Sweden Game Conference 2018

The concept of game-based approaches to learning is getting more and more popular. Increasingly studies show that the method indeed is effective in different areas of learning. Internationally there has been an enormous demand on game-based products. But to a large extent, it is primarily people with a limited background in game design or pedagogy who use the game’s components to attract the pupil’s attention. But to tell you the truth, most of these products are at best mediocre – suffering from bad design choices and inability to produce excitement as major defective factors. Why don’t we see more skilled game developers in this area? The question is what could be achieved if a more comprehensive approach was taken to the discourse? What are the gains from using a game rather than a textbook, a documentary or a lecture?

The talk will address a blended learning game that was constructed to change the perspective of the human workforce at the factory floors for the engineer students at Chalmers University. The game is a combination of instructional media that includes interactive problem-solving activities, gaming-style virtual-learning and workplace-linked knowledge to make the students reflect around different themes that they will face when they leave the academy and enters their careers.



The lecture will highlight the following:

To what extent can game research and the game industry contribute an infusion to learning?
Falling grades and mental ill health at school – can a game paradigm assist to turn the numbers?
What are games better at than a traditional learning curriculum and what are they inferior at?