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This paper examines what roles teachers need to take on when attempting to integrate and use computer games in their educational environments. The task of integrating games into an educational setting is a demanding one, and integrating games as a harmonious part of a bigger ecosystem of learning requires teachers to orchestrate a myriad of complex organizational resources. Historically, the field of digital game-based learning research has had a tendency to focus heavily on the coupling between game designs, previously established learning principles, student engagement, and learning outcomes much to the expense of understanding how games impact the working processes of teachers. Given the significant investments of time and resources teachers need to make in order to conduct game-based learning activities, this research gap is problematic. Teachers needs to have a certain amount of gaming literacy in order to actively supervise, support, and guide their students before, during, and after the play sessions. The teacher also needs to be proficient in setting up play sessions in a limited amount of preparation time and tackle eventual technical difficulties. Beyond these demands, teachers also need to serve as a conduit between the learning context and the play context, and need to know how to continuously contextualize game activities and the content that students experience in the subject matter being taught. This paper describes the outcomes of two five month long studies where Swedish K-12 teachers were introduced to using MinecraftEdu as a classroom activity. The study identifies the different roles that a teacher takes on throughout game-based learning processes, such as technical administrator, game administrator, game tutor, subject matter expert, lecturer, debriefer, and classroom supervisor. Ultimately, the paper highlights the importance of understanding the constraints under which teachers work, and argues that a better understanding of the contexts in which games are to be used, and the roles teachers play during game-based learning scenarios, is a necessary foundation for improving games’ viability as educational tools.

This paper examines how the heterogeneity of K-12 students, as game audiences, affect the way games can beused as educational tools in formal education. When discussing the application of games in educational contexts, the realitiesof the formal educational environment are seldom brought to the fore. There has been a lot of discourse and studiessurrounding the theoretical viability of games as engaging educational tools and their properties as learning environments,but the practicalities of inserting games into classroom environments are comparatively rarely the subject of game-basedlearning research. This paper presents two five month long studies using participatory observation that details the processof putting a commercial of-the-shelf game to use in two different types of formal educational K-12 environments: a computerlab and a classroom. More specifically, this paper focuses on examining how students receive and work with a well-knowncommercial off-the-shelf game when it is introduced as a tool in their ordinary curriculum work. The study revealed severalchallenges that put many of the axiomatic assumptions practitioners and scholars frequently make regarding games’ virtuesas educational tools into question. The challenges relate to students’ perceptions of games and gaming, variations instudents’ efficacy while playing, and of exclusionary behaviour during collaborations. Commercial of-the-shelf games, whilethey might be more equipped than educational titles when it comes to living up to player expectations as far as productionvalues are concerned, can instil a certain set of faulty expectations of how the game will actually be used. If the used gameis widely recognisable by the classroom audience, the important distinction between gameplay intended for active directedlearning rather than unguided leisure activity can be difficult to establish, which can make it difficult for teachers to keepstudents in a reflexive and analytic mode of play. The classroom as a game audience also puts the educator in a tricky positiondue to the wide variation of preferences and gaming literacy among students, and creating engaging play-sessions that areinclusive to everyone in classroom environments can be an immense undertaking for teachers. While the study revealsseveral issues produced by the tension between games and the heterogeneous nature of the classroom as an audience, italso highlights the importance of managing students’ expectations, framing the play activity correctly, and fosteringcollaborative work where subject matter knowledge and gaming literacy are intertwined.

This short guide to using and developing games for use in classrooms was written during the European Union Interreg IV A funded project Scandinavian Game Developers. Scandinavian Game Developers is a collaboration between researchers (the University of Skövde), educators (Århus Social- og Sundhedsskole), and developers (Arsenalet and The Ranch Game Incubator), and this guide is an abridged overview of some of the important conclusions our group has reached during our work in the project. Whether you’re a game developer, teacher, or principal interested in educational video games, we hope that this guide will serve as a good tool for you to improve your understanding of what educational games are. As an educator, you’ll get some insight into what a game might bring to a classroom environment as well as the different challenges you might face when trying to use games in your regular teaching environment. For developers, we’ve put together some guidelines that will hopefully make your first educational game projects flow smoother and properly prepare you for some of the more common challenges that many educational game projects encounter. Scandinavian Game Developers