Nursing Education 2.0: Games As Pedagogical Platforms (Emerging Technologies Center‪)‬

The 2008 HORIZON REPORT lists "games as pedagogical platforms" as one of seven metatrends related to emerging technologies in higher education (1). Many in higher education agree with Oblinger that " exploring games and education is inherently controversial. Games can seem uneducational; they are typically associated with play and childhood.... Assertions that games must be used to make learning fun ignore the fact that students who are deeply engaged in learning consider it both fun and hard work" (2, p. 1). GIVEN THE EMERGENCE IN HIGHER EDUCATION OF THE NET GENERATION, WHICH WAS RAISED ON VIDEO GAMES, WE SHOULD BEGIN TO EXPLORE THE NEW WORLD OF EDUCATIONAL GAMING. We are all familiar with the typical games like cards, Jeopardy, and crossword puzzles that Oblinger (2) refers to as "casual games." A variety of these brief, simple games are used in nursing education and health care to help with knowledge acquisition. But, in today's world, "games have become complex learning systems" (3). We have seen the shift from paper-and-pencil to digital games, defined as "one that provides some visual digital information or substance to one or more players; takes some input from the players; processes the input according to a set of programmed game rules and alters the digital information provided to the players" (4, p. 6).