How Can Games Help My Organization?

The games I recommend (see my lists) have been used successfully by many professional organizations, including New York University’s Game Center Open Library, Columbia University, City University of New York, Maricopa Community Colleges, Rochester’s Museum of Play, and the Game Library of the Genesee Valley Educational Partnership (just to name a few). To read success stories about these organizations enhancing their curriculum and teacher training with games, or to peruse the K-12 common core standards taught through games, visit here.

But the sum of it is:

Schools and teachers like games because they motivate students, or because playing games suggest ways for instructional designers and teachers to “game up” their regular exercises. In fact, I’ve seen directors of Teaching and Learning Centers (and of libraries) often purchase games from my core list to use in highly creative group collaboration settings (such as professional development workshops), or to create lending libraries. (Here’s the blog site of one teacher who regularly asks her 6-8^th grade students to design and modify games also on my list).
Businesses like games because of all the online research that proves game-based learning is an affordable way to motivate employees (see this NY Times article), or because they want to create quick pen-and-paper training simulations.
Game designers who wish to break into the educational games market can help themselves by studying games containing the best mechanics for teaching. (Click here to read an excellent article by Eric Zimmerman arguing this.)

If your organization is considering a large purchase of games, I can help you create the perfect list to match your needs. Contact me here.