Games and Education: Designs in and for Learning

Book excerpt: We live in a time of educational transformations towards more 21st century pedagogies and learning. In the digital age children and young people need to learn critical thinking, creativity and innovation and the ability to solve complex problems and challenges. Traditional pedagogies are in crisis and many pupils experience school as both boring and irrelevant. As a response educators and researchers need to engage in transforming education through the invention of new designs in and for learning. This book explores how games can provide new ideas and new designs for future education. Computer games have become hugely popular and engaging, but as is apparent in this book, games are not magical solutions to making education more engaging, fun and relevant. Games and Education explores new designs in and for learning and offer inspiration to teachers, technologists and researchers interested in changing educational practices. Based on contributions from Scandinavian researchers, the book highlights participatory approaches to research and practice by providing more realistic experiences and models of how games can facilitate learning in school.