Theoretical Research And Application Of Educational Games

In the information age, as a representation of new technology and new culture development, electronic games have been one of the main entertainments of teenagers. With strong appeal, electronic games attract educators, who hope students to immerse in the joyful learning environment from games, and to enjoy the fun of true study. Then, educational games arise.Present studies of educational games emphasize particularly on the discussion of design and development, there is a lack of exploration of core such as essence and theory of educational games. Therefore, the essence and theory study of educational games become an important subject.Using methods such as literature study, case study and experimentation, this paper analyzes the theory and application of educational games. Initially, basing on a large review of literature, this paper summarizes domestic and foreign research status of educational games, defines basic concepts of educational games, analyzes their characteristic and sorts, builds a systematic understanding and grasp of the area. Then, this paper emphatically analyzes educational games basing on the theory of games and education, considers the essence of educational games as the freedom inside and dependence outside. At the same time, this paper explores core ideas of educational games form various points of view such as constructivism learning theory, Bandura's social learning theory, implicit learning theory, multiple intelligences theory, Maslow's hierarchy of needs theory, experiential leaning theory and concept of Web2.0.Then,this paper constructs a leading-principal educational game model which has dichotomous identities. At last, basing on the theory study and the model, this paper designs a simple game called Explorers as a case to prove the viewpoint described above.