Which Learning Experiences to Highlight?

The fundamental strength of videogames as a learning medium is their interactive and dynamic nature. To integrate this strength into your lesson plan, you must first identify the learning goals that you would like to convey in a game.

This decision is a matter of matching the type of information you want to present with how you want to present it. As such, the following guidelines for selecting a game are:

1. If the learning concept can be modeled mathematically, it is more likely to work in a game.
2. Learning concepts with too high degree of interconnections and ambiguity (e.g., conversations) can be very difficult to model and implement in a game.
3. Learning concepts that can be easily broken down into a discrete group of simpler concepts, or hierarchically organized into more important and less important concepts, are better suited for a game representation (e.g., a racing game can be broken down into the control of position, acceleration and velocity).
4. Learning concepts that appear in a linear narrative sequence are easier to model than concepts with non-linear relationships (e.g., a game that traces the evolution of one character is easier to design than one where multiple characters must be tracked).