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Contributor(s): Katrin Becker
Date issued: 2006
Description: An important step towards gaining an understanding of how a particular medium can be used most effectively in education is to study its outstanding examples, regardless of their original purpose. It is assumed that “good” games already embody sound pedagogy in their designs even if that incorporation was not deliberate (Becker, 2006). The work described here will examine commercially and critically successful video games as though they had been designed as learning objects. Through this perspective, it is possible to identify and classify built-in learning objectives and from there to associate the mechanisms and strategies employed to teach them. A significant outcome of this work will...
Type: presentations (communicative events)
Appears in collection(s): Science and Technology

Contributor(s): Katrin Becker
Date issued: 2006
Description: This presentation is intended to fulfill two goals: 1. To show that many commercial games, the successful ones at least, already implement sound pedagogy when it comes to how they get players to learn the game and how they facilitate gameplay. 2. To encourage critical examination of successful video games, to learn how this has been done, so that we may use that information to build engaging educational games.
Type: presentations (communicative events)
Appears in collection(s): Science and Technology

Contributor(s): Katrin Becker
Date issued: 2006
Description: Jerome Bruner has helped to shape the notion of constructivism, which is of prime significance when looking at pedagogy in games and much of the learning that occurs in games is constructive. In one of his more recent works, “The Culture of Education” (1996), he discusses the importance of nine tenets to the development and maintenance of culture. Many of these touch on recurring themes in many discussions of games (Beavis, 1999; Kafai, 2001; Wolf & Perron, 2003). Bruner believes that “education is not an island, but part of the continent of culture.” (1996, p11) The same can be said of games. Bruner’s tenets guide such a ‘psycho-cultural’ approach to education and this paper will examine...
Type: presentations (communicative events)
Appears in collection(s): Science and Technology

Contributor(s): Katrin Becker
Date issued: 2005
Description: This paper outlines an approach to helping mid-program undergraduates conduct cutting-edge research that can be incorporated into almost any program with
Type: presentations (communicative events)
Appears in collection(s): Science and Technology

Contributor(s): Katrin Becker
Date issued: 2003
Description: Students in first year often begin with dramatically different backgrounds and abilities. In an effort to address the needs of all, varying levels of completion (stages) can be described in the assignment specifications.
Type: presentations (communicative events)
Appears in collection(s): Science and Technology

MROAR: Mount Royal Open Access Repository