| Name | Nat Sims
| Twitter
| @nightdaystudios
| Website
| www.nightanddaystudios.com
| Bio
| I am the CEO of an educational game design company; we make iOS and Android apps. My background is in developmental psychology, cognitive science, and game design. (I have a Masters in Communication from UCSD.) I was introduced to Dungeons and Dragons in the 70s when I was only eight years old, and it had a profound effect on me: the ability to model a world, and dramatic events within it, using numbers, pencils, and dice, was a thrilling concept. I've never been the same.
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Presentation
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What You Can Learn from Playing (and Making) Games
| Description
| Games are often used to add sugar to the medicine of learning. For example, rote memorization is sweetened with colorful graphics and arbitrary rewards ("you get six stars!"). This is fun, for sure, and sometimes rote memorization is useful for learning arbitrary lists. But there is so much more you can do! Several core concepts in learning, such as discovering how systems work, testing real-world behavior with simplified models, and tracking value or status with a changing spatial display, are brilliantly exemplified in good game design. I will show how many of the games we love (and take for granted) have excellent models for learning through play, from the insanely complex yet household game Monopoly to the speed and simplicity of Uno; to the decision-making theory behind Chess and Angry Birds; and finally the balance of power between involved simulations like The Sims and rapid pattern-matching in Tetris. I will show some of the famous mistakes and unexpected successes that game designers have made over the years, and end with suggestions for three new ways to incorporate gaming into the curriculum of the future.
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