This paper draws on lessons learned from the development process of the entertainment games industry and discusses how they can be applied to the field of game-based learning. This paper examines policy makers and those wishing to commission or develop games for learning and highlights potential opportunities as well as pitfalls. The paper focuses…

Massively Multiplayer Online Role Playing Games (MMORPGs) create large virtual communities. Online gaming shows potential not just for entertaining, but also in education. This research investigates the use of commercial MMORPGs to support second language teaching. MMORPGs offer virtual safe spaces in which students can communicate by using their…

The need to play is primeval in human beings, at least as strong as the urge to fight. While the larger gaming community has traditionally focused on the fairly lucrative potential of exploiting the urge to fight in the form of violent and destructive war games, the "Serious Games" segment has become aware of the power of applying this…

The continuous inventions and evolutions in all information technology fields open new channels and opportunities to enhance teaching and educational methods. In one side, those may improve the abilities of educators to present information in an interactive and media enhanced formats relative to traditional methods. This may help students or…

Embedding support devices in educational computer games has been asserted to positively affect learning outcomes. However, there is only limited direct empirical evidence on which design variations of support provision influence learning. In order to better understand the impact of support design on novices' learning, the current study…

This study explored the potential of digital games as learning environments to develop mindsets capable of dealing with complexity in the domain of sustainability. Building sustainable futures requires the ability to deal with the complex dynamics that characterize the world in which we live. As central elements in this system, we must develop the…

This Forum paper explores how Matthew Gaydos and Kurt Squire in their manuscript, "CITIZEN SCIENCE: Role Playing Games for Scientific Citizenship," represent issues of games literacy and science literacy. What is the meaning of expertise in the context of games-based learning? An examination of the studies presented suggests that games, like other…

The authors have developed a computer-based learning module on the unit cell of various types of crystal. The module has two components: the virtual unit cell (VUC) part and the subsequent unit cell hunter part. The VUC is a virtual reality simulation for students to actively arrive at the unit cell from exploring, from a broad view, the crystal…

Applying Communicative Project theory (Linell, 2009), we identify and distinguish between the different coordination and language activities that emerged during an episode of "World of Warcraft" ("WoW") gameplay involving English Language learners (ELLs). We further investigate ELLs' coordinations between killing and caring, self and others, in…

Along with the development of new technologies, orchestrating computer-supported collaborative learning (CSCL) has become a topic of discussion because new learning spaces challenge teacher to support collaborative learning in new ways. However, despite the optimistic notions of teachers' orchestration in CSCL situations, there are still no…

This paper examines a number of theoretical principles governing second language teaching and learning and the ways in which these principles are being applied in 3D virtual worlds such as Second Life. Also examined are the benefits to language learning afforded by the Second Life interface, including access, the availability of native speakers of…

"Evidence-centered design" (ECD) is a comprehensive framework for describing the conceptual, computational and inferential elements of educational assessment. It emphasizes the importance of articulating inferences one wants to make and the evidence needed to support those inferences. At first blush, ECD and "educational data…

The focal goal of this research was to extend the empirical effort on business simulations as a form of experiential learning by providing the first empirical analysis of business acumen and knowledge application skills. Disruptions in technology are providing more opportunities to improve the simulation gaming learning experience and a number of…

Learning science requires the understanding of concepts and formal relationships, processes that--in themselves--have been proved to be difficult for students as they seem to encounter substantial problems with most of the inquiry-learning processes in which they engage. Models in inquiry-based learning have been considered as powerful…

Many studies demonstrate that Digital Game Based Learning (DGBL) can foster learning effect. The purpose of this study is to survey whether the online game in junior high school students can encourage learning effect in Taiwan's History. So, the research applied Interactive Game-based Learning System (IGLS) to junior high history teaching as an…