Serious Educational Games

Book excerpt: Serious Educational Games: From Theory to Practice focuses on experiences and lessons learned through the design, creation and research in the Serious Education Games Movement. Serious Games is a term coined for the movement that started in 2003 for using commercial video game technology for teaching and learning purposes. This book presents a collection of work that bridges the theory behind Serious Educational games and cutting edge research coming from many aspects in the field. The authors all have experienced Serious Games in education in their research and/or through personal game play. While the literature base for educational games is growing at alarming rates, a theoretical framework by which future research will be conducted and practical examples of established work and work that continues to is the crux of this volume. This book is not all encompassing of the work being done with educational games but rather it provides lessons from the field in tangible projects. This book takes the reader through why Serious Games need to be used in K-12 education, the theory underlying why games work for teaching and learning, and how Serious Games are being used and researched.