Playing games?

I find myself being pushed into the area of educational games. Not the wham, blam, no thank you m'am games, but games that may be part of the Interactive Digital Media (IDM) movement. For example, Dafur Is Dying, the McDonald's Game (no, it's not created or sanctioned by the golden arches), and Global Conflict: Palestine. The BBC has an article on the Dafur and Palestine games.

IDM is a lot more complicated that its name reveals and it will probably take a fairly thick book to explain what IDM is. A quick search on "Interactive Digital Media" will reveal a variety of definitions, all not particularly adequate. I base the inadequacy of the definitions on the fact that most definitions focus primarily on the technical aspects of IDM. The documents that I am currently privvy to (and to my knowledge unpublished) focus on the built-in pedagogy and social interaction of IDM products such as games.

IDM seems set to wash over the Singapore's educational landscape like a huge wave. I don't know if it is a fad, but much research funding and efforts will go that way. Here in NIE and Singapore, the funding and research is meant to transform pedagogy and change the way we prepare preservice teachers.

As a reminder to myself: One of the desired outcomes of the IDM movement is media literacy. A handy bookmark on this topic is the Center for Media Literacy.