[This was my
original reply - Thanks for reposting David, I'm wondering if other visitors/members of the Game Based Learning Community may also wish to engage in this discussion?]
Hi David
I remember we had a very spirited
discussion on this forum about this very subject last year.
We've discovered since hosting these two communities that in addition to our existing HHL constituency we are attracting new members to the GBL forum from the "
serious games" development / publishing community as well as education professionals focused not so much on the delivery device but the learning outcomes derived from video game and social media related software.
In regards to your question you may find the article by James Paul Gee and Elizabeth Hayes on the GBL forum insightful:
http://www.gamebasedlearning.org.uk/content/view/59/I'd say that your delightful products
are included in the Game Based Learning genre in much the same way that serious games are.
My point about commercial off the shelf games is that they have £ multi-million production budgets and are being sold in their millions to people young and old. This consequently sets a level of expectation particularly amongst the majority of young learners not generally met by traditional educational software whether it uses what the developer believes are game techniques or not.
To quote Stephen Heppell:
A good teacher can [as has been shown by the likes of Derek Robertson, Dawn Hallybone, Steve Bunce and many others] watch children playing games and draw out of it a whole lot of learning outcomes
Using Brain Training is no better than playing soduko or Scrabble?
Personally I think the research from the
University of Renne reported in the papers is really a non-story on a slow news day. It could equally be levelled at your software or almost any software that has a leaning towards learning.
The question should surely be what do learners enjoy and therefore can enhance, enrich or maybe even transform their educational experience?
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