Summary Assignment
- What are short-form instructional games? (gamelets, micro learning activities or micro simulations)
Short-form instructional or learning games are interactive bite-sized and concise digital activities that fit within a single class period and focus on a particular concept or on skills’ refinement, practice, memorization, and/or drilling. Drill and practice, brief simulations, visualizations, or simulated training aids, gamelets and various sorts of “game-like” interactive learning items are all examples of short-form games. All of these can be easily plugged-into the curriculum and allow students to get into authentic context and practice a specific skill (learning objective) quickly for a short period of time and in a highly engaging and interactive way. They can be used to demonstrate a concept to the whole class with the help of a white board or embedded in personalized learning environments to offer individual students practice on a specific concept or skill. When used individually, they can help learners advance at their own pace and learn valuable concepts and skills exactly when needed.
- Why are they emerging as a useful tool in technology in education?
Short-form instructional games are considered a very useful emerging tool in educational technology for many reasons. They are aligned to the standards so they reinforce the curriculum. They capture and maintain students’ attention/engagement so they increase interest in the content and competition in class, while in the meantime they make students’ feel more accomplished as it is easy for them to complete the activity. Because they feature visual representations and handle small segments of content, they enhance retention and recollection of information, accommodate different learning styles and increase accessibility of material. Furthermore, they provide learning experiences to the students when needed. Finally, and maybe the most important factor, compared to longer types of eLearning content or serious games, they have a lower production cost, making them more affordable. They also have a faster development cycle due to their tiny size and are easier to update.Short-form instructional games seem to be an effective tool for classroom use that can be easily implemented.
References
Alhadeff, E. (2017, June 5). The Case For Short-Form, Low-Cost Educational Serious Games. Serious Game Market. Retrieved January 16, 2022, from https://www.seriousgamemarket.com/2017/06/the-case-for-short-form-low-cost.html (Links to an external site.)
Banville, L (2016, April 27). McGraw-Hill Sees Future in Gamelets Rather than Games. Games and Learning. Retrieved January 16, 2022, from http://www.gamesandlearning.org/2016/04/27/mcgraw-hill-sees-future-in-gamelets-rather-than-games (Links to an external site.)
(Interesting article on Microlearning app)
Glare, T. (2021, September 2021). Numbers Don’t Lie: Why Microlearning is Better for Your Learners (and You too). EmergingEdTech. Retrieved January 16, 2022, from https://www.emergingedtech.com/2021/09/microlearning-better-for-learners-learning (Links to an external site.)
