Classified "A" by ANVUR in the fields 11/D1, 11/D2 Scientific in the field 14.
Abstract
Game-based learning has a well-established tradition at the nursery and primary schools. Traditionally, however, in the upper school levels - and even more in adult education -, there is a split between educational and recreational activities, the latter being addressed mainly to pure entertainment, in a separated, or even opposed, way with education. This counter position is more and more reducing in recent decades, especially thanks to the advent of new technologies that have enormously enlarged and extended games and their fields of application. The game industry has grown extraordinarily, and the educational games supported by new technologies have significantly developed and found application in continuous education. This chapter provides an overview of the state of the art in the field of educational games supported by new technologies, showing that, albeit its rapid and robust growth, a comprehensive evaluation framework is still missing. In conclusion, some findings from the authors’ last five-year research are shown, suggesting the analysis of serious games in terms of their ludic and narrative components. Such an interpretation is expected to contribute to enrich the theoretical and methodological debate about their design and evaluation.
