“If [Tom] had been a great and wise philosopher, like the writer of this book, he would now have comprehended that Work consists of whatever a body is obliged to do, and that Play consists of whatever a body is not obliged to do.”
- Mark Twain, The Adventures of Tom Sawyer
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"Playing a game is the voluntary attempt to overcome unnecessary obstacles.“
- Bernard Suits
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Class time is a scarce resourceTeachers seek to make the best use of every minute
Per subject, less than 150 instructional hours per year.
Lot of material to cover: for instance, 37 topics included in 7th grade Common Core math standards.
Let’s play Minecraft
(for 15 minutes)?
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Two very different use cases
Classroom Activity (analogous to school science lab)
Outside the Classroom (analogous to reading books from the school library)
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Outside the ClassroomWhy will schools invest in it?
How students spend their free time has a huge impact on academic performance (e.g. summer slide in reading)
Technology makes “library-style” investments much cheaper to deploy at scale.
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Outside the ClassroomThe sweet spot for the best educational games
• Lunchtime, school bus, home, weekends and vacations . . .
• Voluntary (because when you force someone to play, it is no longer play)
• Games which reward extended play
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Guidelines for game designers
How to succeed in the “school library” space
• Make failure fun• Offer players meaningful choices• Games should have authors & personalities• Games should be beautiful• Focus on learning rather than assessment• Build games that teachers as well as students will
want to play
