Games have become popular tools to enhance learning in both educational and business environments. Analyzing the link between games and their results on students can help provide advances for learning initiatives in the future. Enhancing Education and Training Initiatives Through Serious Games is an essential reference source that examines the impact that games and simulations have within different learning environments. Featuring in-depth discussions on relevant topics including self-reporting surveys, project management techniques, academic training, and game design, this publication is an ideal resource for academicians, students, business owners, and professionals that are interested in discovering the advances of serious gaming techniques.

In the global culture of education, game-based learning needs to be an integrated part of formal education, and not just an 'exotic spice' for many educators, as it is today. The critical role of the educator as a facilitator, gatekeeper and enabler of serious games is often downplayed. Therefore a comparison across regions is needed so that we do not limit the potential of transferring best practice, research results and the development of games across borders. This book deals with three key questions: How are serious games understood and designed? How do they establish themselves in learning and education locally? And, how can games as a learning culture be explored in a global perspective?

With the continued application of gaming for training and education, which has seen exponential growth over the past two decades, this book offers an insightful introduction to the current developments and applications of game technologies within educational settings, with cutting-edge academic research and industry insights, providing a greater understanding into current and future developments and advances within this field. Following on from the success of the first volume in 2011, researchers from around the world presents up-to-date research on a broad range of new and emerging topics such as serious games and emotion, games for music education and games for medical training, to gamification, bespoke serious games, and adaptation of commercial off-the shelf games for education and narrative design, giving readers a thorough understanding of the advances and current issues facing developers and designers regarding games for training and education. This second volume of Serious Games and Edutainment Applications offers further insights for researchers, designers and educators who are interested in using serious games for training and educational purposes, and gives game developers with detailed information on current topics and developments within this growing area.

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.

The author explores the ways in which games can be used to instruct and inform as well as provide pleasure. He uses innovative approaches to problem solving through individualized game techniques.

"This book provides relevant theoretical frameworks and the latest empirical research findings on game-based learning to help readers who want to improve their understanding of the important roles and applications of educational games in terms of teaching strategies, instructional design, educational psychology and game design"--Provided by publisher.

The book presents a critical evaluation of current approaches related to the use of digital games in education. The author identifies two competing paradigms: that of games-to-teach and games-to-learn. Arguing in favor of the latter, the author advances the case for approaching game-based learning through the theoretical lens of performance, rooted in play and dialog, to unlock the power of digital games for 21st century learning. Drawing upon the author’s research, three concrete exemplars of game-based learning curricula are described and discussed. The challenge of advancing game-based learning in education is addressed in the context of school reform. Finally, future prospects of and educational opportunities for game-based learning are articulated. Readers of the book will find the explication of performance theory applied to game-based learning especially interesting. This work constitutes the author’s original theorization. Readers will derive four main benefits: (1) an explication of the difference between game-based-teaching and game-based learning, and why this difference is of critical importance, (2) an exposition of the theory of game-based learning as performance, (3) concrete exemplars and research outcomes relating to three game-based learning curricula that have been empirically evaluated in schools, and (4) an understanding of complex issues related to the human side of school change that must be effectively addressed to achieve take-up of game-based learning in schools.