Video games get a bad rap. Sure there’s plenty of empty time spent on the commercial games. But in an educational setting there are also great opportunities, especially with some creative thinking. The process of game design itself will include story telling, logical structures, database design, computer programming, marketing, art, music, and other varied disciplines. Even for a student not interested in becoming a game designer there is a lot of potential learning here. Simulation tools are now being used to provide a platform for exploring such themes as leadership or even spiritual enlightenment. The recently completed Serious Games Summit has a number of interesting ideas for other ways to utilize games in an educational setting. Here’s one:
Game Developers Conference 2008: February 18-22, 2008 San Francisco
This session details The University of Minnesota’s efforts to develop a role-playing game to teach journalism. Working together, professors Kathleen Hansen and Nora Paul lead a team that modified Bioware’s NEVERWINTER NIGHTS to teach interview techniques and more to budding journalism students.
So games for liberal arts? To not use them is to ignore both a great opportunity for learning, as well as a way to engage students.
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