I hate video games. So taking the GOBLIN training puts me a long way outside my comfort zone. I am one of the main authors of a teaching game about Galileo Galilei. During that process I worked with people who built ‘Call of Duty 3’ and ‘Lord of the Rings: The Fall of Isengard’. So Read more about The GOBLIN training experience[…]
One of the big benefits from GOBLIN training is that it gives you names for things you were already doing, but didn’t have a label for, like ‘scaffolding’. In my course on the Cold War, I originally designed a ‘General Knowledge Quiz’ to weed out unprepared students. The test asked for well known names and Read more about A general idea for scaffolding[…]
It seems like synchronistic timing that I am about to embark on a new adventure in game design as the blog approaches 10,000 page views. My day job is as a college professor at the University of Oklahoma. The Center for Teaching Excellence …
I’m currently teaching my 4-year old daughter, Evie, to play board games. Before we get to chess or Scrabble or even Sorry, we’re starting off with some really simple games that can demonstrate for her how games work. Candy Land is mind-numbingly simple and a great starting point for her. Players race down a string […]
While the thought of gamifying an entire class or even elements of a class will be daunting for many, GOBLIN also includes more universal and applicable concepts. Well designed games introduce game mechanics and then increase the difficulty of tasks to encourage mastery of those mechanics. They encourage team work, challenging players to combine the […]
