Everything you need to know about using games in education (in 3 minutes;

A few weeks ago, the Prime Minister of Belgian Flanders was caught playing a mobile game while sitting in parliament. On the other side of the world, South Korea has been fighting the problem of addiction to computer games for years with special clinics, social campaigns and advertising spots. China bans children to play more than 90 minutes daily.

The gaming market is accelerating. 2.5 billion players will spend over 152 billion $$$ this year (on average, this amount increases by about 10% per year).

We love games and spend a lot of time on them (voluntarily). No wonder that they have also been used in education for many years.

Before we get into the details, it's worth starting by distinguishing between educational games (game based learning / serious games) and gamification because these are two completely different concepts.

The first group which is the core in this article are all kinds of applications, simulations that are used alone or as part of class activities. Here you will find some interesting examples. Gamification is in turn the use of elements / mechanisms known from games (such as points, badges, rankings, etc.) in a non-gaming context / environment. Its main goal is to increase participants' involvement and build certain long-term habits. Examples can be found around you - collecting points in cafes, running applications that allow you to compete with others or cars "giving" rewards for economic driving. No wonder that gamification found a very good ground in education, also in Poland.

Today, however, we have GAMES on the menu! :)

The educational games market is estimated at around 4 billion $$$. However, the dynamics is enormous and it is estimated that in 4 years it will be 17 billion. Where does so much interest in this format come from?

There are many reasons for the popularity of games in education:

1. Commitment - surely your organization is dealing with the problem of employee involvement in educational activities. Like we all know that the world is changing and we must take care of our development, but there is always something more urgent. Educational games can help solve this problem by encouraging regular interactions with the learning content.
2. Practice - games and simulations allow you to practice real tasks in a secure virtual environment. I wrote a lot about this in the context of using VR in training. When playing, we are not passive recipients of information, but we use our knowledge in practice, we see the consequences of our actions, get immediate feedback and learn from our mistakes.
3. Connection with daily tasks - games can have different formats, but in the business environment they often take the form of simulations mapping the workplace and the challenges faced by employees (probably few of them shoot chicken with a slingshot;) Thanks to this, it is easier to transfer the acquired knowledge to "reality" and you can prepare for new tasks faster.
4. Format - we can't forget about the audiovisual layer and interactions. People "buy" everything with their eyes. They are accustomed to a certain standard offered by other products and services they use. The creators of many e-training formats often forget about it - they focus on knowledge (which is great), apart from the appearance and way of interacting with their solution (which is not that great). Professional educational games with their form often do not differ from their "entertainment" cousins, and sometimes they can even beat them.
5. Efficiency - research as always at the end :) Those that I managed to collect clearly show the advantages of using games in education.

What does the research say?

On the Internet you will find a lot of research and articles about the benefits of using games in education. They show:

• better knowledge retention (about 10-14% compared to less interactive formats such as lectures, presentations or books) - "players" achieved much better test results in research
• greater involvement - participants in various studies used game format much more often compared to traditional educational platforms. What's more, they were much more motivated to come back to them and to look for additional sources of knowledge.
• retention support (by approx. 9%), building motivation for development, creating habits or raising self-confidence while performing tasks (by up to 20%).

Of course, let's not forget that games are just one of the tools in a wide e-learning arsenal. In addition, it belongs to one of the more expensive ones. Therefore, it is worth considering when they will work, and when a simple "job aid" will be enough. Your role is to choose the right solution that will answer your business needs. Think out of the box. Sometimes using simple tools such as survey services, we can achieve the same effect as with an expensive, personalized application.

At the end, I would like to recommend 3 things to you:

1. Karl Kapp - he is a real guru when it comes to using games and gamification in education, author of books, presenter and a great and helpful person :)
2. A recording from Karl's presentation, where he talks about educational games, their design and share examples
3. A game that I had the opportunity to co-create with Coca-Cola and PwC. Although it is addressed to a little younger audience, I recommend everyone to try it;) It's in Polish but the translation is coming soon.