Games+Learning+Society 11 Conference

Pink Boxes and Chocolate-dipped Broccoli: Bad Game Design Providing Justifications for Reluctant Learners
Betsy DiSalvo

The use of games to make boring activities fun is usually a bad idea. The thoughtless use of points and badges as a method of “gamification” is usually a bad idea. Pandering to stereotypes about women by making games pink and on “girly” topics is usually a bad idea. Yet, these design tactics may provide face saving strategies for those who are reluctant to openly engage in learning. In this paper I review tactics such as sugar-coating learning with games, pointsification of educational experiences, and pink boxing games and ask why, if these are such bad design tactics, they sometimes work. In answering these questions the pretense of gaming and fun can be seen as a powerful justification for participation in learning.


Igniting Strategic Thinking Through ProblemUp!
Vittorio Marone, Cary Staples, Katherine Greenberg

Games can contribute to student learning in diverse settings. Social constructivism, situated learning, and social-historical theories support this; but what about students who lack a feeling of competence to learn through failing, who quietly drop out from school, or simply extinguish their desire to learn? The card game ProblemUp! derives its substance from the Cognitive Enrichment Advantage (CEA) approach, which provides the means for creating a community of practice where students adapt 22 specific strategies to meet personal needs in overcoming school, home, work, and interdependent learning problems. ProblemUp! focuses on helping underachieving students in high school and college settings by providing unusual, and often bizarre, game-generated problems that require creative solutions, strategic resourcefulness, and lateral thinking. Such “outside of the box” reasoning exercises supported by the CEA approach and enacted in a social and playful environment can help students develop metacognitive strategies that can be applied in real life.


A Space Without Tears:  The Kings, The Sims and Discovering Possibility
Beth King