Digital Game-Based Learning by Marc Prensky

Author:Marc Prensky [Prensky, Marc]
Language: eng
Format: epub, mobi
Tags: Marc Prensky, computer education, digital immigrant, video games, gameplay, computer, learning, digital native
ISBN: 9781610830768
Publisher: Paragon House
Published: 2013-02-05T22:00:00+00:00

Let us look now at the variety of ways that Digital Game-Based Learning has been used in business, on the Internet and off, with adults of all ages. It’s high time for some case studies and examples.

Part Three

WHAT LEADING ORGANIZATIONS ARE DOING

This is an idea whose time has come.

— A Goldman Sachs Managing Director

9: Digital Game-Based Learning in Business

41 Examples and Case Studies from the Incredibly Simple to the Amazingly Complex

Purring up a bunch of information on a HO site was just as boring as being handed a binder . . so we decided to incorporate a game.

—Amy George, PepsiCo

It’s much faster, and also more fun —you get to shoot ideas and kill the monsters.

— Gene Kim, financial trader

The same thing that drives us to be casual five days a week also allows us, culturally and attitudinally, to learn through a game.

—John Parker, Dean, Leadership College, First Union Bank

Why do so many managers complain about the quality of the workforce despite the fact that U.S. companies spend well over $60 billion annually on training?1 Our employees are certainly working harder. Could it possibly be that they are not playing enough?

A growing number of companies have embraced Digital Game-Based Learning in one form or another. Digital Game-Based Learning now shows up in a variety of industries, organizations, and styles, for an extremely wide variety of content and uses, ranging from procedures and policies to products and skills. Although they might not all be games yet, the McKinsey Quarterly estimates that more than 60 percent of all United States corporations have used some kind of learning simulation? We are certainly on the way.

In the following pages, I present both short examples and more extended case studies of specific examples of Digital Game-Based Learning, and show to what ends they are used. I demonstrate how Digital Game-Based Learning is used in the fast food chains, where games and simulations train the young, high-turnover workforces. I show how it has made strong-headway into financial services companies, which have an extremely competitive population with easy access to computers. I also look at the health care industries, which have successfully employed Digital Game-Based Learning, especially with doctors. The detailed case studies presented include Ameritrade, Bankers Trust, The Boston Consulting Group, Burger King, McKinsey Nortel Networks, PricewaterhouseCoopers, and think3.

While I have included 41 examples here, the list is, in reality, much, much longer. There is an additional list on the book’s companion Web sites www.socialimpactgames.com and www.twitchspeed.com with the examples that there was not room to include here. You can help this list grow by reporting other instances you know of to the site. After considering several different ways, I have presented the examples by type of use, in alphabetical order (see next page).

I will now look at specific examples of Digital Game-Based Learning. Let me be clear, though, that these examples are neither all-inclusive nor intended in any way as a “top 40” list of the best Digital Game-Based Learning available, or even as any particular endorsement by me.

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