Bugs in the Kitchen
by Peter-Paul Joopen
GV1469.B85 B8 2013
Teaching Tools, Curriculum Collection, 2nd Floor
The Not So Serious Side of Board Games
Whether considering board games from the collection as tools for teaching numerical, social, or any number of skills, this Tuesday’s feature highlights the primary goal of game design – player entertainment and engagement. Thanks to the sponsors of ALA’s International Games Day @ Your Library which Andersen Library celebrated in November, a number of smart board games have been added to the Teaching Tools collection. Bugs in the Kitchen is a clever application of technology using K’Nex Hexbug nano for players six and up – and judging from our tester responses here in Andersen Library, “and up” easily includes adults with or without child supervision.
Other newly added games include:
- Revolution! Make Your Bid for Power, designed by Philip duBarry
- CrossWays: The Path to Victory is Not Always a Straight Line from USAOPOLY
The Somewhat More Serious Side of Board Games
If you are interested in the more serious side of board games, click here for a research starting point in databases such as PsycInfo and Education Research Complete where you will find articles such as “Teaching Teamwork Skills through Alignment of Features within a Commercial Board Game,” and “Learning from Number Board Games: You Learn What You Encode” which points out that the “principles that predict when and explain how games produce learning” is a worthy goal of future research (Laski & Siegler, 2014).
