By Frank Catalano
Increasingly, digital games are cropping up everywhere in education. And that’s stimulated a flurry of activity leading to the expectation that no longer are learning games only likely to come from traditional education companies, but a wide variety of sources.
The expectation-setting stats and statements, at least, are straightforward. Both the New Media Consortium’s 2012 Horizon Report on higher education and its 2011 Horizon Report for K-12 put game-based learning in the mainstream (defined as adopted by about 20% of institutions) in the next two-to-three years. “The greatest potential of games for learning lie in their ability to foster collaboration and engage students deeply in the process of learning,” noted the 2012 higher ed collaborative effort of NMC educators and research centers.