Making School a Game Worth Playing: Digital Games in the Classroom

Integrate game-based learning for 21st Century skills success! Kids today live in a digitally connected world. Prepare your students for the new global economy by leveraging the technology they love and understand best. This straightforward, easy-to-follow guide helps you build essential 21st Century skills using digital video games. Ryan Schaaf and Nicky Mohan provide a cutting-edge, research-based approach - built around time-honored instructional practices. Step-by-step strategies help you easily find, evaluate, and integrate digital games into your existing lesson plans or completely redesign your classroom. This practical guide helps teachers use well-designed game elements to: Promote meaningful student buy-in Create student-centered, collaborative learning spaces Teach and assess 21st Century Fluencies aligned to Common Core State Standards Address multiple intelligences using research-based strategies Includes a detailed implementation outline, a revised Bloom's Digital Taxonomy oriented to game content, summarized notes, and a reading list for engaged, adventure-filled learning! "This book is easy to read, offers strategies that are easy to implement, and inspires a sense of urgency for educators to modify our teaching techniques to include more gaming in our classrooms. It is useful for teachers of all experience levels." -Carrie Trudden, Educational Technology Teacher Howard County Public School System, Clarksville, MD "Schaaf and Mohan present gamification as a powerful tool for engaging learners and for the development of 21st-century fluencies, organized in levels as in the games it describes. This book is rich in resources for finding, evaluating, implementing, and designing classroom games." -Danea A. Farley, Associate Professor and Coordinator of Technology Notre Dame of MD University

Table of Contents:
Preface Dedication and Acknowledgments About the Authors Introduction by Jason Ohler Level 1. Digital Games as Learning Tools? Game On! Level 2. It′s All About the Game and How You Play It Level 3a. The Need for the 21st Century Fluencies Level 3b. Gaming′s Influence on Developing 21st Century Fluencies Level 4. Finding and Evaluating Digital Games for the Classroom Level 5. Digital Games and Instruction Level 6. Designing and Creating Games: A Liberal Arts Experience Level 7. The Gamification of Learning: Gaming Without the Game Bonus Level 8. The Future of Gaming and Its Impact on Education Index

About the Author :
Ryan Schaaf is the Assistant Professor of Educational Technology at Notre Dame of Maryland University, and a faculty associate for the Johns Hopkins University School of Education Graduate Program, with over 15 years in the education field. Before higher education, Ryan was a 3rd-grade public school teacher, instructional leader, curriculum designer, and a technology integration specialist in Howard County, Maryland. In 2007, he was nominated for Howard county and Maryland Teacher of the Year. In the past, Ryan has published several research articles in the New Horizons for Learning and the Canadian Journal of Action Research related to the use of digital games as an effective instructional strategy in the classroom. Currently, he is overseeing and constructing peer-reviewed K-12 lesson units for the 21st Fluency Project, where he is also a featured contributor for the renowned Committed Sardine blog. He enjoys presenting sessions and keynotes about the potential for gaming in the classroom, the characteristics of 21st-century learning, and emerging technologies and trends in education. Ryan is happily married to his beautiful wife Rachel and has two little boys that are his pride and joy. In his free time he enjoys fishing, exercising, gardening, and volunteering in local schools. Dr. Nicky Mohan is a global citizen by choice. Born and raised in South Africa, she now shares her time between New Zealand and Canada. Nicky has been a classroom teacher, a school administrator, a university leader, a business sector manager, a co-operate trainer, an international speaker, and a global consultant and acknowledged expert in the field of instructional design. Dr. Mohan also worked as the Director of Curriculum for the 21st Century Fluency Group (Canada). She is currently the Managing Partner of the InfoSavvy Group (Canada), and Director and co-founder of SpringBoard21 (USA), international educational consulting firms. Nicky has co-written five books including the award-winning Reinventing Learning for the Always-on Generation; and is a member of the Teacher Task Force - UNESCO core working group on ‘The Role of AI in Education’. To contact her and get to know more about her work and her team, follow @nickymohan on Twitter, visit their websites - https://infosavvy21.com/ and https://www.springboard21.com/ and subscribe to their YouTube channel https://www.youtube.com/c/TheCommittedSardines.

Review :
"This book is easy to read, offers strategies that are easy to implement, and inspires a sense of urgency for educators to modify our teaching techniques to include more gaming in our classrooms. It is an insightful look at gamification and increasing student engagement in the classroom. It is useful for teachers of all experience levels." "This book presents gamification as a powerful tool for engaging learners and for the development of 21st-century fluencies, organized in levels as in the games it describes. Rich in resources for finding, evaluating, implementing, and designing classroom games, Schaaf and Mohan’s book shares game thinking as a global approach to learning, flavored with a hint of his own personal game nostalgia. A must-read for those exploring the use of games in the classroom!" "Integrating the fundamentals of gaming into the classroom may seem like a daunting task, but this book clearly explains how the students of today are learning and how educators can leverage a powerful media phenomenon for fun and engaging learning. Making School a Game Worth Playing clearly establishes that digital games teach students the 21st-centur y skills they need to develop for a successful future in a globalized world. Social, creative, collaborative, and problem solving skills are cleverly linked to digital games throughout the text. It is easy to follow and written from the perspective of a teacher." "Effective and strategic integration of technology into teaching and learning will produce students who demonstrate proficiency in 21st-century skills. It’s critical that education moves from a teacher-centered to a more student-centered approach to instruction. Digital game-based learning helps change the role of the teacher into a facilitator. This book not only provides ideas on how to overcome the barriers that schools are faced with when approaching this concept, but also provides teachers with authentic ideas on how to bring digital gaming concepts into their classrooms. The text is easy to read and offers many practical applications for our teachers and district leaders. This is a ‘game-changer’ for our professional development program!" "Back in 2004, Pat Kane told us in his book The Play Ethic that organizations that base themselves on play and not work are healthier and more productive workplaces. Now Schaaf and Mohan have contextualized this idea for education around the use and creation of digital games. The key concept behind these books is that, in play, we are intrinsically motivated. In work, we just might not be. As they carefully explain, elements of all the things we aspire to in good education can be found in good digital games: Differentiation across a wide degree of ability, providing instant feedback, and allowing learners to level up as quickly as they acquire new skills and rewarding success.   "Traditionally, education has been hard to move and resistant to change. I am guessing that if you are reading this book you are not that way inclined. Your challenge is to grasp the grail of these ideas and hit the ground running with your students." "As video games continue to captivate both children and adults around the world, Ryan Schaaf provides compelling evidence for playing digital games in schools to present academic content and develop essential 21st-century skills. This book goes beyond research and theory to illustrate how teachers can find, evaluate, and integrate digital games with classroom instruction to challenge and present content information in a fun and engaging manner. "Chapters on how to play games; how games influence 21st-century fluencies; how to find, evaluate, and integrate games; and how to create your own games give teachers a wealth of resources for playing video games in schools and making learning fun at all levels of education. I particularly liked the ‘level’ on the gamification of learning, which gave me great new insights into how to engage learners without the use of video games per se, by leveraging key principles of game-based learning. "I highly recommend this book for educators across all levels and disciplines. I think it covers the skills and knowledge necessary for novice gamers to integrate the use of video games into their classrooms to facilitate learning, as well as giving experienced gamers a fresh look at the field of game-based learning."