Categories
Games are Serious Fun
Learning Objectives
- Lesson objectives
- Identify different types of fun in games
- Understand the goals of serious games
- Socioemotional learning objectives
- Cooperative
- Planful
- Responsible
- Welcoming
Materials
- Internet-connected devices
- Serious game examples, such as
- A sheet of paper with the name of each game and the presentation prompts
Instructions
- Types of fun
- Gather campers and review the definition of games
- Note that we play games because they are fun, but there are different ways to have fun:
- Easy fun: games that don’t require much skill but allow you to engage with others
- Hard fun: games that require a great deal of skill and practice
- Social fun: games mostly about your interactions with others
- Serious fun: games that teach a lesson or help players think through difficult issues
- Ask campers for examples of each type of game
- As welcoming gamers, we're interested in why people play different types of games. What are some reasons people might want to play hard or serious games?
- Serious games
- Put campers in pairs and assign each a game to research for 5 minutes. As cooperative gamers, we are going to work together to be planful about our presentation. If our partner asks us to help in a certain way, we'll be responsible and do our part.
- Ask each pair to make a brief (1 minute) presentation about their game: it’s goal, what makes it serious, and what they liked about it
Notes and Discussion
Discussion
- Ask campers to compare games in terms of how fun they are, and why.