educational video game

The term digital educational game (English educational video game, as part of the field of Serious Games ) refers to games that take place in a hardware-and software-based virtual environment and want to stimulate the desired learning. Digital educational games are typically used in the education and training system. While you should, as entertainment -oriented computer games too, " fun," but their primary goal is the acquisition of knowledge and skills.

Term

There is a consistent use of terms relating to computer games in learning and educational contexts, neither in the German-speaking countries still in the English debate. The terms ' digital learning game', ' computer learning game', ' digital education game', ' serious games ' and ( digital) ' Educational Game ' seem to be often used interchangeably. In the English-speaking world, the expression Game Based Learning (GBL ) is to identify the process of learning with digital learning games spread ( Prensky 2001).

Contrary to this diffuse language practice excels at certain authors a more conscious use of the term from. The concept of ' Serious Game ' for example, is often used as a " marketing concept " to delineate their own products or research topics of " mere" entertainment games. It includes but occasionally digital advertising games, games that are used in political campaigns or to games from the field of visual arts. Used in this broad sense are then indeed all digital learning games serious games, but not all Serious games are digital learning games.

Digital educational games and computer game education

Digital educational games are subject of research in computer game pedagogy, which in turn is a subset of media education. The learning game-related computer game pedagogy has three main tasks (see, epistemological view Brezinka 1995).

  • It examines descriptive the role of digital learning games in educational practice (school, social work, home, etc.), computer games in non- educational contexts ( pedagogically relevant forms, distribution, effects ) and the theming of digital learning games in education, but non-scientific discourses (eg in the media, the media- educational self-help literature, in lesson plans and counselors for the design of digital learning games).
  • She criticizes the use of computer games in educational practice and educational, non-scientific statements about computer games; while it is based on results of the descriptive educational computer game research and argumentation forms of pedagogical ethics and the philosophy of education.
  • It operates methodological and technological research with the goal of providing scientifically justifiable information about design of digital learning games and their pedagogical- educational use (development and evaluation); methodological research draws on results of the first two research tasks back (eg the description of the didactic- methodological design of entertaining computer games) to develop, for example, to research hypotheses.

These three research tasks are indeed related to each other, but follow different logics and research are to be distinguished in systematic philosophy of science point of view. Important allied disciplines of computer educational games are the media studies, psychological research on media effects and game studies.

Specific teaching methods

Digital educational games differ from traditional learning games and not game- based e -learning in particular in that they try to use motivation methods of digital entertainment games, in order to pursue their learning objectives (see Bopp 2006). So use it, for example, often a story ( cf. Bopp 2007) (non -player character, non- player character ) (see Klimmt Front & 2002) to encourage and para-social relationships between players and NPCs to learning activities.

Because of the many features that separate group learning from the isolated learning, can basically be divided into didactic- methodological point of view between digital games that are geared to the individual learners and those learning in groups ( online learning games) support (see Pivec, Koubek & Dondi 2004).

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