David Schaller’s workshop at Museums & The Web 2005 was one of the highlights of last year.
Schaller and his cohorts at Educational Web Adventures are not only educators, web developers and interactive game makers, they are also very passionate about analysing what works and what doesn’t work.
The intrinsic appeal of gameplay makes games an attractive format for educational media developers, but the particular characteristics and challenges of a game magnify the usual concerns over design, intentionality, and outcomes that all educational designers deal with. Only through careful design and thorough evaluation can we hope to overcome these challenges and realize the potential that games offer.
Here’s a recent paper of Schaller’s looking at some specific examples of games that have been developed and used online and in museums.