Interactive games give professional learning a boost, energizing learners and facilitators alike, but there are special challenges to delivering the same excitement and fun in a virtual classroom. The good news is: Even if your in-person classrooms have become Zoom classrooms, you can still bring engaging learning games to your virtual learners. In this session, we'll explore what's different about learning games in virtual classrooms and how to creatively overcome common challenges and avoid pitfalls. Whether you want to design a new learning game specifically for a virtual setting or adapt an existing in-person game for a virtual classroom, this session will provide you with strategies, tips, and practical advice for how to create engaging games learners can play together virtually.

We'll discuss different ways in which games motivate people to behave, and why it can be even more important to use games in virtual classrooms to keep learners engaged and reinforce learning. We'll also walk through our model for designing a game for a virtual classroom. Along the way, we'll bring this model to life through an exploration of stories and case studies, showing you how it was used, the decisions that resulted, and how you can apply it to your own work:

1.Take inventory of your critical learning needs and constraints. (How much time do you have for the game? What kind of learning objectives are you trying to achieve? Technical? Reflective? Generate discussion?)

2. Match your critical learning needs to core game mechanics. (Should it be competitive or collaborative? What styles of games fit naturally with our learning objectives?)

3. Troubleshoot the special challenges inherent to delivering learning games virtually (How can we facilitate interactions between learners? How can we recreate physical artifacts (e.g., cards, dice) in a virtual setting?)

4. Fine-tune your game and make it memorable with simple strategies to give your game a customized touch, boost the stakes, and smooth out mechanics.

During this interactive session, you'll participate in a short activity where we'll consider aligning games with objectives and problem-solve adapting face-to-face games for virtual settings.

In this session, you will learn:

• What makes well-designed learning games especially effective in virtual classrooms
• The core factors that motivate people to engage with games and the game mechanics, and structures associated with those factors
• The key criteria you need to consider to determine the structure and mechanics of your game
• How to design for the special challenges inherent in delivering learning games virtually
• Creative strategies for making games memorable, exciting, and easy-to-play
• How to adapt in-person learning games for a virtual classroom

Technology discussed in this session:

Zoom (or other commonly used virtual meeting applications)