ENG 225 Rhetoric and Gaming

Backlund, P., & Hendrix, M. (2013). Educational games - Are they worth the effort? A literature survey of the effectiveness of serious games. 2013 5th International Conference on Games and Virtual Worlds for Serious Applications (VS-GAMES). https://search-proquest-com.unco.idm.oclc.org/docview/304838683?accountid=12832 doi:10.1109/vs-games.2013.6624226 This article discusses the educational effectiveness of game based education, as well as what methods need to go into development of educational and serious games. It defines the differences between Serious games and edutaining games, as well as which aspects of education lend themselves best to game-based learning, such as Mathematics and language learning. This paper is focused on educational games, and was carried out using the frame established by the EduGameLab. The study was limited to games used in formal school settings, and only includes papers  published in scientific journals. Their survey of the research covered...

Connolly, Thomas. (2011). An alternate reality game or language learning: ARGuing for multilingual motivation. Computers Education, 57 (1) https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0360131511000261 The purpose of this study was to evaluate the usage of ARG games in relation to learning a foreign language. The study that was created was implemented as a project within the European Commission Comenius project to be used in secondary schools across Europe. The purpose of the study was to implement cooperation and learning within the school environment as well as to support the use of ARGs in teaching and show different learning tactics. The general outcome of the “experiment” was calculated using pre- and post- questionnaires to gauge student feedback on the project. According to the article student feedback was fairly positive toward the use of the ARG and seemed to motivate the students in a way that had not been done before. Many students in the ending survey stated that the...