On Monday I went to a session on “Games for Change & Health Workshop: Brainstorming and Game Design Jam for HIV/AIDS” as part of DC Week. The event held at Spectrum Science looked at digital strategies and game design. The session looked at how technology can aid in raising awareness. In particular with youth about health issues such as HIV/AIDS, edugaming has the ability to create a support system and instill confidence in youth. There was a lot of talk about ZMQ Software Systems which “is a Technology for Development company. The company develops innovative ICT solutions, software, and applications for empowering people and enabling sustainable development.” ZMQ has helped to develop various games such as FreedomHIVAIDS.in game which was played 10.3 million times in 3 years. This is a positive example of e-learning and how games can be used to inform.
In this session we brainstormed on the best ways to approach HIV/AIDS awareness in Washington D.C. There are a multitude of factors affecting this process such as access to education, the stigma of being gay and race. We discussed different ways in which these barriers can be approached and overcome.
The following is a guideline in creating edugames, which I think can be applied to all social issues:
Why are you developing this game?
What’s it’s message?
Who are you designing this for?
Where will it be played?
What is the game objective? story? experience? challenge/conflict? constraints/conditions?
Here is a video interview with Limor Schafman, Chief Instigator of Games Gateway and President of KeystoneTech Group:
Some awesome resources:
Do you have any experience with edugaming? What are your thoughts on this?
Stats are very impressive. I’d love to see common stats for edugaming. My guess is people assume millions use and depending on what it is – expectations should be lower – but still useful.
Yes – definitely and area for me to do more research on!