Learning with Video Games

Abstract

Playing video games stimulates affective, cognitive, and communicational processes, thus facilitating the emergence of knowledge. In order to support this idea, this chapter first historically contextualizes the evolution of educational video games and provides some basic classification of genres. Then it identifies the major theoretical currents that may inspire teachers and designers to develop learning scenarios adapted to educational video games. It also describes some interesting examples of the educational usage of video games by the general public and of video games specifically created for a particular pedagogical context. Several arguments are presented to stimulate discussions around motivation, evalution, and learning aspects of educational video games usage and design. With the intention of supporting an approach that responds to user needs, some models identifying user profiles are also described. Finally, this chapter presents general design specifications for successful development of educational video games projects.