Sustainable learning games : An African perspective

Abstract

We empirically explore learning games with an aim of empowering learners’ lifelong learning skills to enable them deal with complex situations sustainably. A sustainable future requires the ability to deal with the complex dynamics and advance the environmental assessment ability and adapting to it. Adapting to an environment demands for emotional involvement and commitment, the same way that motivation and fun are fundamental for players’ engagement in any game. The key principle to motivate and engage players in learning processes is leveraging the intrinsic connection between fun and learning. Learners learn better by doing and the relation between learning and fun in games is actually much deeper. It is also utmost for game system such as goals, entities and rules to be clearly known by the players in order to develop individual and social skills required to succeed. This paper presents learning designs through learning games as a major determinant of motivation towards meaningful learning and challenge learners through continual provision of new aspects to learn, discover and develop oneself. Players are engaged at a cognitive and emotional level precisely what education for sustainability needs. Learners ought to learn the effects of context on learning game experience. Prior consequences designate that learning game experiences are more intense in a home compared to a school context. Moreover, the overall impact of context on perceived learning is significantly smaller than that of other experiential factors such as identification and enjoyment. Thus context should be considered as a significant yet relatively small determinant of learning experience.