I am a writer, educator, researcher, designer, farmer, programmer, and lifelong maker of things — ideas, systems, books, games, courses, gardens, rabbit pedigrees, and occasionally trouble.
My academic background is in Computer Science and Educational Technology. I hold BSc and MSc degrees in Computer Science, a PhD in Educational Technology, a graduate certificate in Serious Game Design and Research, and certification in instructional design. I spent more than 35 years teaching computer science, game design, digital game-based learning, technical writing, and related subjects, and became internationally recognized for my work on serious games, gamification, and the design of learning systems.
I have written several books, including Gamification 101: How to Bring Joy Back to Learning By Making Your Classroom Gameful (2024) and Choosing and Using Digital Games in the Classroom (Springer, 2016), along with many articles, chapters, talks, workshops, and assorted provocations about education, technology, games, and design.
These days, my interests are broader than any single discipline. I am especially interested in how people think, learn, make decisions, construct explanations, and live inside complex systems. A recurring theme in my work is that good design begins with understanding the system you are actually dealing with rather than the one you wish existed.
I also run a small farm in rural Alberta, where I raise Rex rabbits and other animals and am continually reminded that real systems are messy, adaptive, nonlinear, and deeply unimpressed by theory. Farming has shaped my thinking about education and design at least as much as academia has.
I write about whatever currently has my attention: learning, games, design, autism, systems, animals, rural life, technology, abuse and coercive control, human behaviour, and the odd side quest that refuses to stay in its lane.
I was identified as Autistic later in life, which gave me a new framework for understanding both how I think and why I have spent so much of my life examining systems from the edges rather than accepting their assumptions from the centre.
At this stage of my life, I am less interested in fitting neatly into a professional category than I am in following interesting questions wherever they lead.
This blog is where many of those questions end up.
Hi Katrin, I am doing a thesis on Game based learning for Agricultural Science Pedagogy. Would it be permissible to use your table in my report referenced to you of course. Kind Regards Geoff Langrell
Of course you can. You may be interested in using my latest version, which has just been published on academia.edu.
https://www.academia.edu/45044609/What_s_the_difference_between_gamification_serious_games_educational_games_and_game_based_learning
Citation: Becker, K. (2021). What’s the di?erence between gami?cation, serious games, educational games,and game-based learning? Academia Letters, Article 209. https://doi.org/10.20935/AL209
I got two ducklings three years ago. They have been happy friends with my four chickens and the neighborhood children. For an unknown reason one died yesterday. I’m very concerned about keeping an Only Duck and am thinking of bringing her inside the house. I’m wondering if anyone has had a similar experience. I will very likely get her some youngsters in the spring. My fowl have a very large open yard and a pond.
You might try reading through some of the comments on the Keeping a Single Duck post.
Professor,
I am a PhD student at Purdue in Learning, Design, and Technology. For a seminar class I am taking we are to interview, via email, a famous scholar that has similar interests as ours. I am interested in teaching teachers to teach digital game based learning. Would you be willing to answer 4-6 questions via email within the next two weeks?
Thank you,
Dana Ruggiero
Sure. Send me an email (which can be found on my web site).
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