As you may know, I’m a great believer in the potential of games to engage and stimulate users. I’m more skeptical about their ability to deliver learning entirely on their own so I was intrigued to discover this Tumblr site: Real Things Video Games Teach You. It proposes transferable skills that you can acquire by playing the games.

I’m not entirely sure that all of the suggested real world ‘lessons’ are serious but it makes for some interesting reading nevertheless.What is more, I think the list does offer some scope for using the games as a catalyst for further investigation into those topics – that is what excellent teachers do already.  These games are great fun – could they be valuable in other ways too?

What do you think?

Can these games be used in isolation and still deliver learning? Or are they educationally useless even in the hands of a skilled facilitator? Could you add to the list?

I’d love to hear your thoughts.