Gaming

Dr. Lykke Andersen gave a keynote speech entitled “A Theoretical Background to Land Use Change and Social-Ecological System Modeling in SimPachamama” during a two-day workshop on “Using Agent-Based Models to Project Possibilities for REDD+ Policies” held at the University of Florida on April 24-25, 2013.

One of the goals of the workshop was to discuss in which directions to expand and improve INESAD’s Simpachamama – a didactic game that is used as a tool for the participatory design of effective, efficient and equitable policies to reduce deforestation and rural poverty in Bolivia. Click HERE for a description of the game.

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Whether it is family Trivia Pursuit at Christmas, Words with Friends on the android phone, or Second Life on a P.C., everyone likes to play games. They are challenging, fun, and constitute a healthy source of friendly competition. However, as Jane McGonigal, an American game designer, argued in her TED talk, they can also make a better world.

Today, Development Roast* highlights five games and applications that are more than mere entertainment, but serve to educate and deeply involve its players in global food, agriculture, and sustainability issues: Read More »

“Games lubricate the body and the mind.” Benjamin Franklin

Classroom games can be an excellent way of introducing economic concepts. Well-designed games, or classroom experiments, can help students obtain an intuitive understanding of a concept before it is introduced formally, thus increasing the understanding and comprehension of the theoretical concept.

This list, compiled by Greg Delemeester and Jurgen Brauer, contains descriptions of about 170 different classroom games, classified according to the topic they illuminate (e.g. externalities, wealth distribution, or international trade). The list also provides links to electronic versions of the papers describing each game in detail.

Read More »

“The world hates change, yet it is the only thing that has brought progress.”
Charles Kettering

When I was born, there were no personal computers, no Internet, no cell-phones, no wikipedia, no google, no web-sites, no blogs and no facebook. It is difficult to understand how anybody could communicate effectively or get much done at all.

Today is my 44^th birthday and the World has changed completely.  I am in awe of the technological inventions that have occurred in my lifetime, and I am amazed to see how my kids absorb all this technology into their lives as if thousands of years of evolution had prepared their brains for this. Read More »