Serious games, seriously?

The two words don’t seem comfortable together, like original copy, or civil war. But games are not as childish as some think, and game based learning have a definite place in the learning landscape. As well as that, you would be surprised by how much learning science actually goes into games, have a look at this 5 minute video about the classic game “Mario Bros” if you want an example.

The intersection of work on Innovation Platforms, instructional design and learning technologies culminated in a blended course on “Understanding, Facilitating and Monitoring Agricultural Innovation Platforms”. The purpose of this course, originally run as a face to face workshop in 2014, and gradually developed into a fully-fledged online and blended learning course, is to harvest this learning into a cost-effective and time-efficient training program that can be used by organizations interested in using the partnership approach to confront complex agricultural problems.

ILRI has now taken this a step further, and created a mobile game for android users using game mechanics such as points and badges aiming to help innovation platform facilitators become more familiar with case studies.

You are tasked with building an innovation platform, each element is tested through quizzes that earn you badges. When you have shown knowledge and judgement another area will be convinced to join your innovation platform. Add to that the variability of the story where things don’t always go according to plan and the app provides an engaging medium for IP facilitators to sharpen their skills and knowledge.

The app is live on the android play store , so go and check it out.

Although this is ILRI’s first game on the Google Play store, there is little doubt that it won’t be the end of the story of game based learning for ILRI. If you want more information about serious games or just want to give some feedback, which is always appreciated, please contact i.dror@cgiar.org or phil.sambati@cgiar.org.

The game based learning initiative was developed as part of ILRI’s contribution to the Humidtropics CGIAR research program. We thank the CRP, as well as all donors that globally support the work of ILRI and its partners through their contributions to the CGIAR system.

Find out more about game based learning by following these links:

• Game designers perspective towards education:  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wmKj_wnhN9g&list=PLhyKYa0YJ_5BIUqSDPmfBuKjTN2QBv9wI
• Game theory (long but worthwhile to understand the complexity of game mechanics): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hZDxLi6Xc40
• Example of game based learning (if you want your kids to learn python, javascript, Lua or coffescript without them knowing they are learning!):https://codecombat.com/play  or you want first responder knowledge: https://life-saver.org.uk/

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Post by Phil Sambati, ILRI