Game Based and Adaptive Learning Strategies

Reviewed by Miguel Ramlatchan, Adjunct Professor, Instructional Design & Technology, Old Dominion University on 11/23/22

Comprehensiveness rating: 5 see less

Great initial summary of the state of learning and educational gaming, game design, and simulation applications. t is a quick read with good inclusion of additional digital and multimedia resources. Another great inclusion is the links to game and simulation design tools as well as links to examples of serious, educational, and instructional games and simulations. This text would serve as a great starting point for instructors or instructional designers creating an online course on game-based learning or game-based learning design (with learning objectives summaries, discussion question examples for each major section, and class activity/project ideas). The game, simulation, and virtual examples are especially helpful when the authors tie instructional design theory to applied best practices.

Content Accuracy rating: 5

The content of this textbook is accurate and well-researched and successfully covers a large field of study.

Relevance/Longevity rating: 5

The content is very relevant, giving examples of many milestones in educational and learning games and simulations.

Clarity rating: 4

The authors are clear, organized, and consistent, and I appreciate the Learning Objectives given at the beginning of each chapter. A new revision of the book could look at revising the visual clarity of the figures and the inclusion of examples in Part VI.

Consistency rating: 5

The book is consistent, which helps the reader jump between sections; terminology and definitions are the same throughout the text.

Modularity rating: 5

Chapters in the book are modular and can easily be reorganized by an instructor. For instance, the sections on Virtual Worlds, Virtual Reality, and Augmented Reality can easily be re-arranged and taught/assigned first before the Simulation sections and before the Gaming sections based on learner needs and learning objectives.

Organization/Structure/Flow rating: 5

The text is logically organized, while successfully modular, if I were using this text in my class I would keep the textbook organized the way it is in terms of the presentation of content.

Interface rating: 3

Some figures and pictures are fuzzy and hard to see and read, possibly some resolution issues while being inserted into the text, or in the conversion upload process. Looks like some examples are missing from Section VI? (there are blank pages in the PDF version of the text?). Full 5 stars once these interface issues are corrected.

Grammatical Errors rating: 5

The text appears to have been well proofread and looks to be free from any major grammatical errors.

Cultural Relevance rating: 5

The text does not appear to have any cultural insensitivity issues and is bias-free.

Comments

I look forward to the next edition of this book!