September 2013: Teaching Game Design

Hello! 

Two weeks ago, I presented, "What's in a Name? Serious Games vs Gamification" at the Serious Play Conference, held at DigiPen, a college focused on game development.  At the conference, there were numerous presentations on how to use games to educate children in topics such as math, science, and history.  Dr. James Rosser, Jr.spoke about how video games could improve the skills of laparoscopic surgeons while Professor Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi unveiled an application to help managers facilitate flow states for employees.  The research indicated that companies actually make a profit while employees achieve flow!

During my time there, I did get to talk to an instructor at DigiPen.  There was not much discussion about teaching game development at the conference, although Lee Sheldon's book, The Multiplayer Classroom: Designing Coursework as a Game did come up during my Q&A period.

When I went to college, there weren't schools like DigiPen dedicated to game development.  Now, it's not odd to see game design offered in various departments, in colleges big and small.  I noticed that while GDAM has covered Game-Based Learning and Game Designer Skills, we have never had  a topic about teaching game design.

As it is the month children traditionally head back to school after the summer break, I think it's fitting that September 2013's topic is Teaching Game Design.

I invite readers to submit an article on this topic. Please read the submission guidelines first. Thanks!