2008) Katrin Becker, Video Game Pedagogy: Good Games = Good Pedagogy, Book Chapter (CH. 5, pp. 73-125), in Games: Their Purpose and Potential in Education edited by Christopher T. Miller, Springer Publishing
• Katrin Becker, Classifying Learning Objectives in Commercial Games, Loading... Journal of the Canadian Games Study Association 2007 Vol.1 No.1.
• Katrin Becker, Battle of the Titans: Mario vs. MathBlaster, Proceedings of the 19th Annual World Conference on Educational Multimedia, Hypermedia & Telecommunications (ED-MEDIA), 2007, Vancouver, Canada, June 25- June 29, 2007 (presentation)
• Katrin Becker, Pedagogy in Commercial Video Games, Book Chapter , in Games and Simulations in Online Learning: Research and Development Frameworks, Information Science Publishing edited by David Gibson, Clark Aldrich and Marc Prensky 2006 (Ch. 2 p.21-47) http://www.igi-pub.com/
• Katrin Becker, A Psycho-Cultural Approach to Video Games, 2006 Canadian Games Study Association Symposium September 21-24, 2006, York University, Toronto (presentation)
• Katrin Becker, Games and Learning Styles Presented at the Special Session on Computer Games for Learning and Teaching, at The IASTED International Conference on Education and Technology ~ICET 2005~ July 4-6, 2005 Calgary, Alberta, Canada (presentation slides pdf)
• Katrin Becker & Michele Jacobsen, Games for Learning: Are Schools Ready for What's to Come? DiGRA 2005 2nd International Conference, “Changing Views: Worlds in Play” Vancouver, B.C. June 16-20, 2005 (abstract .pdf)(presentation slides .pdf)
• Katrin Becker, How Are Games Educational? Learning Theories Embodied in Games DiGRA 2005 2nd International Conference, “Changing Views: Worlds in Play” Vancouver, B.C. June 16-20, 2005 (abstract .pdf) (presentation slides .pdf)