Are you playing games with me? Are you serious?
by Christos Alexakis, Mathematician, 2nd General Lyceum of Oreokastro, eHAND project, “Enceladus” meeting in Oreokastro, 23-27 April 2018
Serious games are the accepted term for games with an educational intent.
There are many definitions and ways of classifying educational games, serious games and their relationship to virtual worlds and simulations. Identifying games that can be used for education is complex. We can say that serious games are games designed for a purpose beyond pure entertainment.
They are therefore used in a variety of professional situations such as education, training, assessment, recruitment, knowledge management, innovation and scientific research.
There is no uniform pedagogy within serious or educational games. Earlier games tended to be based on a behaviorist model. Later games try and incorporate experiential, situated and socio-cultural pedagogical models.
The learning outcome is dependent upon an appropriate pedagogy and the underlying game mechanics and how the content is integrated into the game so the learning is intrinsic to play.
