Mr Nicholls has created this wonderful website for his games-based learning challenge. For more detail visit the website, but what follows is a brief outline:

The theory behind this scheme of work is that games of all kinds provide us with a useful way to think about learning.

Games usually involve the following kinds of experiences:

• Players are required to learn some basic rules (conventions) before they are able to begin to play
• Players often engage in exploration and discovery
• Players are invariably required to be literate and numerate in order to navigate their way through the game
  
• Players either compete with each other (or against a virtual opponent) to win the game, or they are required to collaborate with other players to beat an opposing team (again either real or virtual)
• Games usually present players with a complex challenge or quest
• Games test a range of skills and abilities in players including their ability to take risks and be strategic in their thinking, acquire and use new knowledge and imagine future scenarios
  
• Games can often be modified by players, allowing for an element of personalisation
  

Obviously, much of the above applies equally to learning as it does to playing games. This unit, therefore, explores these similarities and also encourages Tallis Lab students to create a game of their own in response to a real audience of learners. In other words, groups of students will be commissioned to create an educational game based on a scheme of work being studied by a group of students in a different school.