ELI Web Seminar, June 5, 2006 1:00 p.m. ET (12:00 p.m. CT, 11:00 a.m. MT 10:00 a.m. PT); runs one hour

An Instructional Designer Looks at Digital Game-Based Learning

Due to technical difficulties during our May 8 Web Seminar with Richard Van Eck, we are conducting the seminar again on June 5. We hope you will join us. If you registered for the May 8 seminar, we apologize for the inconvenience and have automatically registered you for this event.

Special Guest

Richard Van Eck
Associate Professor, Instructional Design & Technology
University of North Dakota

Rick Van Eck is an associate professor at the University of North Dakota, where he has been the graduate director of the Instructional Design & Technology graduate program since 2004 (idt.und.edu). He currently teaches several instructional design and technology courses, including developing computer-based instruction and using simulations and games for learning, and recently completed a year-long study of game play, game design, and workgroup composition with 5th and 6th grade students. Rick completed his Ph.D. at the University of South Alabama, where his dissertation examined the use of a simulation game to promote mathematics transfer in middle-school students. He also has an M.A. in creative writing, and his B.A. in psychology and English. He regularly publishes and presents in his research areas, which include instructional simulations and games, pedagogical agents, authoring tools, and gender and technology.

Summary

EDUCAUSE Vice President Diana Oblinger will moderate Richard Van Eck’s Web Seminar on digital game-based learning.

The potential of digital game-based learning remains largely unrealized, in part because designers of "edutainment" games have never understood how and why games are effective and how to align curriculum with the game world without "sucking the fun out" of the games (according to Marc Prensky). This has led some to believe that educators and instructional designers should never be allowed near a game.

The failures of the edutainment industry largely result from poorly understood theory and a lack of alignment between the worlds of education and games. Games succeed precisely because they employ sound pedagogical approaches such as situated cognition, cognitive disequilibrium, and scaffolding to teach what is needed to succeed in the game. By examining the underlying principles of games and aligning them with educational theory and learning outcomes, it IS possible to create effective blended game-based learning. Instructional design is ideally positioned to guide this process. This presentation will provide an overview of some of the theories that underlie games AND effective learning and explain how to align these two worlds.

Related EDUCAUSE Resources

• ELI Interaction and Engagement page
• Van Eck’s article on gaming in the current issue of EDUCAUSE Review
• EDUCAUSE Connect resources on games and gaming
• ELI 2006 Annual Meeting Proceedings
• The Digital Natives Are Restless: Digital Game-Based Learning and the Future of Education, Richard Van Eck
• Engage Me or Enrage Me: Educating Today's Digital Native Learners, Marc Prensky
• Living Our Future: The Implications of Teen Use of Technology, Lee Rainie