Who's Got Game? Gaming as a Social Justice Issue

I was fortunate to present the following at the 2013 GLS Conference 9.0.  My goal was to explore the power of game play as a means of creating more equitable learning experiences for English Language Learners (ELLs). 

Participants played, reflected upon, and discussed examples of game-based learning at the intersection of language development, lesson modification, play as motivation, and social justice. After my riveting presentation (which you can find as a google doc here or email me for the Power Point .... we had a fascinating discussion about: How can we use games to increase language development?  

We came up with the following ideas:

•  Have teachers play games
• Pay attention to what happens outside of the game space
• Game developers provide support to teachers with videos, different focuses (modifications), teaching strategies, cheat sheets – how to move through the game (walk through)

• Involve teachers in the game design/development
• Marry game developers and professional development
• Educate teachers about gamification – definitions
• Produce research to show that transfer of engagement & motivation
• Solve all problems with our US cultural around education (and lots of other things)
• Flood the court approach
• Modify games to create concrete experiences that promote social justice
• Move games into our schools to provide access
• Activate prior knowledge
• Create games with a strong narrative OR a complete sandbox
• Thinking systemically & critically – who’s creating games? What is their motivation?
• Gamebased.tumbler.com – game design in another language
• Joel Levin talks about Minecraft – it’s awesome J - so basically use MinecraftEDU in your classrooms, engagement is high and creativity is incredible.  Then use some teaching strategies to enhance their vocabulary – wala – greatness!

How have you used games to increase your students' concrete experiences and vocabulary?