Inspire Blog Tag: games

Learning from Games: Failure Edition

This is the paradox of failure in games. It can be stated like this: We generally avoid failure. We experience failure when playing games. We seek out games, although we will experience something that we normally avoid. (Juul, p. 2) As a continuation from my last blog post considering grades and Self-Determination Theory, I wanted to take a brief side-quest into considering what it means to experience failure. Jesper Juul’s The Art of Failure: An Essay on the Pain of Playing Video Games will provide the main outline and material for this post, while I add what lessons we might learn about feedback and course design in online settings. Dealing with Failure Juul outlines how games communicate through feedback using … Learning from Games: Failure Edition
by · August 17, 2020

Games as a Model for Motivation and Engagement, Part 2

Narrative and World-Building For this post, I will focus on two simple strategies you can use to improve motivation and engagement in your online course, narrative and world building. These terms are used frequently in games, as well as in literature, film and other domains. They are a powerful tool, easily applied to your existing course material or as you develop new content. If you want some background about where my thinking is coming from, check out my last blog post, Games as a Model for Motivation and Engagement, Part 1, where I take a deeper dive into gaming and Self-Determination Theory. I would also recommend a post by Dr. Meghan Naxer, Self-Determination Theory and Online Education: A Primer. There … Games as a Model for Motivation and Engagement, Part 2
by · September 16, 2019

9 Ways to Start Thinking Like a Game Designer

What can instructional designers learn from video game design? This might seem like a silly question—what do video games have to do with learning? Why might we use video games as an inspiration in pedagogy? As instructional designers, faculty often come to us with a variety of problems to address in their course designs—a lack of student interaction, how to improve student application of a given topic, and many more. While there are many tools at our disposal, I’d like to propose an extra tool belt for our kit: what if we thought more like game designers? Video games excel at creating engaging and motivating learning environments. Hold on a minute, I hear you saying, video games don’t teach anything! … 9 Ways to Start Thinking Like a Game Designer
by · March 6, 2019

Apps Educators Use for Work and for Life

I recently attended one of Bryan Alexander’s Future Trend’s Forum webinar session (recording on youtube) on apps educators use in their work and in their life and learned about some very interesting apps. Anti-app App: ?Forest: an app to monitor time off phone (for personal use or group use, family use, etc.). ? Flora: (free app) helps you and your friends stay focused on the task together (recommended by my wonderful co-worker Dorothy Loftin) Apps for teaching and learning: ? Desmos: Graph functions, plot data, evaluate equations, explore transformations, and much more – for free! ➗Algebrabyhand: The most advanced drag and drop algebra tool for the web. ?‍♂️Fabulous is a science-based app, incubated in Duke’s Behavioral Economics Lab, that will help you build healthy rituals into … Apps Educators Use for Work and for Life
by · July 10, 2018