Games in Education -- elements of it

I didn't read an article today. I started browsing google scholar again and I got lost in it. It is a great place to get lost for those of us that love free reading. One of my searches was on role-playing as an educational tool because I think that it is an element of many games. Then I started to think about it and I decided that I think it is an element of almost every game, to varying degrees. This got me thinking about all of the other elements of a game as far as education is concerned and led me (invariably) to a conclusion I've reached a few times before, that games in all their fun and entertaining glory cannot be used as a standard teaching tool. Now that I've made half my audience angry, I'll revisit that throughout my post.

Role-playing is an element of many games whether you are a real estate tycoon in Monopoly, or a Settler in Catan. In the video games you can be a soldier, a football player, a snoboarder, or Mario himself. The only ones I can think of that don't make you take on a new role are card games, and most educational games.

Another element is story--also missing from card games (except Magic-type cards) and educational games. Story is an essential part to keep players playing for more than 5-10 minutes. It is the story that gives the player buy-in with a reason to play. For half of us, stories are what make games fun. If your educational game doesn't have a compelling story, I'm not sure it will be a blockbuster.

Another element are the rules. Games must have a set of rules for you to get anywhere or have a goal. Education certainly has rules. One of the big differences between rules in a game and rules in education is that in a game, you usually have a trial-and-error opportunity to figure out the rules. With education, students rarely revisit a topic enough to use trial and error to learn it.

Another element is time. In one way, games take way more time to play than certain topics do to learn. In another way, games take way less time to play than a set of specific topics. On average a board game runs from 1-2 hours, and a video game runs 10-15 hours. Most other games take much less than this, while there are also some video games that take between 80 and 120 hours. The average student spends 30 hours per week in school and some time out of school doing homework. I wonder how many video games could hold one of these little students for 30+ hours every single week. But I'll bet very few people would argue that every subject needs to be taught with games.
This brings me to another question, which subjects would best be taught using games? Or would each subject benefit from a little gaming here and there.

As far as I can see, these are all questions we need to consider and really address if we want to take games in education to the next level. I'm convinced it cannot be done, but that is what makes the journey so much fun. One little bitty part of me hopes and dreams that it is possible. And luckily I get to study it in school. We'll see, I welcome your thoughts.