Games For Learning 2017 - Summarised

I made a game with two other awesome educators.  It is designed to use to share you key learnings with a group of others ideally your colleagues back at work.  It gives them a chance engage with a small snapshot of what you took away from a conference.


This is Sparks

Aim of the game is to share learning from a conference or something

Step One

Pick a number between 1 & 4 - remember or write it down
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Step Two

Choose one of these thought provoking ideas from the conference
INSERT YOUR OWN IDEAS (mine are at the bottom from the GFL conference)
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Step Three

Your action is the number you chose first
1. Apply the idea to a situation
2. Connect the idea to something you already know
3. Develop or add to the idea
4. Critique the idea, what is wrong with it
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Step Four

Put your action and idea together to create a spark, a one or two sentence statement that is your thinking in a nutshell.
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Step Five

Using 3 gold stickers place these on the underside of the 'sparks' that you like the best. Then the results will be added up and we will have a winner!
The winning person or people could then explain their 'spark' even further, or through mime, interpretive dance, a rap, or some other creative outlet.  Enjoy.

My Key Learnings and Takeaways From Games For Learning 2017


  • Innovators always stay ahead of the curve, this is a hard place to constantly be
  • Games provide a space to take risks, be someone else, have fun, consider other perspectives, tell a story
  • F.A.I.L = First Attempt In Learning
  • Every participant can have a different role or experience in learning, games often supports this and it is ok.
  • Games can change the culture of a group over time
  • 1:1 device environments only produce independent learners in their own world
  • Limiting access to screens eg 1:3 ratio improves collaborative learning
  • Games and play are an ancient way of learning
  • Games are a reflection of life and who we are, Harko Brown
  • Culturally responsive practice needs full community involvement
  • Overly educational can kill the fun and engagement of a game!
  • Being truly inclusive, does slow process down but is super necessary to be culturally responsive
  • It's not about a community but making it with a community- Never Alone Inupiat Game
  • 21st century skills - curiosity being the most important
  • Playing and making games for learning are 2 sides of the same coin
  • Developing someone else's work is not cheating it is part of a cultural practice, why always start at iteration one?
  • Developing another's work is not cheating it is collaboration, it is scratch.com
  • Game design is about iteration and audience feedback and engagement
  • VR and AR are significantly different, both are still in baby/novelty stage
  • Silicon valley culture is a bubble, great problem solvers but disconnected from the world's problems
  • Cultural inclusivity takes time and effort to engage communities effectively
  • Anything can be a game it depends on how you use it, even cracks in the footpath
  • What is the transformative use of AR and VR?
  • Computational participation goes beyond computational thinking