So what can we learn with video games?

Dondlinger (2007) presents a collection of articles that address the connection between video games and education. Through an intensive search for papers that discuss the theme, the author presents features of effective educational games and contributions of game design for education. Many topics that we have already read about, such as the link between motivation and gameplay, are mentioned by Dondlinger (2007). However, what caught my attention was the discussion on skills that students can acquire by playing games.

According to Dondlinger (2007), video games can help learners to develop problem-solving and decision-making skills, as well as creativity. Interestingly, those are essential skills for the 21st student and professional. The ability to look at a problem from multiple perspectives and decide on a course of action that is context-appropriate is in high demand on the job market nowadays. As a gamer, it is not surprising for me that video games are able to help with such skills. Take the example of a game that I recently finished, "Final Fantasy XV": in order to defeat some of the most difficult monsters in the game, I had to develop strategies that involved my previously acquired abilities in the game and what I knew about the monster. Furthermore, when I could not solve the problem by myself, I often looked for help online, where thousands of people had already discussed strategies to overcome those obstacles. That said, playing this game also fostered collaboration.

After seeing the word "design" on the title of the article, I thought that Dondlinger (2007) would also present a section on video game design for learning purposes. However, the only mention of such was a brief discussion on the constructionist learning theory for learning with video games. According to the author, learners are able to develop knowledge through the production of a game that brings personal - and thus, meaningful - content.

Furthermore, Ahmad, Lahonde, and Omhover (2014) offer an interesting approach to design methods and tool selection. Inspired by the game "Snakes and Ladders", which the authors define as a "classic board game (...) the goal of the game is to reach the end of the board by rolling the dice and moving that many squares" (p. 3), their proposal includes aspects of gamification such as punishment (in the form of the Snakes) and reward/bonus (Ladders). Unfortunately, the article does not present examples of use of such method - the research involved designers' judgement on the positive and negative aspects of the method. I would like to see this DG-MOTS in action, and results related to it.

Personally, I am still struggling to find a topic that I can address in a game design in a meaningful, educational way. I am very likely use some sort of narrative, and I am inclined to, somehow, gamify a literature classic. My main inspiration at the moment is the game "To be or not to be", based on Ryan North's book of the same name. But that's it, for now.