Serious Games: Making a Difference

Most people are well aware of the violence found in some video games, but less people know about games that can bring about positive change. Serious Games, described as a new movement in gaming whose purpose to “raise awareness, instruct a new generation of good citizens, create new business models, train military personnel, or model surgery for doctors,” is one such breed.

Michelle Boule, Social Sciences Librarian at University of Houston, writes an interesting article on Serious Games that gives several examples of fascinating games that produce public awareness on various issues. These games include:

optical communicationsDarfur is Dying (mtvU and Reebok Human Rights Foundation). A Flash-based game that promotes awareness about the genocide in Darfur. Players take on the role of a villager in Darfur and try to survive by foraging for water without being captured and killed Janjuweed. One soon realizes how dire the conditions are; you can’t really win, and that’s ultimately the point.
Escape From Diab. This is a game that is meant to teach kids how to eat healthy. One plays a healthy youth who becomes trapped in Diab, a land where everyone eats exclusively junk food.
Planet Green Game (Starbucks). This game creates an awareness of how one can change his or her lifestyle to slow global warming. One travels through aгардероби fantasy city and finds ways to decrease CO2 emissions.

Boule then discusses how games can help us learn more about information seeking behavior: how people find the information they need when presented with various challenges. She argues that games could be built to teach information literacy and how to seek quality information among various sources to synthesize usable answers to a problem. Navigating in a world such as Second Life, “what would a 3D version of the information highway look like?” she asks.

Interesting questions. How can we create games and experiences that can foster better information skills in students?Православни икониИкониikoniПодаръциикониикониикони на светцисвети георгиikoniхудожник на икониИкони на светциХудожникОткъде да купя иконаидея за подаръксондажи

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