In the past year have you done… anything? Given the twin pandemics of Covid-19 and systemic racism, if you’re even just still here to read this I KNOW you deserve an award. But if you ALSO created a learning game for a museum, or a library, or for any other informal learning context, then you deserve a special award. And I might just have the one for you.
The 2021 James Paul Gee Learning Games Award is connected with the Madison, Wisconsin-based Play Make Learn Conference. Applicants are due by June 1st. If you have one to submit, stop reading and just go apply here now!
For everyone else, here’s some background.
The GEE! Award was developed in honor of James Paul Gee, whom many consider the intellectual grandfather of games for learning scholarship. Personally, both Jim and his work have been an inspiration for me throughout my career. I consider him (and his wife Betty) a good friend. (Jim also wrote a lovely blurb for my first book Seltzertopia).
After a successful early academic career in new literacies, linguistics, and discourse analysis, Jim’s attention turned to games in 2004 with his seminal book, “What Video Games Have to Teach Us About Learning and Literacy,” which uses well-designed games as a gateway into understanding effective principles of education.
Jim has continued to think and write on the topic of games ever since, founding the Games+Learning+Society community, repeatedly speaking at the Game Developers Conference, and leading various efforts funded by the Spencer Foundation and the MacArthur Foundation to expand the scholarship in support of games and learning.
The GEE! Award, also known as the James Paul Gee Learning Game Award, therefore celebrates educational games that serve as examples of what Gee highlights in his scholarship:
- games that empower learners,
- create problems worth solving and
- generate deep understanding – while having fun.
I was delighted this year to be asked to lead the category newly named “Informal learning”. This is for any games created in the last year by or for any informal learning purposes. It could be a digital game created by a museum to help visitors engaged with its content. It could be a digital game created for a library to get kids to read. It could be a game created by a non-profit to teach the public about how vaccinations fight Covid-19.
Whatever it is, we want to see it!
Winners will be announced on August 5, 2021 as part of the PLAY MAKE LEARN virtual conference.
Learn more, apply and read the official rules at https://geeawards.com
