Stephen Downes

A romping discussion of video games and learning, most valuable because of its link to Spacewar. I think Bill Brandon sums it up nicely: "Good grief. Can people possibly learn as a result of playing a game? Of course. Can people learn as a result of playing any game? Of course not. If a game is designed to be an environment for learning, people can learn from it if it's a good design. If a game is designed to be an environment for entertainment, people will learn to play the game but not much else. If a game is designed to "teach" (i.e., to deliver canonical outcomes), nobody should expect far transfer from it."