The Game Believes in You

March 1, 2015

Toppo (USA Today's national K-12 education and demographics reporter) provides a rundown of how educators and game designers use games to teach K-12 students. He traces the arc of each project and shades it in with relevant theory and personal background, providing a brief dip or a deep dive where appropriate. For example, the author explains briefly how a Canadian physics teacher created Classcraft after a student told him he should receive experience points for answering a question correctly. Classcraft incorporates a World of Warcraft-like system and now has 75,000 users in 50 countries. Toppo delves further into Katie Salen's work, and her game-based middle school, Quest To Learn. Before launching the school, Salen coauthored Rules of Play, founded the nonprofit Institute of Play, and developed the online game Gamestar Mechanic. Throughout, Toppo weaves in essential background for the general interest reader: how video games got started (Spacewar!), how video games produce a high (dopamine), the various ways educators have failed and succeeded at bringing games and computers into K-12 classrooms for decades, and more. VERDICT An exciting overview of how innovative teachers are harnessing the power of games to engage students.--Paul Stenis, Pepperdine Univ. Lib., Malibu, CA

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