“Do
not…keep children to their studies by compulsion but by play.”
– Plato
I admire
Professor Scott Nicholson’s
scholarly work about
games. He
inspires
people
to look at different aspects of games with a more critical eye,
particularly
in an educational setting.
And he helps fuel my interest in games for learning, using game
experiences inside or outside a classroom to
encourage
people to
expand
their horizons.
His latest
project –
EscapeIF –
uses
educational storytelling
(in
a familiar programmed text adventure format) to provide an innovative
and engaging framework for classroom learning. In
exploring EscapeIF
I realized this
format relies on three core elements – narrative, challenge, and
reflection – all of which easily apply to teaching as well as our
own game experiences.
