Developing Socially Engaged Youth Through Game Design

This summer at the Games For Change Festival, the Game Jam Guide e-book was released, sharing advice from a range of experts on how to lead game jams. One of those experts is Matthew Farber, an assistant professor of technology, innovation and pedagogy at the University of Northern Colorado (and whom will be presenting on the topic at the upcoming Digital Media and Learning Conference). I reached out to Matthew to learn more about how he uses games for learning and how the Guide can help others run their own game jams.

Matthew, it interests me that, in the Guide, you are making an argument that game jams can be used to design games about real-world issues that can teach students things about empathy, systems thinking and design thinking. But, before we get into game jams, please share an example of how you’ve used games to teach some of your content areas?