Game Education Summit North America

Paper Abstract:

At last year’s GES (1), Dr. Rademacher mentioned the Education & Entertainment (E/E) Grid.  In this presentation, he will fully detail its construction and use as discussed in two upcoming publications (2, 3).   

The four theories that make up the Grid are first presented: Howard Gardner’s Multiple Intelligences, Benjamin Bloom’s Taxonomy, Roger Caillois’ Play Styles, and Richard Bartle’s Player Types. The Grid is then constructed and immediately used to analyze several multiplayer game environments such as MUDs and MMOGs.  The Grid will then be used to analyze an offline game environment such as the Wii game console to showcase its versatility.  

The presentation ends with an interactive activity in which the audience analyzes a game using the Grid.  This will help familiarize the audience with the use of the Grid as well as providing valuable insight into games that audience members can use in their own projects.   

(1) Chen, Sande & Rademacher, Ricardo. (2009). Creativity, Constraints, and Compromises.

Presented at the Games Education Summit. Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania

(2) Rademacher, Ricardo. (2010). A proposed framework for studying educational virtual worlds.

In Zemliansky, Pavel (Ed.), Design and Implementation of Educational Games. IGI Global:

Pennsylvania.

(3)  Rademacher, Ricardo. (in press). Assessing serious games using the EE grid. In Annetta,

Len & Bronack, Steve (Eds.), Computer games education review. Sense publishers: Rotterdam.