Christopher Bensch is vice president for collections and chief curator at The Strong National Museum of Play in Rochester, NY. He oversees the acquisition of and care for the world's most comprehensive collection of playthings. He also serves as the primary spokesperson for the National Toy Hall of Fame. Andrew Borman is digital games curator at…

T. L.Taylor is Professor of Comparative Media Studies at Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) and cofounder and Director of Research for AnyKey, an organization dedicated to supporting and developing fair and inclusive esports. She is a qualitative sociologist who has focused on internet and game studies for over two decades, and her…

Jon-Paul C. Dyson is vice president for exhibits and director of the International Center for the History of Electronic Games (ICHEG) at The Strong. Trained as a cultural and intellectual historian, he joined The Strong in 1998 and has worked on and supervised the development of dozens of exhibits on play and video games. He initiated the museum's…

In this review article, I argue that games are complementary, not self-supporting, learning tools for democratic education because they can: (a) offer "simplified, but often not simple, outlines" (later called "models") of complex social systems that generate further inquiry; (b) provide "practice spaces" for…

Stuart L. Brown is founder of the National Institute for Play, a California-based, not-for-profit organization dedicated to the notion that play can help transform the lives of individuals, families, schools, and organizations. Trained in general and internal medicine, psychiatry, and clinical research, Brown was a physician in the United States…

This paper is a response to "Challenges and Opportunities: Using a science-based video game in secondary school settings" by Rachel Muehrer, Jennifer Jenson, Jeremy Friedberg, and Nicole Husain. The article highlights two critical areas that I argue require more research in the studies of video games in education. The first area focuses on the…

From a very early age, people learn from games and play. Parents and preschool teachers use games to teach colors, numbers, names, and shapes; the process is drill and practice. Games engage everyone, capturing their attention. People willingly spend time on task. Although students in high school and college continue to play games, games rarely…

There is growing interest in the use of games for educational purposes, particularly with regard to teaching curriculum subjects. Much of the research, however, has focused either on the content of games or the learning theory they illustrate. This paper presents a methodology that allows for an examination of how players learn to play. The focus…

The late 1980s saw the emergence of a new genre of instructional media, "edutainment", which utilized the capabilities of multimedia personal computers to animate software designed to both educate and entertain young children. This paper describes the production of, marketing of and play with edutainment software as a contemporary example of…

Interactive immersive entertainment, or videogame playing, has emerged as a major entertainment and educational medium. As research and development initiatives proliferate, educational researchers might benefit by developing more grounded theories about them. This article argues for framing game play as a "designed experience." Players'…

Presents four articles addressing various aspects of violence in the context of children's everyday life: video game violence, gun play, violent children's television programming, and war play. Proposes possible developmentally appropriate solutions. Urges teachers, parents, and the community in general to actively work to provide a safer, saner…