I am very happy to say that taking the Technology in Instructional Design Class at the same time as my Independent Study focusing on Game Design is fantastic. The two are perfect together. Wiggins and Mctighe's Understanding by Design provides a beautiful framework for designing solid units based on standards.
This same framework should be applied to the game design atmosphere, thinking about enduring understandings, essential questions and assessments first. Furthermore, since the gaming environment allows for non-linear experience, one can easily work in the 6 facets of understanding: can explain, can interpret, can apply, have perspective, can empathize, have self-knowledge.
In fact, this can be seen from Edutopia's article: Design Thinking: Creative Ways to Solve Problems. The article shares a pdf of a template for creating Design Challenges. this structure can be directly applied to Game Design Simulations.
So my design brain can not help but think, how can I design this process so that any teacher can pick up a "game design template" and integrate into their classroom and content area. And then I recalled a Ted Talk's by Marcin Jakubowski on DIY design. How about DIY learning design.
Perhaps the piece that continues to elude me, though, is how to create these games (simulations) with little or no technology understanding. Is it possible? Is it necessary? Will it make it more accessible?
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