Abstract :
Digital and computer games are amongst the most favourite past-times of our younger generation, attracting much commercial investment in this money-making endeavor. On the other hand, many educators and game designers believe that computer games can help learning, since children's game "addiction" can be a good source of learning motives which can in turn improve the learning outcomes and effectiveness. While these predictions and claims have yet to be confirmed, we lack agreement within our community on even such simple questions as what exactly educational games are and when a game is educational.
Some designers argue that we should inject educational elements in existing games, while others advocate the addition of gaming elements into educational activities. In addition to exploring the above questions/philosophies, we introduce the Game/Pedagogy Codesign approach and delineate the importance of teachers' roles in utilizing games in education. We conclude the talk by highlighting work/systems developed at our research centre.